“Meta-framing” and “re-connecting”: what is new in Synthetic Biology and what can be reflected on from the past?

As has already happened widely with biotechnology, the double rhetoric of the “everything is new” and “everything is the same” is also likely to be displayed with Synthetic Biology (SB). From time to time supporters and opponents of new technologies have argued for maintaining the continuum or for breaking with the past as reasons to support their positions. There is important knowledge about past ways of framing the issues and of intervening that should be critically compared and taken into account in order not to be caught in the new v. old rhetoric; it is possible to try to really be more imaginative and open toward the challenges and opportunities of SB. It has been pointed out that “(e)very descriptive language, including those that are used to describe technical or scientific systems, is ultimately metaphorical; it carries a meaning and has an agenda” . These metaphorical assumptions should be taken into account as words and concepts travel from descriptive to prescriptive contexts and languages