Age Retardation - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 221

biologists because it is easy to grow in the laboratory, every cell division from the
fertilized egg through the adult worm is mapped in time and place, and its entire
genome containing about twenty thousand genes (roughly the same number as in
humans) is sequenced.
8. This reflects a long-term trend in the improvement of computer hardware
known as moore's law: the number of transistors that can be included in an in-
tegrated circuit, relatively inexpensively, doubles about every two years, allow-
ing comparable rates of increase in processing speed and memory capacity.
9. Jonathan haidt (2006), a moral psychologist at the University of virginia,
is a leading thinker in this area. he claims evidence for five pillars of moral be-
havior that natural selection gave to us during our evolution as social creatures:
care, fairness, loyalty, respect, and purity.
10. entropic doom is the logical fate of the universe due to the second law
of Thermodynamics, which requires that every energy transformation results in
increased disarray of the universe, provided that the temperature remains above
absolute zero. The Third law of Thermodynamics states that absolute zero is un-
attainable. A common misunderstanding of the second law is that processes like
evolution and embryonic development, which show increasing order, disobey the
second law. This is not true, since evolution and development and other order-
producing activities like building construction occur at the expense of order in
the universe at large. for example, highly ordered molecules in food and gasoline
are burned in the process of constructing a cathedral or an individual, and the
disarray created by burning to obtain energy is greater than the order achieved
by the carpenters, masons, and the developing embryo.
sources for Additional information
About.com. 2009. “Why We Age—Theories and effects of Aging.” http://
longevity.about.com/od/longevity101/a/why_we_age.htm (accessed septem-
ber 16, 2009).
Angier, n. 2006. “slow is Beautiful.” Science Times. New York Times, D1, Decem-
ber 12. This article tells about turtle longevity, physiology, and reproductive
beh av ior.
Benecke, m. 1998. The Dream of Eternal Life: Biomedicine Aging and Immortality. new
york: Columbia University Press.