Team:HKUST-Hong Kong/survey.html

Abstract

Despite the fact that active discussions about the wonders and potentials of synthetic biology are growing increasingly prevalent in the world, few systematic surveys regarding in this field has been conducted, especially in Asia. Hence the iGEM2011 HKUST Team, collaborating their Austrian partners Markus Schmidt and Lei Pei of IDC and Biofaction , launched this survey, hoping to take advantage of Hong Kong's status as an international city to establish a starting point for meaningful data collection in Asia regarding synthetic biology. The survey tries to obtain public perception of synthetic biology, with particular emphasis on people living in Asia, as well as the key factors influencing their impression. Due to the scale and on-going nature of the survey, this report should be treated as a snapshot of the responses gathered so far, and as a reference to the effectiveness of using online survey formats to gather data.

The results show that this online survey system is quite adaptable, but should be better spread on the Internet and complemented with more distributed hard copies to make the data more reflective and reliable. Two major findings have been obtained from this snapshot analysis. The first is that the public in HK tend to have a neutral to slightly positive perception of synthetic biology, showing a relatively conservative attitude. Second, the general public knows very little about synthetic biology, which likely has a positive correlation with their overall impression about this new technology. However, notwithstanding this lack of knowledge, the general awareness of the possible risks and benefit is nearly at the same level, without specific bias against or favoring future development of this technology. In addition, the public is more inclined to accept synthetic biology products when the technology can lead to a major reduction in product price, echoing the focus on financial benefit as the major driving force of the development of this technology.

Discussion

• Effectiveness and Feasibility for Further Distribution

• The Form of the Survey

To obtain results that are more valid and sound, a more widely circulated online survey should be launched, and more hard copies should be distributed at random to the general public. Originally, the intent of adopted the online version of this survey is for the ease of compiling mass responses, as well as utlizing the broad spectrum of people the Internet can access. However, the results here show that the online form has a strong inherent bias in the respondents, especially for fields like education and age where the distribution range is relatively small. So as a compromise, the online version should still be adopted, but accompanied with the wider-reaching range of field surveys. Besides, the link should be better circulated on the Internet in order to reach a wider variety of people.

• Major Findings from the Snapshot Results

Although the influence of the parameters about the personal information cannot be counted a lot in the analysis due to the relatively big bias, the interaction between the targets of the questions can still give some meaningful hypotheses regarding the factors influencing the general public’s perception about the synthetic biology. To sum up, there are three major findings or possible hypotheses from this snapshot.

First of all, the overall impression about the synthetic biology in HK is more likely to be positive according to the data, but close to neutral. This probably shows a general conservative attitude towards the synthetic biology among the general public in Hong Kong since the variance for each parameter is small regardless the bias.

Secondly, the general publics in HK tend to know little about the synthetic biology and that possibly affects their perception of the synthetic biology, but does not have much impact on their foresight for its potential risks and future development. Although the overall responses for heard of the term “synthetic biology” is nearly 50%, seldom actually know what the synthetic biology is and spare special concerns (measured as the frequency respondents talked or searched about the synthetic biology) in this this field. The tiny difference of the scores in Q12 between the groups, who have heard of the synthetic biology and the groups not is a kind of effective support for that.

However, the mean score of Q12 is significantly higher in groups who frequently confronted the information about the synthetic biology (F+ group) than others. Also, this “F+ group” show higher confidence towards the potential benefits brought by the synthetic biology (Q5) and fewer tendencies to the tight regulation of the synthetic biology (Q10). And according to the analysis, these two features are very closely related to the higher overall impression score of the synthetic biology (Q11). Then, that should be modestly surprising to see that this “F+ group” holds more positive attitudes towards the synthetic biology.

This tendency is somehow contrary to the familiarity hypothesis (Kahan et al. 2008a; Macoubrie 2006) and the conclusion from the US synthetic biology survey (Pauwels E. et.al. 2009). One possible explanation for this is that the spreading of the idea of the synthetic biology is so low in HK that the major problem faced by the public is the lack of information about the synthetic biology. The mysterious feeling towards this new technology outweighs the tradeoff effects between the benefits and risks when asking for its perception. In this case, the clearness of the mysteries will help to increase the support a bit. The highest concerns and curiosity about the “scientific processes and techniques of the synthetic biology” in Q4 can also be a side support for the relative blankness of the public’s knowledge for the synthetic biology. Despite the obvious difference in the responses for Q5, Q10, Q11 and Q12 between the “F+ group” and the other groups, there is no differential pattern for their opinions on the possible risks and the future development. All respondents are more inclined to trust the experts and scientific evidence rather than base on the social concerns about the thoughts of the majority when deciding the future development of the synthetic biology, and “uncontrollable results may be generated” and “the abuse of the technology by the terrorists” are the top worries for most people. This may prove that the public’s imagination of these two factors are similar regardless their different familiarity with the synthetic biology. The finding from the US synthetic biology survey (Pauwels E. et.al. 2009) that people tend to use the other biological technologies like stem cell technology and genetic engineering as references when dealing with some issues about the synthetic biology may be a possible explanation for this.

The third finding is about the influence pricing has on the acceptance of synthetic biology products (Q7). The public appears to be more acceptable to synthetic biology products if they have a strong pricing advantage compared with natural products. Although more than 80% of the respondents chose the ordinary product when both products are of the same price, only one-third kept to their original choice when a more favorable price is introduced for the synthetic biology product. This pattern is independent of the other questions in Part One according to quantitative testing, but the influence of the parameters is unknown due to the biases of our sample population.

Acknowledgement

For successfully completing this snapshot survey report, the heartfelt thanks should give to the people below for their continuous support and guidance to this synthetic biology survey:

Dr Markus SCHMIDT and Dr Lei PEI, from IDC (Organisation for International Dialogue and Conflict Management) and Biofaction
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Professor King L. CHOW, from the Department of Life Science in HKUST
Professor Michelle YIK, from the Department of Social Science in HKUST
Mr Jin ZENG, Teaching Assistant from the Department of Social Science in HKUST
The Hong Kong Institute of Engineers (HKIE)
The Hong Kong Teachers’ Association (HKTA)
Members and Advisors of the iGEM2011 HKUST Team

For a complete survery report, please click here to download the PDF file.