Playing God?

In the recent decades, we have seen medical technologies advance at an exponential rate. These advances will benefit a lot of people. But is it our place to possess these powerful tools?

If someone said there was a way biotechnology could give us the inability to feel cold or to have an artificial eye, they would probably come across as crazy. However, these things are both astonishingly possible.

Neurobiologist David McKemy has found a protein that, when blocked from the brain’s receptors, takes away the ability to sense cold. Brian Mech, the vice president of Second Sight (a medical device company), recently developed a bionic eye that is now FDA approved for people with lack of vision in an eye.

Medical and technological advances are not objects of the future anymore. They are here. There is no denying the benefits of implementing these methods into medicine, but many feel that we are playing God.

When we saw the famous cloning experiment where the first sheep “Dolly” was cloned into an identical version of herself, we could see definitively how far we had advanced. Does this qualify as “playing God?”

Anyone who lived through the campaign of former President George W. Bush will recall the big issue of stem cell research. This is another medical issue of much controversy where there were split opposing viewpoints.

Like most other things in life, medical technology must be practiced in moderation. Those who say we are playing God in advanced medicine can oftentimes be right. However, this does not mean we should abandon medical advancement.

Practices such as cloning animals, or for that matter, humans, is something almost unfathomable. Even a process more benign such as suppressing the ability to feel cold seems to be something out of a science fiction movie. These types of things yield a power with them that humans were not meant to play with.

If we utilize biotechnology on a more reasonable level though, there is no reason to prohibit the advancement of medicine. Even though we may never make human clones, it is the technological principles that are derived from that process and things like stem cell research that pave the way for other advancements, in this case in the area of genetics.

As we continue to broaden our understanding of the human body, which is in great part due to a comprehension of genetics and the origins and shaping of cells (this is where stem cells fit in), we can get closer to fixing disorders that are caused by malfunctions of certain cells.

Diseases such as cancer are caused by a malfunction of certain cells in the human body that, in a nutshell, are not programmed correctly. An understanding of the human genome and stem cells, which both tie into the functions and origins of all cells, can help doctors and scientists reprogram these cells so that they function correctly again.

Although this is just one area of medicine, this type of biological understanding is monumental in working to find a cure to numerous malignant diseases. All “mad scientist” experiments aside, technology focused on advancing biological understanding is only a good thing. It should be welcome.

“Biotech is so broad and is aimed to advance human health, food supply, or medical technology drug design. It’s a big driver of technology and the economy; it has big overlaps with healthcare,” said Dr. Geoff Church, a Health Professions Advisor at Fairfield.

Dr. Bill Taylor, Associate dean and Professor of engineering, said, “Engineering aims to help people in their daily life; it’s to help and serve others.” When asked whether biotechnology was too much for humans to handle, Taylor said, “I don’t know if you’re playing God, but you’re doing God’s work by making people healthy and assisting people. We are asked to serve others, that’s why we are at a Jesuit institution.”

In today’s society, there is technology in excess. We have to utilize these abilities. There are so many people who are affected by medical problems, we would be neglecting our responsibilities not to use technology to advance as much as we can in order to help.

We need to take full advantage of biotechnology and the abilities it gives us to aid people who need medical help. We are advancing in so many fields, and this is one area we need to put all of our effort into so we can increase our quality of life and safeguard the future of the human race.