Final Project

Stephanie Errigo
Final Project
Dr. Johns
4/18/09

“Life is not just a succession of events or experiences; it is the search for the true, the good, and the beautiful.” (Catholic.com) These are the words of Pope Benedict XVI. Don’t we all search for the true, the good, and the beautiful? We all have our own representations of the true, good, and beautiful. Some people may feel like the true, good, and beautiful may be found through designer babies or through other technologies that enhance our life span. Genetic engineering poses the threat of a lazy mundane society. No one will want to work for the things that we have for generations, such as jobs or even the grades that we earn in school. Everything will be the same, rehearsed, as if we were in some type of science fiction production where we are the characters who have no meaning in our lives. Why would we ever want our children to be born to our specific needs? Some people like Lee Silver may say we are heading in the right direction, but many people like me would highly disagree.

Religions and faiths such as the Catholic Church provide much argument in the support of my side, and they use not only faith but also much reasoning as a backing. Why the Catholic Church you may ask? It is one of the most widely practiced religions in the US, and it is also known for using many contradictions against many controversies. Bill McKibben is a person who would see it my way, but he is missing some parts of the Catholic side. McKibben has written on religious topics, not directly relating to designer babies, but they do apply to what I’m talking about.

It all boils down to what our views of morality are and how we feel a Utopian world would actually look like in our own minds. Lee Silver and I would have totally different views on morality and designer babies, but we may agree with parts of “the true, good, and the beautiful.”

Lee Silver is a professor of microbiology at Princeton University and he basically figured out the whole genome for the mouse. Scientists like Lee strive to find the truth. Someone whom has climbed to the top of the ladder at Princeton University obviously didn’t get there by finding false information. To him the truth may be found by scientific evidence that proves a point or gets him further up the ladder, and I also believe that he is quite correct in that way.

To me, the truth could be many more things than just scientific evidence. I feel like sometimes the truth can’t be found by evidence, but by what you find out by everyday life experience. I can learn things not just by looking under a microscope or looking at strands of DNA day after day. I feel like more things can be found that are true right out in our own backyard. This is not to say that I don’t appreciate science or by any means am a Luddite, but I just feel that not everything can be solved by science. Silver and I would both agree that the search for the truth is ongoing and that it can be found through evidence and through everyday life experiences.

The good and beautiful is another subject when it comes to Silver and I agreeing. Lee Silver might use his scientific mind to come up with an explanation of what he thinks is indeed beautiful, but it’s very hard for me to even consider his side of the argument when I’ve formed my own opinions completely opposite of what he thinks. Silver may see that the good and beautiful hold the key to a Utopian society. In his book Challenging Nature, he states, “Slowly, inevitably, human nature will remake all of Mother Nature in the image of an idealized world that exists within our minds—which is what most people want subconsciously.” (Silver, xvi) Now I know you can’t search your own subconscious because it is considered what is “under the surface” in your mind, but in my conscious mind I can’t see any part of me wanting to shape this world into what Silver feels is so-called “Utopian.” That quote makes me think that we are all egocentric people who only care about ourselves and not the generations to come. It makes me think that we are in it to make the world better for ourselves, and ourselves alone.
Silver envisions a world without disease, a world where there is no worries, and even a world where we pick our children’s sex or what they are good at. To some this may sound like a perfect world where everyone lives the American dream and becomes just what they want to be, but I see the total opposite. I don’t feel the world is meant to be this way and I feel as though it is totally unnatural in all too many ways.

Designer babies are the biggest debate that many people in genetics face these days. Is it alright that we let parents decide what sex of baby they have or be altered to be the next Chopin? I think not. Too many things would go wrong with designer babies, too many things that can’t even be covered in this paper in entirety. The biggest problem, though, would be the problem of creating a lazy, dangerous, and mundane society of people.

Many people could see this as being beneficial in our society, but what about our kids? With genetic engineering we are shaping the future for our kids, we aren’t letting them figure that part out for themselves which I feel isn’t fair. Our parents didn’t make us how they wanted us to be by altering our genetic material. They may have done it in other ways, but they definitely didn’t go to the petri dish and start mixing ingredients of different DNA to get what we are today. This is just the start, but we have to look at the laziness and carelessness that this would create.

When we think about the creation of designer babies we must also think about the elimination of most diseases. This would cause a chain of bad events to happen. If we knew we couldn’t catch a disease and our children couldn’t be born with defects, we would be more daring and willing to do things that we wouldn’t normally do in today’s society. An example may include a pregnant woman engaging in risky activities such as smoking and drinking. We may also engage in these risky behaviors even if we aren’t pregnant. I’m not saying that all risk is bad, but if we drink all the time without the risk of our liver going bad, we wouldn’t stop and think about what we are doing to our bodies because it wouldn’t matter. Same thing goes for smoking, if we can grow another lung; why not smoke anything that we can and all the time? Can you imagine living in a world where everyone smokes and drinks and engages in other risky behaviors because science gave them that privilege? Some people would not see being drunk or smoking a lot would really be all that bad, but we have to think of the adverse effects that would come of this. Silver may have never envisioned this as being an impact of his “Utopia,” but it is definitely real. If people are able to get the euphoria from drinking and not feel the effects, they may also feel like they could drive a car being under the influence which would lead to more deaths of innocent people who don’t engage in these behaviors. Peer pressure would play into this also because no one would have to worry about their life ahead of them as far as disease goes. Where would the non-smoking and non-drinking education get us? Probably nowhere, because why would anyone care? The loss of disease could be seen as a good thing, but people never think of the bad effects that go along with this.

