Adam Elramsisy
Adam Elramsisy
Free Individualism: Stem Cell Research in a Brave New World
Although Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was written in 1932, it poses many of the
same questions about the world in which we live that we ask today. Huxley postulates in
the forward that we must “use applied science not as the end to which humans beings
are to be made the means, but as the means to producing a race of free individuals.”
Society is very close to a huge scientific breakthrough, the ability to use embryonic
stem-cells, which have the ability to be “coaxed” into any type of tissue in the human
body and could cure deadly diseases like Parkinson’s disease “as easily as [patching]
bicycle tires.” If this research could possibly lead to saving unfathomable numbers of
lives, then why would anyone oppose it? Because of the fact that this research raises
moral questions to many people. This is one of the classic battles that rise from
science fiction, science verses god.
This breakthrough that Huxley would have agreed to support because it clearly would
make the human race more free than it is today. This discovery would not only allow
people with terminal illnesses to be cured, but it would allow people to get blood
transfusions or allow people to get any kind of transplant (lung, kidney, heart, eye, bone
marrow, macrophage, etc.) without the very significant risk of the body having a
negative immune response (the body rejects the foreign organ or cells). This research
may lead to people getting heart transplants more easily and risk free than they can
now, and the result could reduce the incidence of the #1 cause of death in the U.S.,
heart disease.
There is only one thing impeding the progress of science, God. The leader in this
research is South Korea rather than the U.S. which had much more money and
resources to fund projects involving stem-cell research. In 2001 however, George W.
Bush “restricted federally funded stem cell research” because many of the people in our
majority protestant nation morally object to embryonic research. Consciousness of God
and advancement of science are contradictory terms and they cannot coexist as goals
of a whole group. Only this year (2005) California, a notoriously liberal state, voted to
support stem cell research with proposition 71.
The American internal conflict between God and science cannot be agreed upon by the
nation as a whole, only by the individual states until more support is gathered- until then
the morality of stem cell research will hinder the progress of science and only prevent it
from saving more people. Until science is removed from society (not technology), then
God will never be completely accepted. Likewise, until God is removed from society,
science will never reach its full potential. We will never be able to create the race of
“free individuals” until science is accepted over god.
Free Individualism: Stem Cell Research in a Brave New World
Although Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was written in 1932, it poses many of the
same questions about the world in which we live that we ask today. Huxley postulates in
the forward that we must “use applied science not as the end to which humans beings
are to be made the means, but as the means to producing a race of free individuals.”
Society is very close to a huge scientific breakthrough, the ability to use embryonic
stem-cells, which have the ability to be “coaxed” into any type of tissue in the human
body and could cure deadly diseases like Parkinson’s disease “as easily as [patching]
bicycle tires.” If this research could possibly lead to saving unfathomable numbers of
lives, then why would anyone oppose it? Because of the fact that this research raises
moral questions to many people. This is one of the classic battles that rise from
science fiction, science verses god.
This breakthrough that Huxley would have agreed to support because it clearly would
make the human race more free than it is today. This discovery would not only allow
people with terminal illnesses to be cured, but it would allow people to get blood
transfusions or allow people to get any kind of transplant (lung, kidney, heart, eye, bone
marrow, macrophage, etc.) without the very significant risk of the body having a
negative immune response (the body rejects the foreign organ or cells). This research
may lead to people getting heart transplants more easily and risk free than they can
now, and the result could reduce the incidence of the #1 cause of death in the U.S.,
heart disease.
There is only one thing impeding the progress of science, God. The leader in this
research is South Korea rather than the U.S. which had much more money and
resources to fund projects involving stem-cell research. In 2001 however, George W.
Bush “restricted federally funded stem cell research” because many of the people in our
majority protestant nation morally object to embryonic research. Consciousness of God
and advancement of science are contradictory terms and they cannot coexist as goals
of a whole group. Only this year (2005) California, a notoriously liberal state, voted to
support stem cell research with proposition 71.
The American internal conflict between God and science cannot be agreed upon by the
nation as a whole, only by the individual states until more support is gathered- until then
the morality of stem cell research will hinder the progress of science and only prevent it
from saving more people. Until science is removed from society (not technology), then
God will never be completely accepted. Likewise, until God is removed from society,
science will never reach its full potential. We will never be able to create the race of
“free individuals” until science is accepted over god.