Science is a strange and important thing. Science has been one of the many academic focuses that have helped to move our world forward throughout its history. This history of progress continues today and lately has become more rapid with more and more scientific breakthroughs happening every year. As a Microbiology major, I find these breakthroughs fascinating and needed. The Center for PostNatural History brought up some questions that I did not expect to consider the day that I walked in. When I first walked into the back room full of the exhibits I was hit with a sudden darkness. A rib-less mouse, an explanation of the domestication of dogs, an overweight mouse, and alcoholic rats are all included in this strange and dark room. As someone who has taken a lot of research methods and scientific processes for granted; this place gave me a different feeling than many of Biology or Chemistry classes gave me: Is science going in the wrong direction?
Throughout my whole life science has been lauded as righteous and progressive. Going into the Center of PostNatural History may have been the first time I questioned this attitude. Spatially theorist, Edward Soja, said that everyone experiences space partially based on their own prior experiences in his book Thirdspace. As someone who has barely ever questioned science's righteousness the PostNatural History space made me not want to believe what I was seeing. Why were we changing nature in such silly ways? It made me think about the morality of our own experimental process. How much have we done, and are we going to do that is inhumane?
The Center- A Look at the Past and Present
The Center for PostNatural History is used as a window to look at what humans have done in the past to change nature to help with our own trivial pursuits. One major point of contention in the science community is the use of animals as test subjects. The most popular types of animals are normally rodents like mice or rats. We use these animals in tests rather than other humans. While preliminary testing on humans is something no one should condone; testing on animals can still be considered inhumane by many people. Since we are using these animals in ways that are meant to solve our own problems, they become a reminder of humanity’s faults. The Center's curator, Richard Pell, wanted us to make sure we knew this by pointing out two of the museum’s exhibits that were on display during our visit.
The two exhibits that he showed us were an overweight and bald mouse, as well as a rat that had been given enough alcohol to become dependent on it, like an alcoholic. These animals have been changed into an image of our own vices. Obesity, baldness, and alcoholism are all problems that make humans insecure, and by using science we can transition these animals to have the problems we deal with. Richard pointed out how we have made these animals represent things we see wrong with humanity to try to help ourselves solve these problems. In a way, we have transferred an image of humanity into these animals. To me, this seemed cruel and to better ourselves, we, as humans are ready to go to any lengths to change the world around us. The world around us has not just been changed purposefully through experimentation though.
Other natural things have been changed by science, not just the animals we test things on, but also the natural environment. Silent Spring, written in 1962, by Pittsburgh native Rachel Carson details the harmful effects of the insecticide DDT on nature and people. While DDT was banned after the release of Silent Spring; we continue to use harmful chemicals to change the environment that harm it and us (Silent Spring). All these chemicals have been created in labs across the world with no regard for their future effect. The future of science is hard to predict, but a fork in the road seems to be coming up not far ahead.
The Fork in the Road
What if we begin to change ourselves? Through a lot of chemicals, we have already accidentally altered many of our normal functions, but what if we began to purposefully alter the way we are. The world of science has begun to do research into how to modify people at the genetic level. Using a tool called CRISPR genetic re-tooling is a very likely future. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and this tool along with another one called Cas9 is the basis for many experiments in genetics today (Questions about CRISPR). These are able to go into the human genome, turn off a specific gene, cut it out, and then replace it with the desired gene. This tool was originally used to test gene functionality, but current research shows that it may be able to replace "typos" (undesirable genes) in the genome. This tool presents both very desirable upsides, but some scary undertones.
On the positive side, many genetic diseases can be prevented by removing the causal gene before parents decide to have children. Honestly, to me, this is the only positive thing I can see coming out of genetic alterations. One big negative I see is that genetics is not that easy. Almost everything in genetics is very multi-faceted and while this tool is still new. I do not believe that it will be able to be used as simply as those promoting it say without consequences. My big concern with tools like this is the ability for parents to begin to choose what they want their child to look like. Indeed, this is already possible. In a video recorded by Vice, parents talk about choosing the sex of their child. This tool can be used to pick eye color and hair color too. Parents are able to choose around "undesirable" traits. This is beginning to toe a dangerous line. The genetic makeup of a human is very fragile, and small changes in the genome can drastically change who you are. An extra chromosome can lead to death or mental disabilities. Missing one protein can severely impact your health. Overall, messing with our genetic makeup could have severe consequences.
The Center for PostNatural History claims that it does not have its own ideology and that we are supposed to come up with our own ideas based off of their exhibits. My personal experiences there made me feel different about science and worried about where it is going. Maybe someday human specimens will be in the Center for PostNatural History.
What Can We Do?
While inherently a lot of this is not evil or inhumane, these techniques will soon change human nature. We need to take a look at the exhibits in the Center for PostNatural History as inspiration to do the right thing. Changing human nature is the direction science needs to be taking. Work in sustainability and ways to grow without changing ourselves need to be the focuses of science going into the future. I hope to do just that as I grow older.
Works Cited
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. The New Yorker, 1962.
“The Center for PostNatural History.” The Center for PostNatural History, www.postnatural.org.
“Couple Describes Choosing Sex of Their Baby.” Vice, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCPaxNUMRng.
“Questions and Answers about CRISPR.” Broad Institute, 20 Mar. 2018, www.broadinstitute.org/what-broad/areas-focus/project-spotlight/questions-and-answers-about-crispr.
Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Blackwell, 2014.