The threat of genetic mutations can also occur from the manipulation of the DNA. Even if we do indeed find a cure for a disease, whose to say that it won’t cause a mutation of genes later on or further problems? Many diseases such as Parkinson’s could be eradicated, but what if it caused something worse to happen as a result of the cure? I’m glad that I live in this era because I don’t think I could sit back and watch people throw their morality out the door. So where does the mundane part come into play?

The loss of the individual would come with becoming a mundane society. Goodbye Micheae Phelps and Ludacris, hello rapper #19 and great swimmer #163. I personally like that I have certain things that I’m better at than others, and that I’m not the greatest at everything in my life. It gives me something to work for. Why take that away from me when I’m happy with the way I am? Maybe insecurity within parents has something to do with this whole situation. Parents feel as though they didn’t do well in their lives so they want their children to. That brings me to another question, “What happens when all the designer children find out that they were designed to be the way that they are”?

Personally, if I found out that I had been genetically engineered to be the way I am today, I would be extremely angry. I would want to break out of the mold that had been assigned to me and start doing things that aren’t programmed into my DNA. The thing is, you wouldn’t be able to get out of the mold that you were put into. As far as this goes, McKibben provides a good example in his book, Enough. He states, “If you’ve been designed and programmed to run, what meaning can running hold? It becomes an endless round on a treadmill, except that the treadmill is inside you—you take it out in the woods when you run on a trail, and onto the beach when you run beside the breakers.” (McKibben, 55) Bill McKibben provides much opposition to Silver and backs my point of view for the most part.

McKibben once said, “Genetically engineering our children would be the worst choice human beings could ever make.” (Allen, 2007) Some people may say that he could only be saying that to make people happy on the Catholic standpoint, and that came from a Catholic magazine, but obviously deep in his heart he truly feels it would be a mistake, not for only one reason, but for many reasons which he details in his book. Another point that I also feel McKibben would agree with me on would be that the creation of designer babies would lead to people not respecting life anymore. Many people criticize the Catholic church for their stance on designer babies and contraception and other topics, but what people don’t realize is that the Catholic Church can provide not only opposition to issues, but they can add good opposition. An archbishop once said, “Human life is not a commodity; a baby is not a product; an embryo is not a cluster of exploitable cells.” (Zenit, 2004) This is a perfect quote to point out that “a baby is not a product.” Yes, this may be coming from a representative of the church who is obviously pro-life in all aspects of the word, but we all know that a baby is not a product. Whatever religion we may or may not be shows us that we should respect life. People can argue over and over where it may begin or what it means to respect life, but with designer babies we would lose all parts of it by mainly the fact of people would use the risks I mentioned earlier to no longer see their body as something to respect which could lead to other problems in society.

To many people the things I described above may be nothing that they care about or care to think about, but I see no beauty or good in that. Even though our world has many flaws and disease, there are good and beautiful things that we often miss. On dictionary.com, there are 58 definitions of the word “good”. One includes, “morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious” (dictionary.com). To me, the good can be seen in more ways than one, and this definition provides what I think is the best fit definition for the word good. You can experience the good through your friends, family, or even through strangers. If you’ve had a really bad day or a spot of depression, you know that there is always a person that cares about you and are willing to help you and be there for you. To me this shows the good in society. The good can also be seen through accomplishments that you make. Earning a college diploma or getting a job because you are the one who is best fit for it is good. Also, you never know when someone you don’t even know could be of help to you and show you the good in the world.

Beautiful is another story. On dictionary.com, the first definition for beautiful includes, “having beauty; having qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to hear, see, think about, etc.; delighting the senses or mind (dictionary.com). Some people like Silver may see beauty as the things I described above, but I would not even consider those things being anywhere near to what I consider beautiful. I would personally use the definition above to describe my vision of what beautiful looks like, especially the part about delighting the senses or mind. Beauty can be found on this earth already, everyday- we just have to find it. When I walk down the street I feel like there are millions of things that can be considered beautiful such as people, flowers, cars, or even the buildings that line the streets. This can vary for many people considering how you are feeling that day or what your outlook on life is, but I think we can all agree that even with everything that goes on in the world today there are still very many things that can be considered beautiful.

In conclusion, we shouldn’t see what Silver sees as beautiful or good for many reasons. From the creation of a lazy, mundane society to the elimination of the respect for life, if we don’t stop and think about what too much technology will do for future generations we are in for some real problems. We don’t want our children to lose the sense of being individuals. Neither do we want people to go around doing crazy things to not just their bodies to hurt themselves, but also to hurt others. The world we live in may not be the greatest, but we have to realize that some things are better left unchanged.

We all have our own visions of the true, good, and beautiful and some may seem more beautiful to you or me, than to others. Whatever we see as good and beautiful shouldn’t include the installation of designer children. Pierre Auguste Renoir once said, “The pain passes but the beauty remains.” (www.wisdomquotes.com) I think we can take from this that what we have in the world today is beautiful and good and having the pain that humans experience everyday passes, and what is beautiful will stay through those hard times. The beauty is here and so is the good and true. We just need to remind ourselves of where they are, and how it’s not through making false beings.



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