Jeff Goldblum has made many contributions to this world, but perhaps the best is his delivery of an iconic line in the 1993 film Jurassic Park. During a scene in which his character, Ian Malcolm, berates the dinosaur park鈥檚 creator, John Hammond, Goldblum utters the words that have become a long-enduring meme: 鈥淵our scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn鈥檛 stop to think if they should.鈥�
The could-should paradigm, as we might loftily call it, is an excellent way to think about the risks and rewards of scientific endeavours.
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Still, it is rare to see scientists strongly come out against their own area of research 鈥� Malcolm, as a mathematician, probably didn鈥檛 much care about genetics developments. Perhaps this is what made recent warnings against creating 鈥渕irror life鈥� 鈥� organisms in which molecules have the opposite orientation to everything else on Earth, with the potential to wreak havoc through the biosphere 鈥� so stark, coming as they did from people working directly on the idea (see 鈥淭he story of mirror life: From intriguing idea to unprecedented threat鈥�).
The creation of mirror life has the potential to wreak havoc through the biosphere
While mirror life fails hard on the 鈥渟hould鈥� side of the scale 鈥� there seems to be little obvious reason for creating it 鈥� in other cases, the decision isn鈥檛 so easy. Perhaps the thorniest recent example is gain-of-function research. This is where organisms, often pathogens, are modified to enhance their abilities, with both risks and rewards. Altering a flu virus, say, so that it can more easily infect humans, is clearly a risk. But if it helps us understand the virus and potentially prevent a pandemic, would it be worth it?
Gain-of-function has always been contentious, but, recently, the debate around it has become explosive. People who believe that SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind covid-19, was created in a lab 鈥� a belief for which there is no evidence, it should be said 鈥� have leapt on gain-of-function research as a smoking gun. Does this mean such work must be banned? Probably not 鈥� but, per Malcolm鈥檚 words, we must bear in mind the distinction between 鈥渃ould鈥� and 鈥渟hould鈥�.
