Thursday 30 March 2017

.........

Have you ever loved someone so much, you'd give an arm for? Not the expression, no, literally give an arm for? When they know they're your heart And you know you were their armour And you will destroy anyone who would try to harm her But what happens when karma, turns right around and bites you? And everything you stand for, turns on you to spite you?

Monday 27 March 2017

questions of science and progress in genome engineering

the virtue of morality in nature is still questionable and subjected to debate.

according to t. huxley, nature is no school of virtue and that in the context of 'survival of the fittest', nature have set examples that superiority is the key for longevity and prosper. 

in my opinion, scientists should always view the subject in different ways to understand the reality and situation of life by not falling into 'naturalistic fallacies'. taken the context from mary shelley's frankenstein, science is without guidance, and moral imperative - would be irrational. the story represents scientist's dark secrecy, driven by so-called motivation for general benefit of humanity and public good, his hunger for power led him to unethical works and irresponsibility. human is the ultimate cause of his monster's misdeed.

"genetic evolution is about to become conscious and volitional, and usher in a new epoch in the history of life" according to evolutionary biologist, edward o. wilson in his book, consilience. the current epoch is holocene and until 2008, a group of scientists announced that we had entered a new epoch called anthropocene, to emphasize the effect of human activities on the geosphere, the term which is not yet formally adopted by geological time scale.  

.... i will tell you my sin and you can sharpen your knife,
good God, let me give you my life....

there is no sweeter innocence... only gentle sin..

we were born sick, but i love it, command me to be well,
amen. amen. amen.
                                                                                     hozier - take me to church.

in the bittersweet of genome editing and creation of neo-human via tissue engineering, romanticizing the idea and discussion as T.S eliot put it in the rock

where is life that we have lost,
where is wisdom we have lost in knowledge
where is knowledge we have lost in information.

all our knowledge brings us nearer to death, 
however you disguise it, this thing does not change,
the perpetual struggle of good and evil.

stephen shapin wrote in Boston Review on the virtue of scientists, scientism virtue - can scientists be good and trustworthy given that scientific conclusion should be no more trusted like financial derivatives. a good and ethical scientist should always question and challenge his own methods and conclusions, and set boundaries, which is not to avert the scientific progression, but for security reason that in the realm of unknown, protection setting is necessary for any predicament.

the extent of financial crisis causing millions of people suffer from loss and displacement bring to the thought of the unpredictable effects of gene manipulation. 

enhancement of genetics can instigate social divisions where power and money can buy favorable traits - good looks, mathematically intelligence, tallness, superficially pale from manipulators- the scientists or famously called the human element manager, term taken  from dystopian the new brave world, by a.h. huxley.

jeniffer doudna expressed her concern in the new yorker about the consequences of her finding, and the bigger question lies in WHAT IF the technology falls to the wrong hand, as she recalled from her lucid dream with hitler, of his eugenics and human experimentation to atrocities that revealed in the nuremberg convention, we can only imagine the kind of horrible uses he could put it to.


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note://unfinished/brainstew-jaded/greenday - reading: modern prometheus, jim kozubek.