Rows upon rows of “perfect” people walk in straight lines. All have the same hair, eye, and skin color. They all resemble each other. The environment around them is lifeless; the lack of trees and living animals is awkwardly noticeable. Overhead a flying automobile soars past and swerves around enormous skyscrapers. All this was accomplished through both science and technology. Is this a farfetched notion of the future? Can science and technology really create a society like this? How will it affect our lives here in the Valley and in the world around us? Science has always been with us. Science is the observation of the problems of the world around us, and the experimentation to find solutions to these problems. It was science that allowed primitive man to wonder about his origins, his creator and the world around him. If we look at the role of science in the human race we see that it has allowed for the unified progression of all. In the beginning primitive man relied heavily on personal beliefs of both good and bad spirits and that of a Supreme Being. Later beliefs became more complex and religion was a vital part of everyone’s life. The ability to think differently grew due to increase advancement in science and technology during the Renaissance period. The freedom of thought and proposal of ideas by philosophers provided for exchanging and creation of diverse ideas. It was in that type of environment that ideas such as that of Darwin’s Origins of Species were proposed. In modern times when people hear of genetics images of cars overturned by dinosaurs gone mad, from the famous motion picture Jurassic Park, and of the cloned sheep Dolly prancing around in the prairie come to mind. The genetic revolution in particular gives us all an optimistic future to the world in which we are living in today. The genetic revolution will give a different facet to medicine, agriculture, and society as a whole.
The genetic revolution will help health professionals provide a different type of care for their patients. The genetic revolution offers enormous promises for those sufferings chronic diseases. Research laboratories around the world are busily sequencing, identifying, and switching genes among different species. Genetic engineering techniques promise cures for various diseases such as cystic fibrosis and kidney disease.
In the motion picture Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol questions the ability of allowing genetic potential, calculated by birth, to establish the fate of an individual. The determination of a person’s destiny proved impossible and preposterous as mankind were defined by their capability to make decisions on their own concerning their future. The film exhibits the problems in a genetically engineered society. Development of science technologies has advanced exceedingly to the extent where immediately after birth an infant’s destiny can be identified just by taking a blood sample. This gives a glimpse at the person’s future and the opportunity to discriminate: ‘…no longer determined by social status or the colour of your skin. We now have discrimination down to a science’. Society in Gattaca was divided into two classes valids and in-valids.
CONTENTION 1: Human genetic engineering can cure disease when other methods may not exist. For example, at the Geron Corporation, a biotech firm in Menlo Park California, scientists have discovered how to make healthy cells will divide indefinitely. They are now working on a project that will result in...
Genetic engineering, the process of using genetic information from the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of cells to fix or improve genetic defects or maladies, has been developing for over twenty years. When Joseph Vacanti, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital, and Robert Langer, a chemical engineering professor at MIT, first met as researchers in the 1970’s, they had little knowledge of the movement they would help found. After they discovered a method of growing live tissue in the 1980’s, a new science was born, and it races daily towards new discoveries and medical breakthroughs (Arnst and Carey 60). “Tissue engineering offers the promise that failing organs and aging cells no longer be tolerated — they can be rejuvenated or replaced with healthy cells and tissues grown anew” (Arnst and Carey 58). The need for genetic engineering becomes quite evident in the promises it offers in various medical fields, as well to financial ones. Despite critics’ arguments about the morality or practicality of it, genetic engineering should continue to provide the essential benefits it has to offer without unnecessary legal impediment.
Genetic engineering has been around for many years and is widely used all over the planet. Many people don’t realize that genetic engineering is part of their daily lives and diet. Today, almost 70 percent of processed foods from a grocery store were genetically engineered. Genetic engineering can be in plants, foods, animals, and even humans. Although debates about genetic engineering still exist, many people have accepted due to the health benefits of gene therapy. The lack of knowledge has always tricked people because they only focused on the negative perspective of genetic engineering and not the positive perspective. In this paper, I will be talking about how Genetic engineering is connected to Brave New World, how the history of genetic engineering impacts the world, how genetic engineering works, how people opinions are influenced, how the side effects can be devastating, how the genetic engineering can be beneficial for the society and also how the ethical issues affect people’s perspective.
I chose the video” Cracking your genetic code” after i watched a bit of the intro. In this video it starts off talking about the future and to imagine what it would be like if we had our genetic codes and the risks our genetic codes may hold for our future. This video makes us think about what it would be like to have the technology to figure out what meds might or might not save our lives along with predicting any illness, disease or just to give us answers as to why things are happening in our bodies. We are then introduced to a little boy named andrew who has an illness nobody can figure out. They then go take a look at Andrews Genetic code by taking a blood sample where they process it and leave behind the genetic material called DNA.
The age of genetic technology has arrived. Thanks to genetic technological advancements, medical practitioners, with the help of genetic profiling, will be able to better diagnose patients and design individual tailored treatments; doctors will be able to discern which medications and treatments will be most beneficial and produce the fewest adverse side effects. Rationally designed vaccines have been created to provide optimal protection against infections. Food scientists have hopes of genetically altering crops to increase food production, and therefore mitigate global hunger. Law enforcement officers find that their job is made easier through the advancement of forensics; forensics is yet another contribution of genetic technology. Doctors have the ability to identify “high-risk” babies before they are born, which enables them to be better prepared in the delivery room. Additionally, oncologists are able to improve survival rates of cancer patients by administering genetically engineered changes in malignant tumors; these changes result in an increased immune response by the individual. With more than fifty years of research, and billions of dollars, scientists have uncovered methods to improve and prolong human life and the possibilities offered by gene therapy and genetic technology are increasing daily.
