Philosophy Paper on ‘It’s Time to Question Bio-Engineering’ by Paul Root Wolpe
From the 19th century, the advancement in different areas of technologies has developed progressively. Human beings have built different machines to make daily tasks easier and faster. In addition, various inventions have emerged across the world. These innovations are very common particularly in bio-engineering which involves science and technology applications to improve various principles in biology and medicine. Bioengineering has and is in the lead of the recent efforts in the study of medicine and biology. What one of it aims is to address the main challenges in public health and industrial activities. With these improvements in bioengineering, the ethical ideologies and values are not observed. Much of the activities in the areas of biotechnology are against the moral principles. In the speech, ‘‘It’s Time to Question Bio-Engineering’‘ Wolpe discusses issues concerning bio-engineering. Wolpe tries to describe the different improvements of bio-engineering and scrutinize the ethical ideologies and consequences of it.
Wolpe begins his talk by discussing the evolution and civilization of a man from Darwin discovery. He then demonstrates to his audience various experiments from healthy-looking pets to mice that have genetically fixed up to grow the human ear. Wolpe fascinates the audience by showing images of different animals which have been selectively bred. For instance, he shows a picture of Zeorse which is produced from zebra and horse, geep from sheep and goat, liger from lion and tiger, and cama from camel and lama. From his comments, Wolpe argues that it’s the scientists have created some of these new species to entertain us. Wolpe also touches on genetically modified foods available in markets without labels and identification and people consume them daily.
In summary, from Wolpe speech, much of the developments in bio-engineering are putting the burden on our environment as well as our bodies. He concludes his speech by asking questions regarding bio-engineering as well as observations of ethics. He adds that we are creating and manipulating creatures the way we want with no ethical guidelines. In my opinion, what Wolpe intends to suggest at the end of his speech is that we should not take control of our evolution and dictate the future of species living on earth. Wolpe desires that we all take responsibility for our activities