Hatcheries And Conditioning

One of the first examples of Huxley’s accuracy is in the beginning of the novel. The BNW’s process of creating babies is comparable to today’s process of in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Both cases cause controversy in the question of if the babies are real or artificial, and both involve the use of labs, chemicals, and babies grown in test

This section of Chalmers’ book makes the reader ponder the morality of medical experiments like abortions, stem cell research, and infanticide in the world today and questions whether we have learned from Nazi medical experiments in the past.

Medical advancements are very important for extending the quality and quantity of life, however a strong moral compass is needed to make sure, in the name of science, ethical and moral science are not crossed. Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, and the movie Gattaca propose a technologically advanced society that challenges these ethical and moral views. Although Brave New World and Gattaca relate in the aspect of genetic discrimination, they differ in the limits and powers of technology and the effects of human spirit.

“If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons” (Lewis, Page Unknown). When C.S Lewis wrote this in an essay on ethics, of which eugenics is a highly debated topic, eugenics was an uprising idea that many members of the intelligentsia agreed with. Eugenics is the idea of controlling human breeding, an idea that is highly controversial and typically looked down upon, but is rising in the modern era. Some groups are being forced to use in vitro fertilization to avoid disease; quite a contrast to the idea that science may be going pushing its limits, as presented in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. On the other hand, akin to Victor Frankenstein’s ideas, many groups may be amplifying the eugenics movement when they prescreen births.

In Wittig's “One is Not Born a Woman,” biology is a classifier that naturalizes gender distinction between women and men based on the physical discrepancies. Biology, as a field of science associated with historical evidence, constructs social conventions of gender difference and instills the idea as a permanent fact. The differing role of women and men throughout history is justified by the term “biological predisposition” and “holds onto the idea that the capacity to give birth (gender role based on biological function) is what defines a woman” (Wittig 10). The notion of biology in this term defers authority to the image of science -reasoning that concludes to a fixed and proven answer. The deference

Advances in biotechnology have important applications to the core demographic concerns of human reproduction, raising a number of ethical issues. In the debate over this issue Kass the President’s council on Bioethics, with other scientist are nearly silent. In a critical discussion, Kass insists that producing and influencing babies in bottles is a gateway to a Brave New World. It is a way to maintain the population and keep the society from going into a revolution. However, in order maintain stability we must suppress all new scientific inventions along with artistic expression. Scientific research endangers humanity which can possibly threaten social order, which is why it must strictly be limited. Kass emphasizing on the technology itself

The 21st century however forecasts an astonishing increase in innovation in another direction. While previously overshadowed by its larger cousins, physics and chemistry, it seems likely that the biological sciences will steal the limelight in the future. Mapping the genome, reversing the aging process, and finding a cure for terminal illnesses, all represent primary objectives for science. Unfortunately, the ethical questions posed by innovations in biomedicine are far greater than those posed by advances in the physical sciences. Reproductive cloning is one of these innovations, and one that arguably poses the greatest threat to the world as we know it. The universal truth, blindly accepted by man for millennia, held that a human could only be born through the sexual union of a male and a female, to be exact, of an egg and a sperm. By cloning, however, a human life can be created in the laboratory. This is done by taking human DNA and inserting it into an egg cell, sans genetic material. The resultant cell is identical to the original, and can then be inserted into a uterus, either a human or an animal one, and be grown to term, to produce a baby, while circumventing nature’s means of reproduction.

2. The most effective argument in his essay is when he says “Millions are suffering. This is precisely the argument that research-cloning advocates are deploying today to allow them to break the moral barrier of creating.” In this argument he points out how the research advocates can't be trusted because a year ago, they assured they only wanted to do stem cell research on discarded embryos. He also points out that the research advocates create new excuses in order to keep breaking the moral barrier. In addition, they promised to only grow human clones only to the blastocyst stage. In other words, they would not create a human embryo in the laboratory. Today, they are campaigning hard to permit research for the creation of human embryos. This shows us that the research advocates are not keeping their promise because they are campaigning in order to create human embryos. The author's

