Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
an early and apparently forgotten response to what would come to be
called the “wisdom of repugnance” argument, Haldane observes that
every invention initially strikes us as abhorrent. “The chemical or phys-
ical inventor is always a Prometheus. There is no great invention, from
fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. But if
every physical and chemical invention is a blasphemy, every biological
invention is a perversion. There is hardly one which, on first being
brought to the notice of an observer from any nation which had not pre-
viously heard of their existence, would not appear to him as indecent
and unnatural.” But in time, these same inventions come to seem com-
pletely natural; what began as a perversion, ends “as a ritual supported
by unquestioned beliefs and prejudices.”
24
Mark Adams notes that “The Last Judgment” extends the account to
the far future. Whereas
Daedalus
only looks ahead 150 years, “The Last
Judgment” imagines that life on earth has been destroyed—the result of
humans' inability to envision the future. However, through ten thousand
years of controlled evolution, a small group is bred with the physical and
psychological characteristics required for colonization of Venus (which
had to be made habitable through the eradication of all its own life-
forms). The new race of Venusian humans in turn sped up selection to
the point where Venus could colonize other, more distant planets and
eventually other galaxies—a vision that inspired Olaf Stapledon to write
the influential
Last and First Men
.
25
Daedalus
created a sensation, selling almost fifteen thousand copies in
the United Kingdom in its first year, and eliciting diverse responses.
26
Perhaps the most prominent critic was philosopher/mathematician
Russell, whose
Icarus
appeared in the same series. (Icarus had been
taught to fly by his father, Daedalus, and was killed when he flew too
near the sun.) The chief point of Russell's short topic was “that science
will be used to promote the power of dominant groups, rather than
to make men happy.”
27
When it came specifically to eugenics, Russell
argued that reproductive decisions would ultimately be made by officials
to serve their own interests. Thus, governments would first acquire the
right to sterilize individuals and use this power “to diminish imbecility,
a most desirable object.”
28
But over time, the program would likely be
expanded to include rebels of all kinds (with opposition to the state taken
as proof of imbecility) and school failures (resulting in a probable
