Has the commitment to science and technology in the name of "Progress" been worth it?

Question

Modern science and technology have been astonishingly

successful at manipulating and controlling the material environment in

ways that benefit human health and quality of life. For all its

achievements, however, science remains a rapidly evolving tradition.

Modern science and technology present formidable challenges to

religious faith, yet the prestige of modern science derives from its

universality. That is, the same scientific experiment should work as

well in New York as in New Delhi, as well in a Jewish laboratory as in

a Muslim one. The successes of science also led to new problems. For

example, the biotechnological revolution gave scientists the ability

to manipulate genes and, in principle, to clone (make individual

genetic duplicates of) animals, including human beings.

Hence, citizens of the modern world must ask: Should such techniques

be used? What might the consequences be? Should humans tinker with

life and death in such fundamental ways?

Answer 1

This is a brilliant question and is a dilemma which faces scientists today! Possibly the biggest dilemma is morality!

First of all let me begin by saying that i disagree that all citizens should have a massive say in what goes on in science. I understand that we all live in a society and scientific advances affect everybody but in my opinion the vast majority of people in society don't understand many scientific aspects. Could a random person off the street explain in detail about quantum mechanics or DNA? Probably not! so why should they make decisions on it? If you want an example of this you only need to go to the religious forum on yahoo!answers where the scientific thoery of evolution (which has stood for hundreds of years) is obviously argued against by people who do not fully understand it. I would say if you are informed on the topic then your say is welcome.

The reasons for this is that if people do not fully understand certain aspects of science then a sort of fear sets in - just look at the cloning of the first sheep. We kill thousands of sheep everyday but people were strongly against the creation of 1 sheep through cloning 'in the name of science'.

But this raises the question of where is the line. Some scientists would definetly be against the cloning of any person (myself included) but others certainly wouldn't! I think that governments and scientists should agree on what can and cannot be allowed 'in the name of science'. I can't speak for everywhere but I know that this happens in the UK. For some revolutionary science, like stem cell research for instance, government must allow it!

I would agree such techniques to understand genes and manipulate genes should be investigated and understood. The consequences could be the elimination of genetic conditions? I'm sure everybody with the conditions on these pages would want some advances in these areas:

http://www.kumc.edu/gec/support/

The cloning of organs could solve the problem of organ shortages. If you were dying froma heart condition would you really care if your new heart was cloned? For most people, probably not!

As for negative consequences to these, well I can't really think of any but I am sure there are some. Mistakes are always made but if controls and regulations are tight these should be minimum.

Your final question: Should humans tinker with

life and death in such fundamental ways?

Humans have been tinkering with life and death for decades. They have made medication to expand life expectance, blasted people with radiation to treat cancer. Should we do these? I mean when you think about it your body is chemicals and doctors give you different chemicals to make you better. Thats quite a bit of tinkering in my opinion. Understanding how people tick (i.e. their genetic make up) can in my opinion only be good for science and medical advances and in general for society as a whole.

Answer 2

yes