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Type Team Position Here: Megyn Adkins - Synthetic Life / Kirsten Sovern - Gerentology / Allie Gartner - Genetic Engineering in Agriculture  The need to advance technology and science is a natural instinct for all humans, but the intentions behind these advancements aren't always for the right reasons. In certain cases, technology can be taken too far due to selfish desires and our pure curiosity. If used the right way, technology and sciences can outweigh the minor flaws and be beneficial to humanity as a whole. In today's world, technology has not gone too far, but there is a potential future of society plagued with detrimental issues and technology as the cause.  Technology is used for the advancement of humanity, but when used for selfish reasons, is there really any beneficial purpose to the world other than making life easier for humans? In our opinion, technology will be taken too far in the future if it's only advanced to help ourselves. In the case of synthetic life, scientists create these new forms of life simply for purposes of new fuel sources and new types of vaccines to keep humans safe. These beings aren't created to live on their own or to grow in themselves, they are created to help humans live an easy life. Dr. Venter says, "We decided that [by] writing new biological software and creating new species, we could create new species to do what we want them to do, not what they evolved to do." He's saying that we are creating these new forms of life so they will fill the purposes that we want them to, not what they were initially designed to. This makes it seem like humans are trying to play the role of God in these circumstances by creating new life and manipulating it to benefit themselves instead of our world as a whole. With Gerontology, scientists are trying to extend how long the average human lives. This scientific discovery doesn't really do any major benefits to mankind but keep more people alive on the Earth at the same time. When you think about it we already have the problem of world hunger. We don't have enough food to feed the people that are on the Earth today, How are we supposed to feed more people with food we can't even use to feed the population now? Also. where are all these people supposed to live? We are going to run out of room in our cities and are going to have to expand our cities onto our lands that we use to grow our food on. We aren't going to be able to feed more people on less land that we currently have now. Even though genetically engineered agriculture benefits humanity by providing food for large populations and managing resources used for our food sources, there are still harmful disadvantages that accompany it. Reyes Turado, Researcher at Greenpeace International in England, says " We don't really know what are the consequences of introducing these plants in the environment"(Turado). So in order to help the ever-growing population, we must be selfish and harm our environment which in our opinion, would have the potential in the future to take science too far.  Sometimes just because we can do something doesn't mean that it's ethical to do so. In Gerontology, humans are trying to chemically extend the lives of others. This act of controlling human life is an act that only God should have. That is a power that if it got into the wrong hands, someone could abuse it. Another reason why Gerontology is unethical is because with over population comes crowded residential areas. With so any people compacted into one tight area, means that it is easier for disease to spread. If over population is going to spread disease, that almost defeats the purpose of trying to extend the lives of others because people will be dying now from a different cause instead of from old age. This completely contradicts Gerontology and just causes another problem that could be avoided. There are a lot of bad things that could come out in the future from extending the lives of others now. In synthetic life, we believe that scientists do most of this experimenting based purely off of curiosity, not for the benefit of anything besides knowledge. For example, placing human neural cells into a primates brain is only used to see what it can do. It will most likely have a negative impact for the primate. Like Greene said, they will be stuck in a horrible between land where they can have normal interaction with their own species or with humans. This creates a bad situation for them and no benefit to either of us. So what purpose is there other than to satisfy our own curiosity? Some things are better left alone.

 Technology isn't taken to the extremes when it's used to solve problems for humanity instead of using it to benefit our every day lives. Genetically engineered agriculture, "which doesn't require as much fertilizer"(Adams) can help manage resources and provide a surplus of food for the population of the world that is growing rapidly each year. In this situation, advancing our technology to help grow a lot of food on a small amount of land at an affordable price brings advantages such as feeding our growing population. For certain countries this solution might be the only answer to their starving populations. So if genetically modified foods are used to help solve bigger problems than comforting a human's ever day life, is there really anything wrong with advancing these technologies for now? Synthetic life could be advantageous in ways that it still does create new fuel sources and vaccines. If used in the right way, these things could be advantageous for humans that need it and don't have as easy access to it as Americans would. New sources of fuel could save countries from the debt that they create for themselves by going through other bigger fuel sources. New vaccines can help humans with low immune systems survive and help keep diseases at a low. There is a benefit that could come from these new types of science and technology. These resources must be used in moderation though, because if they are used to a point where it's not good for the other forms of life that are involved, that's when humans are using them for strictly selfish reasons.  <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #111111; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Technology and science in today's world has not gone too far, but if scientists were to take the next few steps on the path that they are on right now, we could potentially be creating more problems than are necessary for a not so beneficial cause. Humanity will always focus on what's to be advanced next because we crave this desire to venture into the unknown and come out successful with the next big thing. So, has technology been taken to the extremes, past the point of chaos? No, it hasn't, but there is the possibility of issues springing up in the future due to selfish desires and pure human curiosity.

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