“Tinkering Production”: Defining Bioengineering
Let’s look at all the different ways that Synthetic Biology has been defined over the years in academic literature. The definitions range from purpose-driven accounts, to analytic concepts, to mere descriptive statements. Some scholars argue that the goal of bioengineering is to construct new living systems, others believe it is to create and engineer functional biological designer devices and systems with novel and useful functions. Others yet, think synthetic biology is a combination of engineering with biology. More definitions include:
The engineering-driven building of increasingly complex biological entities for novel applications - The intentional design, modeling, construction, debugging, and testing of artificial living systems — Genetic engineering of organisms - Constructions with new functions — Synthesis of drugs — Generation — To create bacteria - Rebooting the bacterium — Stitching together DNA constructs — Production of biomaterials — Assembling a form of life and lots, I mean lots, of more.
Tobias Eichinger proposes that this particular branch of modern techno-science should be defined through the notion of an Action-Paradigm. There is an essential productive aspect to biotechnology, specifically that aspect of bioengineering which belongs to engineering as opposed to its complementary field of biology. Biology, as a stand-alone field of investigation is purely descriptive (either verbally or mathematically), it does not aim to create new forms of life.
Bioengineering is action-oriented, it is a form of technical intervention and in this sense it is not merely a science, but a mode of production, of creation and intervention. It is part of applied research which means that its essence or aim is always directed at an external object. A good working definition must therefore take this type of directedness into account. There is an irreducible instrumentality that accounts for the goals, effects and attitudes of biotechnological activities.
But let’s not fall entirely into the engineering or “craft” aspect of bioengineering. After all, the objects it produces are very different from our everyday objects, even such complex constructions as motor-vehicles, bridges and skyscrapers are of a completely different order, though no doubt, they do exhibit the results of industry-oriented scientific enterprise. So what makes biotechnological artefacts so special?
They are instances of Production Biology. It is their particular relationship to natural phenomena, or naturally occurring entities, that presents a strange novelty to us. This is the reason why modern developments in science require new ontologies; new ways of speaking and analyzing beings. Because we are beginning to get confronted by completely new “things” showing and revealing themselves out of human interaction with nature and we do not always have the appropriate jargon to integrate (or more importantly, reject) them into (or from) our cultural lifeworld. There are dangers of overestimating them, worshipping them even, within the modern idealization of scientific “progress”; the danger of ignoring them and letting ourselves become surrounded and dominated by them discretely and many more.
These novel artefacts pose a serious problem to our understanding of “natural vs. artificial” as they begin to blur that boundary. It is precisely because biotechnology tends to resemble natural systems with ever increasing accuracy, that we need to rethink our conceptual apparatus in order to deal with them. “No more 90 degree angles and Euclidean shapes”. Human artefacts are becoming increasingly biomorphic.
“…since the objects produced in synthetic biology are living entities and systems built out of natural parts and modules, a special kind of artificiality is present here. It is not directly opposed to the sphere of nature as is the case with classical engines, machines, electronic devices or other non-living technical instruments and gadgets” (Eichinger, T. 2016, p. 67).
The difference between biology and engineering as separate fields on one hand and the merging of the two within modern techno-scientific disciplines is that, where the former study living things and create artificial systems respectively, the latter create and study artificial living systems. And this in itself is mind-bottling.
But in order to account for this complexity, Eichinger offers the notion of tinkering. By engaging in biotechnological research, what we do is we tinker with nature and then let it “run its course” within specific practical limits, that is; we incite and manage nature in a way that does not oppose or restrict its natural spontaneity. In this way, human artefacts no longer confront nature, but instead, they merge and interweave with it.
“This paradigm sets production biology apart from traditional manufacturing and producing technologies by synthesizing the two conceptual spheres of nature, evolution, and life on the one hand and engineering, producing, and fabricating on the other” (Eichinger, T. 2016, p. 67).
REF
Eichinger, T. (2016). Production biology. In Synthetic Biology (pp. 61–70). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
