Biotech Ethics and Advancement
Biotechnology: Of Ethics and Advancement
Thousands of years ago, early man, like the rest of earth’s fauna and flora, was at the mercy of the elements; we relied on nature’s gratitude when it came to finding food and survival. As Charles Darwin would say, only the fittest could survive Mother Nature’s test. Eventually, however, a fully-evolved man turned the tide of the competition; we began to domesticate the once savage beasts we hunted and competed with like wolves and horses turning them into livestock and our own companions bred out of their natural ferocity, to grow our own food for our own and start agriculture, and eventually we started to settle down into permanent communities. Man had transcended nature when the first steps of human civilization began to grow. Since then, man had crafted its own grand design for himself; the discovery of metals like Bronze and Iron, to the Pyramids of Egypt and Cities of Rome, and the rest, as they say, is modern history.
In the Modern world, we still have that said control, and with it we have now intrinsically used our knowledge to design nature herself in our ideal image. Technological Advancements have allowed us wield it as we pleasure. We can now edit Mother Nature’s work and remake it anew through our vast interference with the body that is Science. The presence of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), Dolly and all her Cloned brethren, and Real life Cyborg-Animals are just samples of what we’ve done to her. Eventually, because of this, someone just had to say it: “When will it be too much? When will we know when we’ve gone too far?” That is where Ethics falls in, our man-made balance of whether or not, in the most basic sense, what we do is right or wrong. Ethics has long been a question of how much more we can do to these once “all natural” things and make them “artificially enhanced.” When can we truly say that we, the “masters” have abused our power?
One cannot mistake, however, that human
Thousands of years ago, early man, like the rest of earth’s fauna and flora, was at the mercy of the elements; we relied on nature’s gratitude when it came to finding food and survival. As Charles Darwin would say, only the fittest could survive Mother Nature’s test. Eventually, however, a fully-evolved man turned the tide of the competition; we began to domesticate the once savage beasts we hunted and competed with like wolves and horses turning them into livestock and our own companions bred out of their natural ferocity, to grow our own food for our own and start agriculture, and eventually we started to settle down into permanent communities. Man had transcended nature when the first steps of human civilization began to grow. Since then, man had crafted its own grand design for himself; the discovery of metals like Bronze and Iron, to the Pyramids of Egypt and Cities of Rome, and the rest, as they say, is modern history.
In the Modern world, we still have that said control, and with it we have now intrinsically used our knowledge to design nature herself in our ideal image. Technological Advancements have allowed us wield it as we pleasure. We can now edit Mother Nature’s work and remake it anew through our vast interference with the body that is Science. The presence of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), Dolly and all her Cloned brethren, and Real life Cyborg-Animals are just samples of what we’ve done to her. Eventually, because of this, someone just had to say it: “When will it be too much? When will we know when we’ve gone too far?” That is where Ethics falls in, our man-made balance of whether or not, in the most basic sense, what we do is right or wrong. Ethics has long been a question of how much more we can do to these once “all natural” things and make them “artificially enhanced.” When can we truly say that we, the “masters” have abused our power?
One cannot mistake, however, that human