Imagine staring into the face of a monstrous beast many times your size, long thought to no longer exist on earth. One that, until now, you have had the privilege of knowing only from skeletons in museums, illustrations in books, and of course depictions in movies and television series. What do you imagine yourself doing in this situation? Do you run? Should you not move in hopes that it doesn’t see you?
With our understanding of genetics and genetic technologies rapidly advancing the idea of bringing extinct species back to life is becoming more of a reality each day. As David Schultz writes in an article for ScienceMag “Research on reviving both species is well underway, and scientists close to the field think de-extinction for these animals is now a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’”
Of course, bringing back dinosaurs or other species that have been extinct for millions of years still remains far from reach. On the other hand, research into resurrecting more recently extinct animals, such as woolly mammoths or the passenger pigeon, is well underway.
Yet, Resurrection biology, the genetic technologies used in this field, and even other genetic technologies unrelated to de-extinction all come packaged with a question of where should ethics draw the line. As stated in Jeff Goldblum’s famous Jurassic Park quote “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
In James Moor’s article Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies, it is explained that “better ethical action in terms of being more proactive are required.”
In this same article, Moor compares the rising of genetic technologies to the ethical conundrum that we have found ourselves in with information technologies. It is emphasized that we have dealt with the ethics of information technologies in a more reactive than proactive way, causing ethical problems to appear first, and then be dealt with.
With genetic technologies having yet to reach the power stage of their revolutionary path, it is now perhaps the time to step back and inspect the ethical problems that we can foresee arising in the future due to these technologies and do our best to address these ethical issues before they have a chance to become an issue. Now is the time to ask ourselves, “Should we?”
This is an important question to researchers and scientists. While there are significant achievements, we must consider the moral problems and risks.To make the the post more argumentative, you may consider using the same fonts. Also, it is also a good idea to include some supportive evidence.
ReplyDeleteThis hooked me right off the bat! Nice job with the hook. I also really liked the balance of text and visuals. It made the text seem easier to work with and understand.
ReplyDeleteI like how you were explicit in how Moor's article connected with your proposed example. However, I think that the work from ScienceMag that you propose could use a bit more explanation, or maybe using something that has a stronger argument for what you are trying to say. I'm not sure that there's a lot of weight attached with that article as it stands.
Another thing I might recommend is trying to using the reading to motivate your example, maybe by mentioning the reading earlier and building off of that.