There’s no shortage of buzz about open sciences these days. From the multitude of publicly available bioinformatics databases and software to the openly accessible experimental data from CERN, more research enterprises are pushing their data outwards rather than keeping it behind closed doors. Despite all of this buzzing, the social history of how open sciences have come to be embraced by both private corporations, public research institutions, and citizen scientists alike has been underappreciated in most popular accounts. This has certainly been the case for open biology, with many texts on the subject subscribing to technopositivist interpretations of its development – discovering the cure for cancer in a garage laboratory and so on. On the other hand, Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science contains a measured and creative approach to appreciating open sciences. Rather than constructing a straightforward history of open biology, Alessandro Delfanti mixes a discussion of the ebb and flow of ethical norms in the sciences with three contemporary vignettes of open biology.
The intended effect of this work is to dismantle the understanding of science as a once pure and now corrupted pursuit of knowledge that might be made whole again through openness and transparency. Instead, Delfanti constructs a narrative of scientists having to navigate institutional power while negotiating between different sets of cultural norms and values in order to achieve various ends. Realizing their goals requires scientists to adopt a hacker ethic – combining distrust of power with a systems perspective oriented towards breaking down controls on information – as evidenced by the three case studies. The story of billionaire biologist Craig Venter and his selective use of closed and open data policies to challenge the practices of institutions like the journal Science and the National Institutes of Health, in the pursuit of both self-interested ends and public-oriented science, demonstrates contradictory impulses for doing open science. On the other hand, Italian virologist Ilaria Capua and her ruthless pursuit against the powerful World Health Organization’s closed access policy to avian flu data provides an example of a scientist whose motivations were mostly selfless, yet in winning she walked away with a certain amount of fame and power which she likely did not bargain for but had to reckon with. Lastly, Delfanti’s exploration of the emergent DIYbio movement with its non-institutional orientation and heterogeneous values leaves the reader wondering what might emerge from these new networks of scientists and enthusiasts from different backgrounds and experience levels. Curing cancer from a garage or a makerspace seems farfetched, but perhaps new techniques and organizational structures for doing biology might be achievable.
Overall, Biohackers ought to prove interesting and enlightening for anyone interested in exploring the interactions between science, politics, and society. The only real fault is Delfanti’s dissertation style writing throughout the book, which encourages skimming and occasionally spoils what the reader will find in the upcoming paragraphs and sections. Nevertheless, Biohackers is worthy of praise for presenting a unique and critical take on the new normal for science.
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