This is actually a short research paper using an inductive argument that I had to write for an English argument class. Unfortunately the requirements for the paper meant that I had to keep it at 2000 words or less, not an easy feat. Given the subject matter I could easily have written much more and in fact will be. But for now, here's what I've got. (exactly 2000 words) |
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INDUCTIVE 2000 WORDS The The Biotechnological
Enhancement of Mankind: How Far is Too Far? By Anthony Bothwell Submitted as final fulfillment of the requirements for ENG104 - VODA June 2, 2004
The Biotechnological
Enhancement of Mankind: How Far is Too Far? Man has benefited greatly throughout the course
of human history through the advancement of medical science which has
extended our ability to lead longer, richer lives. However, our advances in biotechnology have
increased so dramatically in recent years that once again the issues
of ethics and morality have come charging to the forefront. From religious leaders and philosophers to scientists
and the common man, the debate rages on, have we gone too far? But to answer this question we must first seek
to understand just how far is too far; as we search for the elusive
ethical bounds that we may unwittingly cross in our ongoing quest to
advance mankind. Let us begin our inquiry by first clearly
defining what biotechnology is; Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines
biotechnology as: “biological science when applied especially in genetic
engineering and recombinant DNA technology” or in more user-friendly
terms, the manipulation of man through technology.
Considering the nature of this sort of work, certainly the ethical
implications must be considered, however it is commonly accepted that
“Biotechnology is not inherently wrong.
In fact, technology, generally speaking, is a human good” ( To Heal Thyself On the vanguard of medical science we find
the hotly debated issue of cloning and stem cell research. Nearly all
discussions on this topic have proved a slippery slope for the scientific
community, but putting aside for now the grander scope of cloning technology,
let us take a closer look at the stem cell research aspects.
Stem cells are prized for their magical potential
to become any type of cell in the body.
Researchers see them as healthy replacements for cells damaged
by diseases – including diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s
– that affect more than 130 million people here in the US, according
to the National Academy of Sciences.
(Rohm, 124) The harvesting of these cells begins with the
manipulation of a female’s eggs through a process called enucleation,
in which the nucleus is removed and then replaced with cumulus cells
from a genetic donor which are used for their DNA coding.
Because stem cells gathered through this process of cloning “produce
stem cells that are exact genetic matches of the donors” they are very
successful in being accepted by the person who provided the genetic
material, thus providing themselves with the cure for their own disease
(Rohm, 124). The argument is often made that perhaps we have
gone too far, that this sort of research borders on the unethical and
immoral as we are tinkering with the very nature of creation. In a recent special report on Science and Religion
by WIRED magazine, Gregg Easterbrook tells us that: As the era of biotechnology dawns, scientists
realize they’re stepping into territory best navigated with the aid
of philosophers and theologians. We
are entering the greatest era of science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment
last attempted to reconcile the two, three centuries ago. (166) Perhaps instead the argument could be made
that we have simply taken self preservation to a whole new level. Is it possible that in God’s master plan, we
were given the curiosity to inquire, investigate and to pursue the sciences
that have lead us to where we are today for just this reason? Being able to cure once devastating diseases
for great masses of people with little more than cellular manipulation
was once inconceivable, yet now that we have been given this great gift,
we challenge our own authority to wield it, though it seems somewhat
obvious that the benefits far outweigh the potential ethical challenges
it may present. It is difficult to find a definitive answer
to the ethical questions this research poses, however turning to Heinz von Foerster’s presentation at the International
Congress on Ethics, we find his quotation of the philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein from his reflections on ethics in his Tractus Logico-Philosophicus
enlightening. “There must indeed be some kind of
ethical reward and punishment, but they must reside in the action
itself,” therein we’ll find, lies our answer (Foerster, emphasis
added). But “When does health end and a quest for physical
and mental perfection begin? It
is not necessarily always clear” ( “Let There Be Light” William Dobelle’s artificial vision system
has allowed a blind man to see again.
Using small digital cameras mounted on sunglasses, essentially
the system takes pictures very quickly, decodes them in a small computer
system worn on a belt pack and then sends those encoded
For more than a century since Certainly the arguments for curing the blind
make this sort of biotechnological enhancement an honorable pursuit,
but why stop at simply providing vision?
We could provide the wearer with just about any of our imaging
technologies as well, such as “night vision, x-ray vision, microscopic
focus and long-range zoom” (Kotler, 100).
It is here we find the first stone is cast into our once clear
moral pond of the scientific endeavor to cure the blind.
