It's What's Next!

Relax. It's a "photoshop" picture. I got this picture from a random Google image search and it was part of an article about scientists who are using bioluminescence with the wings of insects to better understand how certain genes work. The article said light-heartedly that this may have the potential to be used for advertising but of course this has not happened...

...yet.

I named this entry "Next" after Michael Crichton's relatively new book with the same title, which I recently finished reading. It's an interesting read, a novel essentially about the potential absurdity our playing with genetics can lead us to. In one part he describes a board room setting in a large corporation, and a high-tech salesman selling the new billboard - the natural world. Turtles with glowing "BP" signs on their shells, Clown Fish with a "Shell" Logo. Don't get me wrong. There is plenty that we must and should learn about genetic manipulation for the sake of health and benefit, however I think most of you agree that if it ever comes to advertising on the natural landscape, a sacred line will have been crossed. Or will you?

Humanity, at least those of us leading or aspiring to lead Western life styles (which is the majority of people in the world), has become so awed by itself as of late. During the rise from the black morass that was the Dark Ages, many were disillusioned by the corruption of the Church and the internal religious wars. Simultaneously, Descartes, Newton and eventually Darwin, dealt the death blow to the world view of the old and the inept. The old view of the world in the West, the mix of the Church's literalistic interpretations of scripture and Aristotle's understanding of the natural world (provided by St. Thomas Aquinas, who was influence by Ibn Rushd) was torn apart. On the rise was the new science, a new way; and more knowledge of how our world worked meant more control over it.

But we became and are still so mesmerized by our ability to create new technologies and control our world to whatever ends, we forgot to ask important questions. The one that is most often thrown about in vain afterthought is, just because we can do it, does it mean we should? We forget about this and other questions, and so while I would hope that we would never allow the above to happen, my fear is that it just might, and we might be so far gone at that point that it will just seem like the natural course of things.