’The term ’artificial’ is often associated with risk’

Can we always distinguish between what's natural and what's artificial? And does that distinction even make sense? (Image: David Padilla) - Is natural always good and artificial always bad? We talked to psychologist Angela Bearth and biotechnologist Sven Panke about science, scepticism, misunderstandings and how language influences the way we think. Ms Bearth, based on your research in the Consumer Behavior Group, why do you think people get so emotionally worked up about techniques they see as artificial, such as genetically modified plants or vaccines? - Angela Bearth: The term "artificial" has negative connotations and is often associated with risk. Most people won't automatically know how an mRNA-based vaccine works, for example. That's the kind of situation where we tend to rely on so-called heuristics - mental shortcuts or simplified rules of thumb that help us make quick decisions of the type "if it's artificial, it must be bad". Mr Panke, your area of specialisation is synthetic biology, which sounds pretty artificial. Sven Panke: That term was coined by an MIT and Berkeley working group, and we've never been very happy with it! As science branding goes, I would say it hits all the wrong notes, at least in 'Europe. But, yes, at its core, synthetic biology is about creating genetic circuits that do something useful in a cell. It always involves some kind of manipulation of a biological system - and, of course, that's another word with negative connotations. So language influences our attitudes towards these things?