Living with Frankenstein?

Topic:
Frankenstein continues to occupy the popular imagination as a monstrous scientist. Analyse some of the ways in which Frankenstein haunts discussions of recent technologies.

Frankenstein was created by a scientist by using dead animal organs, corpse limbs and dead brain to build its body. It was revived by lightning which violated the natural order to create a life form. It became a monster and had its freewill to find means to meet its ends. It had its own thought to kill his creator and became a killer. This idea was developed in the 19th century from the book written by Mary Shelley. From then on, human beings became doubtful to the development of technologies and aroused a lot of worries about new technologies.

Technophobia can be defined as the fear and dislike of technologies by human beings. No one can consider or bear the consequences brings to our world towards the development of technologies. According to the article titled “Frankenstein in the University,” the author mentioned that in modern days, we are encountering technologies in a daily bases. Although, we think that we can fully control our technologies, there are still a lot of uncertainties. For example, we do not know when our computer will break down and cause data loss. As we are now relying so much on technologies, there is a fear of technological determinism. It means that technologies could determine our lives and it also means that we could not survive without technologies. The author used online distance learning and software as examples to elaborate his point of view. The operation of an online course and information system require the use of technologies. If the technologies become unavailable, the operations will halt. To put it into our daily lives, for example, to cure serious illness, we have no alternatives but to rely on technologies to fight against disease and survive. It could easily put us into a dilemma between technophobia and reliance of technology.

An article written by Shari Popen titled “Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein’s Problem” mentioned about the fear of development of new technologies. In this article, the author points out that the use of technologies is having goods and bads. First of all, the article is about the changing of our identity and the replacement of human labors by cyborg technologies. Secondly, the writer concerns that human beings are now highly depend on technologies and not care about how technologies have shaped our lives. And, therefore, a series of questions are asked by the author which are concerning the technologies, for example, the development of artificial intelligence(AI) which allows computer to think. If computers really thought and human were not paying attention to them, it created risk because computers could have dominated our planet and human could extinct. Then, the development of technologies might be similar to the science fiction genre film Terminator which was a story in the 1980s showing the machineries dominated the world and sought human as their major enemy. Such concerns are not ungrounded as we could not fully control our new technologies and we do not know the consequences of such development. The cloning technology can be an example as it creates a lot of questions.

Dolly the sheep was the first successfully cloned mammals and she was announced to the world in 1997. From the two articles titled: “Experts detail obstacles to human cloning” and “Re-Engineering the Human: New Reproductive Technologies and the Specter of Frankenstein,” both mentions about Dolly the Sheep as an advance in human bio-technology. However, there is a question on her age because she was cloned from the cell of a mature sheep. Her genes may automatically program her age as a six years old mature sheep which was the same as the mother sheep. The US Government had quickly response to this issue and recommended law should be enforced to prevent the abuse of cloning technology. From then on, Genetic engineering then becomes an important issue discussed by scientists. Many scientists are arguing about the cloning of human. Most of them reject the cloning of human as cloning violates the natural order as the cells of the clones are identically the same as the originally existing person. It creates a moral problem. Moreover, the development of the clones has had a lot of uncertainties because scientific experiments could not foresee the consequences. Only one question was answered when Dolly the sheep died in 2003 in her early age proved that there were a lot of unexpected results in cloning.

Although, the cloning of human is restricted, the artificial creation of animals is still carrying on. In the article by Dr. Wayne Garland which titled “FRANKENSTEIN FOOD – SEND IN THE CLONES” talks about the concern of eating cloned animals and their products. The meat and the milk of cloned animals are claimed to be as normal as the naturally born animals. However, environmentalists are saying that the consequences of eating cloned animals are unpredictable and hazardous without any scientific prove. Also, animals’ welfare organization blamed the cruelty of creating cloned animals through scientific method because it sometimes creates deformed organisms. Moreover, consumer should have their rights to choose what they eat. If they are really concern about eating cloned animals, they should have a choice. Therefore, it is necessary for the manufacturers to label the food that comes from cloned species.

There are counter arguments which promotes cloning and new technologies. As the world is facing population explosion, the shortage of food becomes a critical problem. It can be solved by modern technologies, for example, the massive use of fertilizers and pesticides or development of the genetic food to increase farm production. From the article by Alan Caruba which titled “The Advocates of Technophobia” claimed that early technologies development could create a lot of concerns. He used electricity as an example. In his article, he mentioned that the invention of electricity was beneficial to human. However, it was not used massively when it was very first developed because people were afraid of it. It is mainly due to the work of Frankenstein. So, we are now in the same situation. The environmentalists who blame on the use of modern technologies in food production, such as genetic food, are the result of science fiction and created technophobia towards new technologies. In my point of view, science fiction does not create technophobia. Technophobia is a product from human uncertainty towards the future. To further explain, it means that if we know the consequences of such technologies, there will be no obstacle when applying them to our daily lives.

To conclude, Frankenstein was an idea developed in the 19th century. It was the first idea which showed human phobia towards technologies. Although, people were afraid of creating a Frankenstein in the reality, it did not really haunting the development of technologies. In modern days, technologies are developing as fast as they could, such as cloning. We can see that Frankenstein is not haunting our technological development. And, because of Frankenstein, human beings are more aware during technological development to prevent any terrible mistakes and utilize resources to control new technologies.


References:

"Frankenstein in the University -- Campus Technology." Campus Enterprise Networking & Infrastructure -- Campus Technology. .

"Experts detail obstacles to human cloning - News Office." MIT. .

Bloomfield, Brain P., and Thoe Vurdubakis. "Re-Engineering the Human: New Reproductive Technologies and the Specter of Frankenstein." World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. .

Caruba, Alan. "The Advocates of Technophobia by Alan Caruba -- Capitalism Magazine." Capitalism Magazine - Individual Rights are the Moral Basis of Society. .

Garland, Wayne. "FRANKENSTEIN FOOD." Manataka Home Page. .

Popen, Shari. "Thinking Though Technology: Frankenstein's Problem." Viterbo University..