Public engagement in science with diverse cross-sections of the community is considered a critical aspect of responsible biotechnological innovation. While the research community shows willingness to engage with both ambivalent and supportive audiences about potentially disruptive technological advances, there is less enthusiasm for engaging with groups who hold deeply opposing views to such advances. ‘Playing God’ and ‘tampering with nature’ are popular examples of intrinsic objections often made in opposition to the development or use of novel genetic technologies. Historically appearing in arguments against the pursuit of genetically modified organisms in agriculture and food industries, intrinsic objections have previously been labelled by the science community as inconsistent, non-scientific, and vague. Now found in a range of innovation contexts, the domain of synthetic biology appears to attract such objections consistently. We present the findings from a large Australian study (N = 4593) which suggests ‘playing God’ objections and their variants can be multilayered and, at times, accompanied by meaningful information about risk perceptions. We use qualitative analysis of open-ended responses from an online survey to show how these objections are articulated in response to selected synthetic biology applications across environmental and health domains. Our research invites a rethink of how the synthetic biology community perceives, and engages with, people who express intrinsic objections. These people may additionally hold extrinsic concerns that may be potentially addressed, or at least reasonably considered, through dialogue. We offer some concluding remarks for engaging with publics who employ these types of arguments to communicate unease with aspects of technology development and use.

社区不同领域的公众参与科学被认为是负责任的生物技术创新的一个重要方面。虽然研究界表示愿意就潜在的破坏性技术进步与矛盾和支持的观众互动，但与对此类进步持有强烈反对观点的群体互动的热情较低。“扮演上帝”和“篡改自然”是内在反对的流行例子，通常反对开发或使用新的基因技术。历史上出现在反对在农业和食品工业中追求转基因生物的争论中，内在的反对意见以前被科学界标记为不一致、不科学和含糊不清。现在在一系列创新环境中发现，合成生物学领域似乎一直吸引着此类反对意见。我们展示了澳大利亚一项大型研究的结果（N  = 4593) 这表明“扮演上帝”的反对意见及其变体可以是多层次的，有时还伴随着有关风险感知的有意义的信息。我们对在线调查中的开放式回答进行定性分析，以展示这些反对意见是如何针对选定的跨环境和健康领域的合成生物学应用表达的。我们的研究邀请重新思考合成生物学界如何看待表达内在反对意见的人并与之互动。这些人可能还持有可能通过对话解决或至少合理考虑的外在问题。我们提供了一些总结性评论，用于与使用这些类型的论点来传达对技术开发和使用方面的不安的公众互动。