Aldous Huxley was born into a family of acclaimed scientists. His grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley who is the most famous, controversial naturalist of his time, and with two brothers becoming eminent biologists, his family was no short of brilliance in the scientific field. Huxley himself was on the path to become a scientist until he contracted Keratitis Punctate and couldn’t properly conduct his experiments ("Aldous Huxley - Biography"). While his later writings may have not been as dry as a lab report, remnants of his scientific endeavors and influences are woven throughout. For example, Huxley writes, “preserving the excised ovary alive and actively developing; passed on to a consideration of optimum temperature, salinity, viscosity” (A. Huxley 5). His scientific knowledge that is woven into Brave New World creates a general image of the future, but in certain areas, such as the passage above, Aldous Huxley uses his scientific knowledge to create a dry diction that gives off a sense of fear and disgust in the rapid advancement of technology. Huxley’s diction of towering scientific terms brings many aspects of this society to life, such as when Huxley talks about genetic engineering and

Gina Kolata’s article, Ethics Questions Arise as Genetic Testing of Embryos Increases (2014), explains that as the increase of the testing of embryos for parents to choose whether or not to have children has also brought its ethical questions in the light. Kolata uses the Kalinskys case, a family in the article, and how their neurological disease, Gerstmann-Straussler-Schinker (GSS), has raised questions for ethicists who have looked into the case. Kolata’s purpose in writing this article is to inform the audience on the growing topic of embryo testing and also the ethical question that also accompany in order to have the audience to develop a personal view on the issue. Given how the author explains the technical terms used within the article, Kolata is writing to an audience that is not fully aware of genetic testing.

Deeply entrenched within society is the idea that we are continually advancing and developing in all sorts of ways, but mainly for the benefit of human vitality. In Oryx and Crake, one of the experiments the scientists and researchers focuses on is their pigoon project, where they can “grow an assortment of foolproof human-tissue organs in transgenic knockout pig hosts” (22). The pigs are genetically modified by inserting human cells into them so they can internally reproduce the same organs as humans do, and are also inserted with spliced genes to “fend off attacks by

After perusing the suggested articles, I decided on this article for my journal review because of the many facets of its colorful history in addition to its fascinating, and vastly growing, advancements in the area of eugenics. The imminent debates resulting from the conflicting moral and ethical implications arising from the inception, development and evolution of eugenics past and present are of interest.

Bokonavosky’s Process is used to turn one fertilized egg into as many as ninety six embryos using, “a series of arrests in development,” such as X-ray treatment, freezing and thawing, and alcohol poisoning (Huxley 6). This process does significantly weaken the embryos which is why it is only used on the lower classes. Through this process, identical twins are created, “by scores at a time” (Huxley 7). This, combined with the Podsnaps Technique which causes egg cells to rapidly be produced, can turn out an average of about eleven thousand people from just one ovary (Huxley 6-8). Occasionally, the embryos are even further conditioned by methods such as depriving them of oxygen in order to lower their intelligence (Huxley 14). These assorted biotechnologies play a major role in dehumanizing the population.

New technological advances and scientific methods continue to change the course of nature. One of the current controversial advances in science and technology is the use of genetically modified embryos in which the study exceeds stem cell research. Scientists have begun planning for research involving human embryos in the genetic modification field. Many technological developments are responsible for improving our living standards and even saving lives, but often such accomplishments have troubling cultural and moral ramifications (Reagan, 2015). We are already beyond the days in which virtually the only procreative option was for a man and a woman to conceive the old-fashioned way (Reagan, 2015). Genetic modification of human embryos can be perceived as a positive evolution in the medical process yet it is surrounded by controversy due to ethical processes. Because this form of genetic modification could affect later born children and their offspring, the protection of human subjects should be a priority in decisions about whether to proceed with such research (Dresser, 2004). The term Human Genetic Engineering was originally made public in 1970. During this time there were several methods biologists began to devise in order to better identify or isolate clone genes for manipulation in several species or mutating them in humans.

The way that Huxley develops he's view of the new world and our is by showing how controlled the new world is compared to our. For example in page 18 "Community, Identity, Stability", which means that where they control the eggs, hatches the babies and educate them to do and what not to do. He's showing how this new environment has changed that we as human being cant have babies on our own, that now it's controlled by hatching them in a laboratory, which our work we don't do because that's something nature. Also, how they divide there people which is stated in page 23 " we decant our babies as socialized human beings, as Alphas or Epsilon...", which the Alphas and Epsilon are the upper class people, that are intelligent like knows how to read