Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
policy makers that led to the changes in the size and functioning of the
RAC and in its relations with the NIH and the FDA. Yet when he turns
his attention to the future of human-gene-transfer research, Walters
endorses several steps that perhaps do not require a RAC but neverthe-
less call for procedures and duties that were very much like the RAC's
original tasks. His recommendations are in response to both the changes
in research funding and the now tragically obvious insufficiencies regard-
ing oversight of clinical research. These are reforms that must occur at
both the local and the national levels, and call for greater cooperation
and integration of these two levels. Walters remains convinced that the
regulatory opportunities of government can adequately identify limits
for genetic research and protect both research subjects and scientific
integrity. Much like Cahill, he relies on the fundamental authority and
goodness of the social nature of human beings to protect us from not
only the excesses of research process but also the vainglory of research
ambition.
Like Cahill and Winner, Walters is concerned primarily with the social
structures that will limit and guide genetic research. He seems confident
that proper procedures will allow for both adequate public discussion
of the direction such research should take and high ethical standards to
protect research subjects and the integrity of the research itself. Ideally,
science should be allowed to pursue its own research agenda, and to
ensure this, science must be protected from such nonscientific factors as
the market concerns of funding sources and the unabashed enthusiasm
of researchers.
Langdon Winner writes from a humanistic tradition suspicious of the
technological domination of nature and its more recent attempts to turn
modern techniques against humanity itself. His chapter “Resistance Is
Futile: The Posthuman Condition and Its Advocates” marvels not so
much at the fact that the dire predictions of the Jacques Elluls and Lewis
Mumfords concerning technology might still come to pass but that their
fulfillment is embraced by some with such enthusiasm and fascination.
While Winner admits that most of us have yet to join the chorus singing
the praises of a posthuman future, he is nonetheless troubled by the
potential influence the “scientific enthusiasts of posthumanism” might
wield in the not-too-distant future. With this in mind, he reviews for us
the latest literature in this genre, subjecting it to a searching critique. Of
