Abstract
“It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
New Biology and Societal Development
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Such broad scientific practices emergent from new biology are increasingly geared towards sustainable development and gaining traction across all nations. In September of this year, a special meeting in New York at the United Nations will be dedicated to approving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the 2016–2030 term. The SDGs are being planned as successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were agreed upon in 2000 and will expire in 2015.
As they stand, the proposed SDGs have 17 overarching aims and an ambitious set of 169 targets. Many have crosscutting goals such as urbanization, climate change, and building peaceful and inclusive societies that nurture and sustain human and environmental health. They seek to cultivate capacities, for example, on the importance of freedom, peace and security, respect for all human rights, the rule of law, standards of good governance, gender and income equality, women's empowerment, and the overall commitment to just and democratic societies (United Nations, 2015).
These are admirable goals. Some critics say, however, that while the “MDGs were broad enough to allow local variation, the SDGs are [(relatively)] narrow” (The Economist, 2015). The potential risk is that SDGs established by an unusually large number of top-down targets might break ranks with an important principle of development: “That everywhere is different. Local context is vital; policies that work in one place may not work in another” (The Economist, 2015).
Still, SDGs are already prompting a positive sea change in life sciences by taking us out of our comfort zone and preoccupations with the present time and status quo, encouraging instead a capacity to look at multiple possible future(s), thus broadening our minds and thinking. SDGs are a sharp reminder that sustainability does matter. This will require more than good intentions and instead forces a candid cognizance that the present time is always singular but the future(s) are always plural and in the making. The onus is on us, as global society, to consider our actions now in order to create a more sustainable and equitable future(s) for the next generations.
Both SDGs and new biology take on grand challenges as a focus. Rather than being confined to a certain theme or discipline, grand challenges aim at broad societal issues and so-called “wicked problems” such as climate change and extreme poverty that are hard to solve as individuals and thus demand collective action. By virtue of their mission and ambition to address grand social issues, new biology and SDGs will remain on the global science agenda for at least the next two decades. Some of the emerging omics fields such as metagenomics and pharmacomicrobiomics directly inform endpoints of relevance for new biology, ecosystem health and SDGs alike (Birko et al., 2015; El Rakaiby et al., 2014).
Values Do Matter
As the Journal continues to expand in scholarly literature addressing new biology, what values drive the editorial team? In my mind, this needs articulation in the current era of SDGs, but also for our authors and readers so that they clearly know the thinking process and the values involved. Scientific merit, innovation, accountability, and independent peer-review are our core values. Additionally, I am driven by three personal values and commitments, as I have candidly discussed earlier (Özdemir, 2014).
First, I am committed to a truly interdisciplinary, integrative, and trustworthy peer-reviewed forum that examines the novel intersections of new biology and society in the 21st century; this includes all omics fields and technologies and diverse applications from biomedicine to sustainable agriculture. Integration of knowledge from “cell to society” is our crucial mandate.
Second, I am driven by values to buttress the linkages among life sciences, social sciences, and societal development. New biology, as aptly suggested by Calvert (2013), would do better by adopting
a broader and more ambitious conception of interdisciplinarity than we find in this report (National Research Council, 2009); one that extends to include the social sciences and humanities. This is because grand challenges show that we cannot separate scientific projects from social systems, but that they depend on each other. (Calvert, 2013)
I agree with this vision and wish to add that while science finds answers to questions, social sciences and humanities identify the right questions so we find the right answers to correctly framed questions.
We have to look at beyond what is immediately visible and unpack scientific practices that are both technical and social. The latter includes power imbalances in global society, injustices as well as opportunities to make a difference. We ought to find solutions to poverty worldwide that limits us in ways more than one in scientific practice (Hotez, 2011; Hotez et al., 2015).
Third, I continue to learn from the works of the late Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel Laureate in economics (Ostrom, 1990; 1999) and the late Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). We ought to create and produce in life recognizing that our time is short and focus on things that will endure. More than ever, we need innovation in global governance of technology for peaceful and inclusive societies and trustworthy science that makes a difference in our daily lives (Dove, 2013; Özdemir et al., 2015a). Inspired by Ostrom, nested governance of knowledge co-production enables us to consider both ethics and ethics-of-ethics when we build capacity for the future(s) of science and society (Dove et al., 2012; Özdemir et al., 2015a). Social sciences and humanities research can bring accountability and nested systems of governing science and knowledge co-production in new biology where both ethics and ethics-of-ethics in decision-making matter and importantly, ought to crosscheck each other's power (De Vries, 2004; Dove et al., 2012; Ostrom, 1999; Özdemir, 2014; Özdemir et al., 2015a). Notably, scientist scholars such as Frederick Soddy, the recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in chemistry, took interests in study of science in its socio-political context (Sclove, 1989). The trailblazing works of Soddy to recognize the socio-technical context and future(s) of science is something we might want to consider in the current era of SDGs, and as responsible global citizens who might seek an extended self and society (Özdemir et al., 2014).
Strategic Outlook for New Biology
As Editor-in-Chief, and in the spirit of the preamble by Steve Jobs, I welcome manuscripts from all scholars who have exciting new ideas for reviews or original data and that can inform and educate us on the latest advances in integrative biology, systems medicine, and biotechnology. Yet, we should not neglect the intersections of science and technology and global society, ethics, and innovation policy. In the current era of SDGs, and paraphrasing Steve Jobs, having the smarts is necessary for excellent science but not enough to make an enduring societal difference. Scholars should be well-rounded and virtuous—candid about their values and motives, and reflexive about the broader societal impacts of their actions.
Indeed, in this era of new biology, we must value scholars who are responsibly mindful of their actions and impact on others and global society, and who encompass a deep knowledge of biotechnology beyond the laboratory space to include social sciences, humanities, and importantly, nested systems of governance (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Ostrom, 1990; Ostrom et al., 1999). We need a critical mass of such well-rounded 21st century intellectuals with candid and clear minds more than ever as the SDGs will soon come into being. For its part, OMICS offers a veritable interdisciplinary intellectual forum for authors who want to make a difference, for themselves and for others, through recognition of their excellent science, original ideas, and contributions to knowledge-based responsible innovation.
In sum, our values matter for many reasons, but most crucially for setting priorities in science and in society (Özdemir, 2013; Özdemir et al., 2015b). The editorial team at OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology will continue to be driven by these values at all times, and provide a forum for authors from all corners of the world who seek a progressive, truly innovative, and equitable journal for independent and rigorous peer-review, and blue skies, responsible scholarship for new biology and society.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
No funding was received in support of this editorial analysis. The views expressed are the personal opinions of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliated institutions or funding agencies.