Children of Men

The society portrayed in the novel Children of Men, is a perfect example in displaying the potential negative outcomes of DNA meddling. The story took place in 2027, in a world that was on the brink of extinction. Reproduction rates had fallen to all time lows and the society had gone completely sterile. Despite the rampant modernization and technological advances like Quietus, a government issued suicide drug that their society had achieved, they had lost the most simple and precious component, the gift of life.

Creating Better Athletes: One of the Numerous faults of Genetic Engineering

Genetic Engineering not only poses threat to lead our society to dystopia, it also threatens to eliminate the uniqueness of special God-given talents such as athletic ability. With genetic engineering, genes can be modified to artificially create athletes. This eradicates the uniqueness of the individuals that possess these innate athletic qualities and disqualifies these traits as talents, but rather, renders them as just common attainable traits. The articles “Genetic Inequality: Human Genetic Engineering” and “Genetic Engineering In Athletes” written by Daniel Simons and Dominic Wells consecutively, expresses this concern. The fact that over the years several athletes have tried to increase their performance by abusing drugs, should make us more concerned about the consequences that will result from the legal availability of performance enhancers that genetic engineering provides. Gene Doping, ” the nontherapeutic use of cells, genes, or genetic elements to enhance athletic performance” (Simmons), makes it really hard to detect the use of performance enhancers when athletes are tested because it manipulates the cells in the body. This makes the job of the World Anti-Doping Agency, created by the International Olympic Committee to prevent unfair advantage, very difficult. Therefor with this improvement that Genetic Engineering provides, we stand a greater risk of loosing the essence of admiration for natural born talent in sports. We stand the chance of having athletics infested with athletes that posses abilities that are being enhanced. and finally we stand the chance of having a society that comprises of individuals that lack passion and integrity. A chaotic society that lacks hardworking individuals, but rather consists of a plethora of individuals that lack motivation and individuals with the perception that everything comes easy; they don’t have to try. This mentality creates a society similar to that of Brave New World and their perception of attaining happiness and fulfilment regardless of the by process through which it is attained.

Link to Articles

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-inequality-human-genetic-engineering-768

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453248/

3-D Printed Liver

Some people feel that the possibility of creating a human clone just as it was done in Brave New World is impossible. As unrealistic as all of this may seem to some people, “A San Diego start-up company called Organovo…managed to use 3D printing to generate a liver that lasts for 40 days”. The fact that scientists are able to generate a liver through the use of a 3D printer shows us how we are not so different from this dystopian entitie.

12 Bizarre Examples of Genetic Engineering

This link is very interesting because it shows some new and engaging examples of current genetic engineering feats. But as with everything, as some of the things the process can help with, our human ways to take advantage of technology could lead us to a dystopian society if this is taken too far.