The Unnecessary Paranoia of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

The Unnecessary Paranoia of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

The novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood provides a dystopic vision of the outcome of unregulated pursuit of knowledge and control over nature. It is unlikely that the scenario portrayed in the novel would ever occur beyond fiction. The reason being the United States and many other countries already have regulating agencies and oversight commissions that would prevent scientists such as Crake from ever developing his ideas into reality. Atwood incorporates realistic experimental methods into her novel, which eventually lead to pigs being able to grow human organs, and creating “pigoons” that appear to be more horrific than Frankenstein himself. Consumers are the ones to decide what is put to use and what is not. There is a fine line between benefiting society and damaging society. This novel illustrates what may happen when that line is crossed a thousand times over; a horrific image. Atwood takes many of today’s scientific ideas with the potential to benefit society and turns them into tomorrow’s nightmare and creates a false paranoia. However, without new scientific advancements or technology, there will be no hopes for those who are in critical health conditions; therefore, we should overlook the arbitrary ethical proclamations of certain groups of people, for genetic technological progression is the only key to the sustenance of the population in terms of being able to be cured from the infestation of nature.

The pharmaceutical and biotech industries must be free to develop and research life saving medicines and other advancements that will benefit society. If this cannot be done, progress would never be made. People would still be contracting polio a...

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...evailed and the world would continue to exist, unlike the novel.

Atwood takes many of today’s potential scientific developments and illustrates the worst possible outcome of what may happen if we continue the unregulated pursuit of knowledge. In reality, the scientific advances of today will yield a higher standard of living for the majority of the world tomorrow. We will continue to push for the best in everything including science, medicine, and technology; we will not allow any single person to make the sole decision to develop an idea. Scientific progression will save many lives; therefore, it should and will always be there for us.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.

Crow, Michael. “Harnessing Science to Benefit Society.” 9 Sept. 2004. AG BioTech InfoNet. http://www.biotech-info.net/harnessing_science.html>;.