ROE, CRISPR, & TO

Whoops, looks like I got a little carried away with the acronyms... "TO" stands for tech optimism, in case that was unclear. Now, of course this post is going to be a little limited in scope. "Technology" applies to SO many fields--computers, aerospace, solar, medical, and on and on and on.  So in the interest of brevity, I'm going to talk specifically about how rhetoric of effortlessness concerning CRISPR has led to a lot of optimism about CRISPR as a technology.

I went ahead and Googled "CRISPR" and here's a breakdown of the first 20 results:

• Wikipedia page (obviously)
• 9 articles/websites that are almost entirely informational (e.g. explaining how it works, research facility websites, science museum websites, etc.)
• 8 articles that frame CRISPR almost exclusively positively (e.g. "a new era," "remake the world," "biggest biotech discovery of the century," "game-changing," etc.)
• 0 articles that frame CRISPR almost exclusively negatively
• 3 articles that present balanced views of CRISPR

Now, it's not that there's nothing negative to be said about CRISPR. The potential for a Gattaca-esque world of "designer babies," unforeseen diseases/consequences borne of trying to eliminate known gene sequences for illnesses, even MORE overpopulation, and increased classism (it wouldn't be cheap to design your baby, I'm sure) are just a few of the very damaging side effects of CRISPR. I'm not asking writers to lambast the technology, but even in the articles that are more balanced, like this one from the Guardian, the final verdict is relatively positive. The Guardian article specifically ends with a quote from Doudna saying she thinks that people will accept CRISPR in a similar way they accepted the (initially shocking and morally questionable) technology of in vitro fertilization: reluctant at first, but eventually comfortable. We nowadays view IVF as a very useful and enabling technology, allowing same-sex couples (e.g. Neil Patrick Harris and his husband, David Burtka), infertile mothers, or those who just don't want to experience pregnancy to have biological children. To compare CRISPR to IVF is ultimately to propose that CRISPR, like IVF, will become something that we greatly appreciate.

The effects of rhetoric of effortlessness are supposedly to increase credibility of scientific discoveries and trust in science in general, which seems pretty clearly to me like increased tech optimism. While of course there have been other rhetorical strategies used to frame CRISPR, not all of which positively affect tech optimism, it's certainly quite interesting to see just how much rhetoric of effortlessness is used, and then see the corresponding effects on people's perceptions of CRISPR as a potentially very good or very bad technology.

The way people perceive technology (in an optimistic or pessimistic fashion) can have effects on things such as public policy. Hochschild et al. specifically write about tech optimism and pessimism in the arena of genomic science. According to them, Americans are overwhelmingly tech optimist, especially white Americans. Despite lacking technical knowledge in these matters, these tech optimists are more likely "to endorse governmental funding and regulation of the three forms of medical or scientific genomics activity, to trust public officials and private companies to act in the public good, and to endorse legal biobanks" (11). If people are very optimistic about CRISPR, that could have some serious and lasting effects on governmental policy/regulations concerning genetic alteration.

I myself am very nervous about that kind of future, because I totally think Gattaca is going to happen. But I guess for that, it's only a matter of time. For the time being, I guess I just have to accept that people are going to continue viewing CRISPR very optimistically because it was just so ~effortlessly~ discovered, and try not to be overtaken by my soon-to-be genetically superior overlords peers. 

References (listed by order of reference)
Hochschild, Jennifer, Alex Crabill, and Maya Sen. "Technology Optimism or Pessimism: How Trust in Science Shapes Policy Attitudes toward Genomic Science." Issues in Technology Innovation 21 (2012): 1-16. Web.

Corbyn, Zoë. "Crispr: Is It a Good Idea to ‘upgrade’ Our DNA?" The Guardian. The Guardian, 10 May 2015. Web. <https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/10/crispr-genome-editing-dna-upgrade-technology-genetic-disease>.