AP+Group+6

//After having read/viewed your respective source material, you should conduct your team debate using the DISCUSSION tab above. Click on the NEW POST link, give your post a subject name, and then type your comment. You will be able to click into the various post headings and reply to each other's comments. Feel free to make as many post categories as you feel necessary, considering the scientific, philosophical, and theological elements of your various scientific controversies. Each group member should post and respond to member posts on a daily basis.//

//Once you have reached a team position (not necessarily a consensus), click the EDIT button on this page and type your team's position in the space below the line. After finalizing your group position statement, please complete the project evaluation survey by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.//

**Type Team Position Here: Eric Acra - Gerontology, Mark Acra - Synthetic Life, Mackenzie Bond - Fossil Fuel Extraction**

 * When it comes to the question of whether the ends justify the means, in terms of science, the answer is yes, as long as those means do not damage the world and those in it. **


 * Science is responsible for many great things in this world. Unfortunately, it is also responsible for the many terrible things in this world. Environmental distress, species annihilation, moral issues: these are some of the things that science has created. However, Science has also fixed all of these issues in one way or another. Like all things, science can and will be misused, and it is being misused. For example, if you take a look at the practices of fracking, you see companies mining through the earth to get the resources they need and end up creating these so called “wastewells” by dumping excess water into the earth, causing plates to become satiated and slip creating frequent small-scale earthquakes. This is just one example of how science is being used in a way that is detrimental to our planet. Going further with this idea of how science harms the environment, if we look at the amount of resources being removed from the ground and from the seas, both biological and non-biological, we see that there is a quickly depleting stock for our use. Without a proper way to keep the big companies in check and stop them from misusing the science of technology, we will face imminent demise. **


 * When looking beyond the Earth to the animals that inhabit it, we will find apes and various other animals being taken for scientific testing. This is a concept that has always been subject of disapproval by many in the public. However, the purpose in which we take these creatures is just; curing diseases such as Alzheimer’s would be an amazing feat and may eventually even lead to enhanced genetic memory storage or cognitive growth in humanity. With an enhanced intelligence humanity could do wonders to help this world, but we mustn’t breeze past the morality of what we do to the test animals. We must keep ethical standards in our minds in order to ensure that we treat living organisms with respect and do not create a slave species whose soul purpose is to serve humanity’s wants, which has been something that has been contemplated. However, this same token of keeping ethical standards in line when dealing with living organisms goes even further past just animals, it extends to all the environment and even to man-kind. **


 * If we find better ways to use our earth’s resources so that we do not harm the environment and we can sustain ourselves, then that would be fantastic and an ideal situation. This can only be achieved through the use of science, however. Even extending it to humanity, if we look at the moral implications of what gerontologists study, we come face to face with the question of whether or not living longer is a good idea and what the consequences may be. If science wants to make it so we live even longer than we already do, then the question comes of “Who gets to live forever?” comes up. With that question we agains come to the point of science being good only if it does not cause harm. If we say that only the rich and those who can afford it can live forever, then we come to an ethical dilemma by pushing the poor into a state of even less social standing than they already are. However, if we make it available to everyone, then we have a very good thing, at least at its face value. In truth, the far reaching effects of a scientific breakthrough like that are never really known until we are right in the middle of it. **


 * Theres always going to be drawbacks to everything. Science messes things up but it fixes them or at least always strives to fix them. Science strives to do good, its just sometimes it hits a few bumps in the road and crosses some ethical boundaries. However, when we look at science as a whole, not everything should be done. Should we continue fracking, probably not. However, should we find a way to improve it and make it better so that it does not hurt the environment or we do not use it at all, definitely. Even when we go to gerontology, is it a good idea to make us live 1000 years? It seems like a good idea, but only in the right circumstances. With synthetic life, some parts of it are good, like growing organs or regrowing them if they are damaged, but should we make creatures just to serve us or to do what we deem their purpose to be? That is on the far side of crossing ethical boundaries. Science does great things and always strives to do more, its just that we need to have certain checks against it so that the means to the end do not mess the world and all that is in it along the way. **

Project Evaluation Survey