Today in English 12, we watched a TED Talk by Paul Root Wolpe. He discusses some of the crazy advances that have been made in the field of bio-engineering: glow-in-the-dark kittens! Remote-controlled moths! Zorses and ligers and camas, oh my!
In the context of reading Frankenstein, we wondered about some of the questions Wolpe raises in his talk.
With the advent of technologies like the DNA synthesizer (which Wolpe relates as "Dr. Frankenstein's modern laboratory"), humans are able to, as Wolpe states, "directly design organisms." Wolpe wonders about responsibility, and questions the limits to scientific discovery, if any. He asks, "Is it ok to manipulate and create whatever creature we want?" If only Victor Frankenstein had considered these questions, right?
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