The Engineering of
Species Certainly not all in the scientific community
feel that our technological advances are going in the right direction. Bill Joy, chief scientist and co-founder of
Sun Microsystems “Says he finds himself essentially agreeing, to his
horror, with the core argument of the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski--
that advanced technology poses a threat to the human species” (Garreau). Joy’s fears are founded in the belief that nanotechnology
and genetic technology will soon have the ability to create their own
new forms of life that could pose threatening to mankind. Just over forty years ago during his last year
at Harvard in 1962, the brilliant mathematician now well renowned as
the Unabomber, Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, took on a similar but more antagonistic
approach towards technology. Kaczynski’s
views later took on an even more extreme position, as he started an
active terrorist movement to stop the progression of particular technologies
which he had deemed dangerous. In his manifesto, Kaczynski tells us of his
fears for mankind through our unwitting tinkering with natural selection. In one example, citing the case in which diabetes,
though not curable, is controllable with insulin we’re told that: People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will
then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural
selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will
spread throughout the population. ... The same thing will happen with
many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation
of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program
or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the
future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God
... but a manufactured product. (122) Turning to biologist Christopher Wills, we find
that Kaczynski may have actually been right in his predictions on the
evolutionary changes we are inciting in our species. In his recent book, Children of Prometheus,
Wills tells us that not only are we still evolving but that we are evolving
at an accelerated rate, that those living at the earth’s extremes got
him thinking about “[the] evolutionary implications for our species,”
which he feels are profound (Wills, 212).
In contrast to Kaczynski’s doom and gloom outlook, Wills feels
that future generations will be better off as although: Our ability to enhance brain function through
improvement in our diets, the prevention of disease, and alterations
in the environment has limits. If we deliberately set out to improve
brain function through more direct chemical means, or even through genetic
manipulations, perhaps we can go much farther. (240)
The question is once again raised, is this all
part of a master plan, that we are indeed supposed to take a part in
our own evolution? Could it be
that this actually is the next step in evolution, rather than a roll of the dice with Mother
Nature’s engineering of man, that we can have a hand in our own progress
as a species? Perhaps it is indeed
a necessary step. I Robot Moore’s law, “Originally coined in 1965 by Gordon
Moore, an inventor of the integrated circuit and then chairman of Intel”
dictates that both the speed and number of transistors able to be packed
into a given IC will double yearly, a law which history has proven true
(Kurzweil, 20-21). Even outside
the computing world the significance is profound, as according to Moore’s
law, by 2019 “The computational capacity of a $4,000 computing device
(in 1999 dollars) [will be] approximately equal to the computational
capability of the human brain” surpassing man shortly thereafter (Kurzweil,
203). We will have engineered
our own predecessor. The problem
inherent is that while machines and soon artificial intelligence, will
continue to evolve at this exponential rate, “Human intellect, however
seems to be static, progressing very little, if at all” in comparison
with machine (Cook, 100). Self-evolving
and self-aware artificial intelligence will become a reality in the
very near future surpassing the computational ability of man; for mankind
to remain a competent species in this new age, we will be forced to
enhance our weaker cognitive ability through machine implants.
On the forefront of the field merging man and
machine also known as cybernetics, we find Professor Kevin Warwick,
one of the first humans to undergo electronic implants connected to
his nervous system. It is his
belief that the merging of man and machine “Will be the next evolutionary
step. Indeed we will need to do it if we are to compete with intelligent
machines.” It seems that we as a species must in fact pursue
the biotechnological enhancement of mankind as far as we possibly can,
as we may have no other choice if we wish to remain a dominant species
on this planet. “Toto -- I've a feeling we're not in
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz we have
found ourselves whisked away into another world, except here the ethical
boundaries of our inquiry into the nature of man for the betterment
of mankind are not so clear. The
question has been posed, how far is too far?
Yet as we have seen, perhaps the question should be, will we
go far enough? “In 20 to 30 years ... we will effectively merge
with our technology” ( |
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CITATIONS |
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BOOKS Kurzweil,
Wills,
Christopher. Children of Prometheus: The Accellerating Pace of Human
Evolution. Kaczynski,
Theodore. The Unabomber Manifesto:
Industrial Society & Its Future. PERIODICALS Kotler,
Steven. “VISION QUEST: A Half Century of Artificial-Sight Research Has
Succeeded. And Now This Blind Man Can See.” WIRED Sep. 2002:
94-101. Easterbrook,
Gregg. “THE NEW CONVERGENCE: After Centuries of Battle, Scientists and
Theologians are Finally Forging a Grand Unified Theory. Think Eternity = MC2.” WIRED
Dec. 2002: 164-169. Goldman
Rohm, Wendy. “Seven Days of Creation: The Inside Story of a Human Cloning
Experiment.” WIRED Jan. 2004: 120-129. Garreau,
Joel. “From Internet Scientist,
a Preview of Extinction.” The Cook,
Hugh B. “Synthetic intelligence.” Futurics 2002: 100-102 INTERNET John
Bell, James. “Exploring the ‘Singularity’.” June 6, 2003 <http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0584.html>
(NOTE: Originally published
in The Futurist June 1, 2003. Published on KurzweilAI.net
June 6, 2003) Taylor, Philippa. “Going all the way? - Cybernetics and Nanotechnology.”
CMF Christian Medical Fellowship, Nucleus
April 2004 pp12-19 <http://www.cmf.org.uk/index.htm?nucleus/nucapr04/cyber_nano.htm> Von Foerster,
Heinz. “Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics.” August, 1994 <
http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html>
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