Team:Brown-Stanford/SynEthics/Summary

In Conclusion...

We hope you enjoyed our feature and benefited from the breadth and depth of knowledge that our subjects represented.

As the interviews revealed, there is no common perspective among our experts on how to resolve or even define the ethical issues related to synthetic biology and space. Some argue that we should absolutely not undertake irreversible settlement of a planet before we are completely sure it is devoid of extraterrestrial life. Others would emphasize the importance of expansion as a means of mitigating humanity's risk of annihilation. Our subjects presented a variety of ethical, practical, and scientific reasons for valuing life from Earth and from other planets.

One thing that was agreed upon, however, is the tremendous excitement and potential for synthetic biology to positively transform humanity in the coming years. From this basic consensus, we hope that every one of us can proceed in our scientific endeavors as informed and introspective members of a global community.

-Brown-Stanford iGEM 2011