AP+Group+5

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Type Team Position Here: Rachel Payne- Fossil Fuel Extraction, Veronica Engel- Synthetic Life, Jennifer Spencer- Gerontology

Modern science has developed the ability to go past the threshold of ethics regarding religion, the environment, and societal standards. Within the world, the use of fossil fuels is growing in popularity. However, the methods used to extract these fossil fuels are extremely detrimental. Is cheaper fuel worth shortening the life of the earth when we are, at the same time, trying to lengthen our own lives? Along with trying to extend our lives, scientists are trying to create more life in general to populate the earth. Humans’ self-indulgence is distracting from the fact that our attempts to make life better is disturbing the natural order of all living organisms. Nature is now forced to answer to the commands of man.

Scientific advancements are turning against religion and all around the world, God or gods have played important roles in the many civilizations that occupy this world. Humans have been inferior to God. In man’s dissatisfaction with their inferiority, they have pushed science further and further, trying to take on the role of God by determining life and death. Although science is not yet at the point of creating a whole new life, it is surely on its way and with its advancement many new questions about what is to far are arising. While creating new life definitely has advantages to it such as the creation of new vaccines and fuels and in some cases disease treatment testing, it also has potentially bad results, such as large-scale biological warfare, and mixed views towards it. For example, Craig Venter, founder of a company called Synthetic Genomics that is aiming to create new life. He says that the reason to create new life is to “create new species to do what we want them to do, not what they evolved to do” (Venter). Venter is saying that we should go against what the natural order of things to benefit ourselves and that is why so many people are against scientists “playing God.” Since God is a non-selfish being, when He creates life, it isn’t for self advancement, it is more for the creature itself. Meanwhile, when humans are trying to create life, we are just helping ourselves. The same motivation, greed, is why humans find reasons to sustain life. Sustaining life to extreme degrees, making humans immortal, for example, is an act of greed. God blessed humans with life and He as the creator has the right to take life away. By using God’s gift of science to turn against His will is an act of betrayal. Some scientists argue that Adam and Eve were meant to be immortal like God, so we should be made human. However, death was the punishment after the fall of man. God sent His son to die for mankind’s sins. After we die, we ascend into Heaven. We are meant to be put to death. Without death, God would have no purpose for Heaven and Hell. Humans being immortal would be turning down God’s gift of grace, which is immoral.

Not only is the advancement of science pushing morals, but it is mowing over environmental issues. Everything humans require to live comes from the environment around us and without it we would be doomed. Many scientists have chosen to ignore that fact and continue on with their own ideas, unmindful of the consequences to the basis of our lives. An example of scientists ignoring the negative consequences of their actions is the placing of human brain cells in primates. Professor Greene is one of many scientists who wish to do this cell placement in order to achieve goals such as disease treatment testing for illnesses like Alzheimer’s. While treatment would be a great outcome, what would be the price? The primates with the manipulated brain cells could end up more human and in a “kind of horrible between land” of human and primate (Greene). In order to improve humanity in one little way, scientists are willing to put another species into a kind of unsettling limbo. Those actions are an excellent example of selfishness that could one day lead to our demise. Handicapping animals is not the shake, it is the circle of life that science is creating. If scientists create immortal humans, overpopulation is a real concern. People never dying means no more room is left in this small world. Some scientists believe that there will be a loss of interest for having children. However, it is hard to assume that the world will stop reproducing. Reproduction is such a natural part of life. It is too hard to not only stop the nature of death but the nature of life too. In addition to not having room on Earth, the extensive change of the earth’s geology from fossil fuel extraction is physically limiting the amount of the earth we have to occupy. Through mountaintop removal and fracking, miners are taking part of the earth and disposing of it in harmful ways. For example, the waste wells for fracking, dispose of a great amounts of water where faults are common. This pressure put on the faults can cause earthquakes which can damage the earth’s surface in varying degrees depending on the magnitude, or strength, of the earthquakes. Also, as a clear violation of the Clear Water Act, mountaintop removal has warped the mountains into hills and has covered thousands of miles of rivers, valleys, streams, and other small bodies of water. This then limits the amount of water left to the people and animals of that area which, in return, causes a decrease in the population of both the people and animals. This domino effect has not only caused harm to the environment but has also warped societies views/standards of the effect it has on us.

Though advancements in science, societal standards have been warped through a twisting of humanity. The world is having an increase in divorce rates. A lifetime being with another person now, is considered to be a long journey that a lot are unable to endure. If humans become immortal, “‘til death do you part” with take on a heavier meaning. Marriages would be a promise made forever, but if marriages cannot last a normal length of a lifetime, an extended life would not make life any easier. One part of life that many people are fond of would be retirement. If people lied forever, would there still be a reason to have retirement? If everyone eventually retired, would there be any businesses be left running? Fossil fuel extraction, on the other hand, has posed the question of when will the people begin to realize the extent of the detrimental value these practices hold and will it be too late when they finally come to realization? Humans have been blinded and oblivious to the practices of mountaintop removal and fracking and only care that cheap coal is equivalent to cheap electricity. They figure if they are not directly affected immediately, nothing is going to happen in the future, but the increased amount of earthquakes and flooding due to these practices will eventually catch up with humanity and when this happens, where will everyone go? Are people really willing to risk and destroy the land around us, or are we just blinded by the present that we cannot look to the future value of fossil fuel extraction before it is too late?

In conclusion, the ends do not justify the means in sciences attempt to make life better or easier for humans. In attempt to create life and extended life through science, man is turning against God. God blessed humanity with many gifts, and through science, humans are telling God that they deserve better. This greed is destroying our religion. The environment is also being destroyed in attempts to extract fossil fuels. The constant pressure and change in geology in and on the earth has placed great problems not yet considered by society. Societal standards have been warped on the basis of science and this change has turned for the worse. People should be protecting humanity of what is morally acceptable in all ways including religious, environmental, and societal standards, but instead is gradually destroying the natural ways of humanity and the natural course of the life of all living beings/organisms.

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