Is Science Moving Too Quickly? :: Technology Essays

Is Science Moving Too Quickly? Before when I heard the word science the first thing came to my mind was human cloning. However, recently I started thinking deeper toward this issue. Before, I thought everything about science is unnatural. Scientists are going against God and Human nature. After reading Bishop's and Rifkins's articles my view changed toward science completely. By comparing and contrasting these great scholars, science made more sense to me. In 1995 J. Michael Bishop wrote an article deploring the detractors of scientific advancement and exploration. Likewise, in 1988 (republished in 1998) Jeremy Rifkin wrote an article warning of the dangers of advances in the science of biotechnology and calling for caution in that area. Both men agree on several issues but disagree on many more. The credentials of both men are very different. J. Michael Bishop, a professor of microbiology at UC San Francisco, as the result of "a seemingly obscure observation" (Bishop 239) regarding a virus that causes cancer in chickens, has won a Nobel Prize for identifying genes that are involved in the genesis of human cancer. Jeremy Rifkin is a well-known, well-written, informed, respected social activist, a not-for-profit watchdog for Everyman. Both men mention religion. Bishop is annoyed over having to re-fight battles with "religious zealots" like those who press for the teaching of creationism despite the finding for Darwin's theory in the Scopes trial. Rifkin appeals to them: Human-authored creation could lead to a "laboratory-conceived second Genesis" which could then lead to a "biological Tower of Babel and the spread of chaos throughout the biological world, drowning out the ancient language of creation" (Rifkin 245). Bishop is probably more scientifically knowledgeable overall. However, in the article he makes an interesting point unintentionally not in his favor, regarding scientific ignorance. "[Many adult Americans] do not even know that the Earth circles the Sun" (Bishop 241). Recently, "a prominent member of Congress betrayed his ignorance of how the prostate gland differs from the testes" (Bishop 241). Bishop also says that even scientists do not understand each other. After "laboring mightily" to make a text understandable by the readers of Scientific American, (a magazine not for the uneducated), he was dismayed by the comment of a "solid-state physicist of considerable merit" who asked him, "What exactly is a gene?" (Bishop 242). Likewise he reports that 23 geophysicists could not distinguish between DNA and RNA; a Nobel Prize winning chemist had never heard of plate tectonics; and biologists who thought string theory might have something to do with pasta.