For example, genetic engineering can be used to combat cystic fibrosis, which is a disease that damages the lungs and digestive system. Moreover, genetic engineering can be used to treat disorders such as diabetes as well. These two diseases, as well as much more, are one reason why people around the world are pushing for an increase in the research of genetic engineering. With the help of genetic engineering, people around the world who are suffering from incurable diseases have a hope to live pain and disease free. Furthermore, genetic engineers can look for mutated genes with preimplantation genetic diagnosis to tell if an embryo might have a mutation for trisomy 21 or Duchenne muscular dystrophy. If found, a scientist can potentially fix the mutation within the genetic code and therefore allow this embryo to grow to be a healthy child with no major health
This paper goes over genetic engineering and how it is used today in the medical field as two types on humans, disabled genetic engineering and trait genetic engineering. This two types of genetic engineering are still debatable since they have to surpass many obstacles and laws. The sources gave statements from professionals and experts on genetic engineering, biomedical science, biomedical engineering, and human anatomy and physiology. The individuals gave their inputs on how they view genetic engineering on human beings.
Dr. Michael Shermer is a Professor, Founder of skeptic magazine, and a distinguished and brilliant American science writer to say the least. In His book The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People he sets out to embark on the daunting task of convincing and informing the reader on sciences’ ability to drives the expansion of humanity and the growth of the moral sphere. Although such a broad and general topic could be hard to explain, Shermer does so in a way that is concise, easy to understand, and refreshing for the reader. This novel is riddled with scientific facts, data, and pictures to back up shermers claims about the history of science, humanity and how the two interact with one another.
Human genetic engineering can provide humanity with the capability to construct “designer babies” as well as cure multiple hereditary diseases. This can be accomplished by changing a human’s genotype to produce a desired phenotype. The outcome could cure both birth defects and hereditary diseases such as cancer and AIDS. Human genetic engineering can also allow mankind to permanently remove a mutated gene through embryo screening, as well as allow parents to choose the desired traits for their children. Negative outcomes of this technology may include the transmission of harmful diseases and the production of genetic mutations.
Will technology lead humans to extinction? There are many popular beliefs that technology will one day become so intelligent that it would render the human existence impractical. Such theory is usually labeled ludicrous by the public but where it is not stamped as an outlandish ideal it’s instead herald as the dawn of an epic endeavor to understanding the mind of god himself. Even so, the inevitable expansion of technology should not be stagnated by ones once-over judgments and assumptions, but rather calmly shepherd with the mentality that in time we humans will learn how to harmonize with its complexity as we have done for Mother Nature and each other. There for a great physicist said “sixteen-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne once wrote, “When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her?”(Michio, Kaku, The Future of the Mind:
Another area of medical advancement is genetic engineering. Genetic engineering will detect and possibly stop diseases before birth. Many diseases are associated with specific genes that can be checked for disease and replaced if dysfunctional. Genetic testing has already revealed genetic mutations that cause hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, colon cancer, polycystic kidney disease, Alzheimers disease, and others. (5) Replacing missing, altered, inactive, or dysfunctional genes will prevent diseases or even death. Also, progression of a disease can be monitored, and
From the first imaginative thought to manipulate nature to the development of complex astronomical concepts of space exploration, man continues to this day to innovate and invent products or methods that improve and enhance humankind. Though it has taken 150 million years to reach current day, the intellectual journey was not gradual in a linear sense. If one was to plot significant events occurring throughout human existence, Mankind’s ability to construct new ideas follows a logarithmic path, and is rapidly approaching an asymptote, or technological singularity. This singularity event has scientists both supporting and rejecting the concept of an imaginative plateau; the largest topic discussed is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). When this technological singularity is reached, it is hypothesized that man’s greatest creation, an artificial sapient being, will supersede human brain capacity. According to some, this event will lead to the extermination of mankind as humans are deemed obsolete. Yet others are projecting a mergence between A.I. and Humanity, a gradual conversion of man and machine. Will the projected apex of our technical evolution be a gradual or abrupt end of mankind?
Although genetic engineering seems to be more harmful than helpful, when used correctly, it will help the society prosper. Considering the technology our society has currently developed, genetic engineering is a difficult topic to discuss and confirm. If the researchers confirm this process, it may become easier for the scientists and will help cure the diseases easily. The debate, however, will still be on the rise because of the issue in human morals and ethics.
The idea of a world progressing, or evolving, in science hasn’t been around forever. In fact, the Enlightenment period in the seventeen hundreds with scientists such as Isaac Newton the man who discovered gravity, Louis Pasteur the chemist who invented the vaccine to prevent rabies, Charles Darwin the father of evolution, Benjamin Franklin the first scientist to toy with the dangers and possibilities of electricity, and so many more wonderful scientists was the start of the “progress” that revolutionized our world. Of the scientists who progressed our world, few shaped modern biology the way Charles Darwin managed to. Thomas Kuhn saw the progress people like Darwin made not as truth seeking, but simply as filling in another piece of the puzzle of science, challenging the very definition of the Scientific Revolution. After reviewing Kuhn’s idea of science, Darwin appears to play a substantial role in the paradigm shift from the science of old to new. Kuhn looked at Darwin and saw science evolve much as Darwin’s organisms appeared to evolve