Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

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In competition with Pauling were two researchers in England, Francis Crick and James Watson. Ultimately, they were able to show that DNA is a double helix, with two strands of biopolymers on the outside and pairs of nucleotides on the inside. The four nucleotides form base pairs such that each step on the twisted ladder is made up of either adenine and thymine or guanine and cytosine. Because they bond in only those pairs, you can split the ladder and peel the biopolymer chains apart such that one member of the base pair stays bonded to the chain, and the other side of the chain can be re-created in a completely unique way, thereby restoring the complete information held by the molecule. The information is the template for protein creation. The encoded sequence directs the creation of proteins that perform the needed functions in the body that give rise to phenotypic properties, the observable traits. In this way, the instructions are replicated into every cell, and that is the basis of heredity. Although the standard picture of reality has humans imbedded in it as free beings, there has always been a degree of determinism allowed. There are some properties that are not purely a matter of will. We may want to be taller, but wanting will not effect change. We may want a different singing voice or a different level of mathematical ability, but that will not happen. It is later in life when we discover these lacks and talents. What accounts for them? Traditionally, the answer is seen to be one of two mutually exclusive possibilities: nature or nurture. The genetic revolution Sickle-cell anemia is a molecular disease. Those who have it are biologically determined to have it. There is no choice and no escape. What makes you who you are is your unique genetic code. Your uniqueness as an individual is not your biography, your decisions, or your memories; it is your sequence of genes. 106
This picture of illness is quite different from the one we had for centuries. Many health problems are the result of interactions with the environment, and in these cases, you cure the illness by repelling the invader. But with genetic ailments, the problem isn’t that the person is being made sick by something; it is the person who is, in essence, the problem. Illnesses are necessarily bad, and if the illness is the result of the genetic code, then the code is bad. But the code is the person; thus, the person is bad. If our job is to alleviate sickness of every sort, then we will need to eliminate genetic-based diseases by done by preventing those who have that code from becoming a part of the gene pool. This was the central doctrine of the movement called . The term today has a deeply negative connotation because of events in the middle of the 20 th century, but the idea of social engineering was one that came from a desire to eliminate human pain. People with genetic diseases suffer. If we could act to minimize human suffering, we seemed morally required to do so. In this case, we cannot do anything once the person is born; thus, our ethical obligation begins before birth. Everyone who is born with a as a human, and that detriment is not their fault; it is ours. It is our moral failing that we allowed that unsuccessful life to come into being. Eugenics was not a dastardly plan to create perfect people but, rather, a movement to minimize human suffering. Eugenics sought to eliminate genetic diseases from the human population by making sure there were no more carriers in the population. But what exactly do we mean by the term disease? Is a disease a condition that shortens lifespan? What about debilitating conditions that cause pain or deformity but do not kill the person before the natural lifespan concludes? Should we think of disease as any 107
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Topic Philosophy & Intellectual His
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Steven Gimbel, Ph.D. Professor of P
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Table of Contents LECTURE 11 Dark M
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Table of Contents SUPPLEMENTAL MATE
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: I and technological a
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This question allows us to turn fro
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The study of reality is what philos
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Semmelweis noticed that the inciden
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ut sometimes, even after checking t
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. The Matrix. We don’t believe
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Wisdom comes from rejecting the imp
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Thus, Aristotle’s prime mover, th
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Aristotle had said that an object
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For centuries, mathematics was cons
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th century, the Russian mathematici
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had turned their attention to logic
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Abbott, . Bell, Men of Mathematics.
