Introspective Exploration by Pierce Schiller - Computer Collection of Essays from Scholarship 2006 -Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

Pierce Schiller

Introspective Exploration
- by Pierce Schiller
School: Binghamton University
Major: Bioengineering
Year: Senior (with an additional year required)

The turn of the 21^st century has science taking a great leap into the biotechnological age. This advancement in organic comprehension can be attributed to the influential development we have witnessed in our computers. These powerful machines have made organization, manipulation and imitation of huge multidimensional data sets such as genomes possible. Our computing abilities can be held directly responsible for all the advancements we have made from medicines to theories. It will be the powerful modeling ability of computers that will most likely segway stem cells from the research stage to the mass market age.

Computers can be held responsible for making the research of stem cells possible. Everything from the high-tech microscopes to the interpretation of data relies on computers. It is because computers opened up such a viable possibility for stem cells that the controversy surrounding them began. Stem cell research is forcing the scientific community to reexamine the definition of life. What makes something alive, what defines exploitation, and above all else, what make us human are questions without easy answers. The debate continues today, as we dive ever deeper into "life" research, including stem cell studies, tissue engineering and nanobio-technology.

As electricity was in the 19th century, biotech research today is in the earliest stages of development. Researchers working in this area are still many years away from knowing all of the potential medical implications. While biotech research may one day supply us with treatments for the world's most devastating diseases, it likely will come with many ethical compromises. One source of controversy involving the whole industry is whether government funds can be used for projects such as stem cell research. Debates about this are slowing already time-consuming research. Currently, federally funded laboratories are restricted to the use of unwanted stem cells discarded as a by-product of in vitro fertilization. Although the government does not control private laboratories, most research facilities rely on some form of federal funding to continue their work. These laboratories must wait for the necessary resources and work with limited quantities of cells that might be of inferior quality. While California leads the nation in funding and number of research facilities, state funding for this type of research also has been the subject of debate in recent years. Looming legislative interference has many companies moving out of the country.

Much of the ethical difficulty surrounding embryonic stem cell research develops from the grey area involving the definition of when an embryo becomes a person, a. transition without any obvious definitions. It is generally accepted that the designation of person can be given to specific characteristics making up someone's identity. These characteristics can be broken down into five main categories: genetic, cognitive, moral, spiritual and legal. Each of these sub-identities is part of what defines a person, yet each identity forms at a different point in human development. From a purely genetic standpoint, identity is formed at the moment of fertilization. Moral identity is formed in the early stages of life, while cognitive identity, the ability to have conceptual and abstract thought, forms on a less defined time scale. Spiritual identity is chosen and defined by the individual. Legal identity is formed by those around a person, such as recognition by a state. Each of these identities helps define a person, yet there is no clear parameter delineating when one truly becomes an individual.

Although the threshold at which one becomes a person can be argued on archaic values, one can also approach the topic from a more modern perspective. As a species, we humans pride ourselves on our cognitive ability, citing it as the means through which we have risen above the rest of the animal kingdom. Therefore, we could use abstract thought as the basis for being a human person and the factor separating us from the other animals we so commonly exploit. When we define being a person as having this characteristic, we can define anything without it as being nonhuman. Embryonic stem cells are harvested when an embryo is no larger then a few hundred cells. Since it is impossible for anything composed of just a few hundred cells to have cognitive ability, these stem cells must not be a person.

We have come to a point in human evolution where many things never thought possible now are being accomplished. Certainly, stem cell research falls into that category. One moral issue raised with using embryonic stem cells involves the utilization of one life to potentially improve or augment another. The usefulness of growing biological entities for exploitation is something that our earliest ancestors realized. For the duration of our existence, humans have been farming and raising organisms. We have cultivated and domesticated endless numbers of organisms, mostly for their nutritional characteristics. We have oppressed to extinction those entities which have not helped us and propagated to extremes those who have. Without hesitation, we have utilized the resources around us without our fellow animals' consent. It is time to look introspectively. Is the practice of raising cattle or harvesting wheat for their cells so much different than the manipulation of a few hundred cells of a human organism? We seem to have little moral angst about modifying our environment, introspective manipulation isn't that different.

In society, enslavement of humans is looked down upon, but enslavement of animals is a system that we have created to our benefit. Moralists speak of the evils of harvesting embryonic stem cells because such a practice is enslavement of non-consenting cells. Some believe that because these are potentially human cells they should have a choice in the matter. Again, one can consider this argument in light of the modern definition of a human, anything with a coherent abstract ability. A few hundred cells can not have abstract thought and therefore are not human.

These ethical battles are still in their infancy. The technology of bioscience has been evolving since the first domestication of wild animals. Recent biotechnology innovations made possible through the great computing powers of today's processors are just the next steps on this evolutionary ladder. We have witnessed the growth of research with the potential to cure everything from Parkinson's to diabetes to cancer. At the same time, we have seen government intervention in our ability to cure what could be considered population plagues and have witnessed protests against the implementation of potentially useful knowledge on an unfounded basis. Biotechnology is the subject of prejudice despite the fact that it has shown great potential to be used as a powerful medical tool.

Technology has taken us from primitive cave dwellers to the modern civilizations of today. Computers have taken us from the botanists of yesterday to bioengineers of today. The biotechnological advances witnessed since the turn of the century hold spectacular promise for the future of medicine. The growth of gigantic industries focused on unraveling the world around us have provided us with clues and insights into what makes up much of the universe. The continuing improvement of computers will only speed up this process. As we evolve as a species and as a culture, further progress is sure to be made. Hopefully we will continue to deal with the ethical and moral concerns of manipulating nature on a realistic level.

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