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Scientists thought that the physica
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H. A. Lorentz had found, when you a
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Thinkers as far back as Gottfried L
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E grounds. First, the prin
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If you woke up tomorrow in a small
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speed up going in and slow down com
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Is it true that a difference that m
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Einstein thought, there would be lo
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Scientists largely hated this idea,
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If Gamow and Alpher’s work was ri
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Although physicists at the end of t
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In the 19 th century, there was the
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In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell publis
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The idea of a large central mass at
Page 63 and 64: We know, however, that for a given
Page 65 and 66: whether light is a particle or a wa
Page 67 and 68: is a particle, then the slits would
Page 69 and 70: One of the early results of quantum
Page 71 and 72: eams, we also knew that there were
Page 73 and 74: The hadrons are made up of quarks,
Page 75 and 76: As the meaning of the physics began
Page 77 and 78: The demon is a being with a super-i
Page 79 and 80: ignoring certain elements, we can c
Page 81 and 82: One of the simplest fractal pattern
Page 83 and 84: Earlier, we talked about Thomas Kuh
Page 85 and 86: so greatly separated that no proces
Page 87 and 88: een able to form in that environmen
Page 89 and 90: Nicolson, . Panek, . Our theories
Page 91 and 92: Similarly, James Clerk Maxwell, in
Page 93 and 94: But as we move away from the pole,
Page 95 and 96: Great press has been given to a pot
Page 97 and 98: Some people take the idea of a theo
Page 99 and 100: see from CAT scans that when someon
Page 101 and 102: Because we are just atoms, we, too,
Page 103 and 104: Would the randomness of quantum mec
Page 105 and 106: Aristotle thought that this world i
Page 107 and 108: If you select strange enough traits
Page 109 and 110: Although this aspect of the theory
Page 111 and 112: Darwin posited that children look l
Page 113: The key to understanding how we pas
Page 117 and 118: How much of who we are is determine
Page 119 and 120: inferred that the function of that
Page 121 and 122: a byproduct of mental illness, Freu
Page 123 and 124: With the genetic approach, we are w
Page 125 and 126: After Freud, psychology developed i
Page 127 and 128: experiences that are not our own, t
Page 129 and 130: Behaviorism was an attempt to make
Page 131 and 132: Psychology, which had begun as a se
Page 133 and 134: I th century, psychology had the lu
Page 135 and 136: part, in the group. To understand t
Page 137 and 138: acting in ways that showed a lack o
Page 139 and 140: has learned from the so-called barb
Page 141 and 142: led him to begin one of the most fa
Page 143 and 144: ules. We are now adult in our ethic
Page 145 and 146: In a contract-based relationship, y
Page 147 and 148: The study of psychology changed for
Page 149 and 150: Instead, we are a part of the world
Page 151 and 152: But it turns out that exposure to c
Page 153 and 154: Glickstein, . Lynch, . mean we
Page 155 and 156: But evolutionary psychologists Leda
Page 157 and 158: suited to solving these problems an
Page 159 and 160: As such, when we look at the innate
Page 161 and 162: In looking at reality, we can exami
Page 163 and 164: We see this also in the writings of
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one universal is crime. Crime is no
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To avoid such situations of anomie
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Historians create narratives that e
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Society is composed of individuals
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© Digital Vision/Thinkstock.
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The concept of race has long been a
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there are different combinations am
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Perhaps race is what Durkheim calle
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Gould, . Hernnstein and Murray, . K
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Slavery, for example, was a necessa
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Parsons’s picture is not the Marx
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In defeat, the smaller neighbors wo
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Economics became a science with the
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self-interest. Second, the large-sc
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Under the classical model, this sho
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How do we account for these effects
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If the star is large enough, when i
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© amenic181/iStock/Thinkstock.
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What environment on Earth could pro
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The possibility of life on other pl
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Our newfound alien interlocutors te
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Perhaps the best evidence for extra
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Mayor and Frei, . Morrison, Billing
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It has long been argued, however, t
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But the idea of using the body’s
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Although that seems worrisome, it i
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I equally much for how w
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The use of one’s DNA in creating
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With cytoplasmic transfer, the nucl
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Macintosh, . Given that multiple
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we could begin with the desired por
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The second step is trickier. Here,
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Aside from medical uses, we can alt
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We can now use medical technology t
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The problem here is that sometimes
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of disease and disorder. In America
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performance-enhancing drugs? We see
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Advances have led to hand-shaped ap
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Warwick then went a step further. H
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Scientists at MIT have taken DNA fr
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Computers can do many things, but c
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possible right answers. The machine
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player having a king and a pawn and
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If intelligence or sentience is an
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enable us to become a global villag
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engineers used their technological
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Another intriguing development on t
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In these lectures, we’ve seen tha
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leave messages or comments, and whe
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This ability of mothers doesn’t m
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But Einstein showed us that the rea
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Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. Linked: Th
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———. The Descent of Man: and
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Gilligan, Carol. . Cambridg
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Kramer, Peter. . New York: Viking
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eings that we are willing to act in
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Rothman, Sheila M. Medical Enhance
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———. . London: Century, 2002.
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