The Science of Human Perfection

The Science of Human Perfection

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  • Author: Nathaniel Comfort
  • Publisher: Yale University Press
  • ISBN: 0300188870
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 371

Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues that cast troublesome shadows over these fields./divDIV DIVKeeping his focus on America, science historian Nathaniel Comfort introduces the community of scientists, physicians, and public health workers who have contributed to the development of medical genetics from the nineteenth century to today. He argues that medical genetics is closely related to eugenics, and indeed the two cannot be fully understood separately. He also carefully examines how the desire to relieve suffering and to improve ourselves genetically, though noble, may be subverted. History makes clear that as patients and consumers we must take ownership of genetic medicine, using it intelligently, knowledgeably, and skeptically, lest pernicious interests trump our own./div


The Case against Perfection

The Case against Perfection

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  • Author: Michael J Sandel
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • ISBN: 0674043065
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 177

Breakthroughs in genetics present us with a promise and a predicament. The promise is that we will soon be able to treat and prevent a host of debilitating diseases. The predicament is that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to manipulate our nature—to enhance our genetic traits and those of our children. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why. What is wrong with re-engineering our nature? The Case against Perfection explores these and other moral quandaries connected with the quest to perfect ourselves and our children. Michael Sandel argues that the pursuit of perfection is flawed for reasons that go beyond safety and fairness. The drive to enhance human nature through genetic technologies is objectionable because it represents a bid for mastery and dominion that fails to appreciate the gifted character of human powers and achievements. Carrying us beyond familiar terms of political discourse, this book contends that the genetic revolution will change the way philosophers discuss ethics and will force spiritual questions back onto the political agenda. In order to grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions largely lost from view in the modern world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make these questions unavoidable. Addressing them is the task of this book, by one of America’s preeminent moral and political thinkers.


Perfection

Perfection

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  • Author: Michael J. Hyde
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9781481309769
  • Category : Perfection
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

In a masterful survey of the history of the idea of human perfection, prize-winning author and noted rhetorician Michael J. Hyde leads a fascinating excursion through Western philosophy, religion, science, and art. Eloquently and engagingly he delves into the canon of Western thought, drawing on figures from St. Augustine and John Rawls to Leonardo da Vinci and David Hume to Kenneth Burke and Mary Shelley. On the journey, Hyde expounds on the very notion and "Otherness" of God, the empirical and ontological workings of daily existence, the development of reason, and the bounds of beauty. In the end, he ponders the consequences of the perfection-driven impulse of medical science and considers the implications of the bourgeoning rhetoric of "our posthuman future." It is nothing short of a triumphant examination of why we humans are challenged to live a life of significant insignificance.


The Perfection Point

The Perfection Point

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  • Author: John Brenkus
  • Publisher: Harper Collins
  • ISBN: 0062008846
  • Category : Sports & Recreation
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 244

What's the fastest a human can run the 100-meter sprint? What's the longest a human can hold his breath? What are the limits of human performance? Welcome to The Perfection Point. Until 1954, common wisdom and scientific knowledge considered a sub-four-minute mile an impossible feat for a human. But then Roger Bannister broke that mark, followed quickly by a host of other athletes. Today the world record stands at 3 minutes, 43 seconds, yet even that number doesn't tell the full story of how fast humans can run a mile—records are a mark of how well people have done, not how well they can do. What's the actual limit? The answer lies in The Perfection Point. In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, John Brenkus, the host, co-creator, and executive producer of ESPN's Sport Science, ventures across the sports world to provide an in-depth look at the absolute limits of human performance. Beginning with the current world records for a variety of sports, Brenkus finds the “perfection point” for each, zeroing in on the speeds, heights, distances, and times that humans will get closer to but never exceed. Combining cutting-edge science with the fundamentals of each sport, Brenkus answers questions as old as competition itself, exploring the outer realm of what's possible in athletics. Using engrossing and accessible language, he applies statistics, physics, and physiology to uncover perfection points such as: the highest dunk the longest home run the fastest mile the longest golf drive the heaviest bench press Intriguing, detailed, and controversial, the answers that Brenkus provides are essential reading for every sports fan. For years, coaches, pundits, and experts have speculated about the extremes of human ability. The Perfection Point finally provides the answers.


Handbook of Research on Industrial Advancement in Scientific Knowledge

Handbook of Research on Industrial Advancement in Scientific Knowledge

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  • Author: Diaz, Vicente González-Prida
  • Publisher: IGI Global
  • ISBN: 1522571531
  • Category : Technology & Engineering
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 470

In a society that praises and promotes technological advancement, it becomes increasingly essential to review the effects of such rapid technological growth. New high-tech advances need to be examined to determine what they mean to science, society, and industry along with the benefits and challenges they present. The Handbook of Research on Industrial Advancement in Scientific Knowledge addresses the intersection of technology and science where engineering considerations, mathematical approaches, and management tools provide a better understanding and awareness of Industry 4.0, while also taking into account the impact on current society. This publication identifies methodologies and applications related to decision making, risk and uncertainty, and design and development not only on scientific and industrial topics but also on social and ethical matters. It is designed for engineers, entrepreneurs, academicians, researchers, managers, and students.


The Pursuit of Perfection

The Pursuit of Perfection

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  • Author: Sheila Rothman
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • ISBN: 0307767132
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 322

What does it mean to live in a time when medical science can not only cure the human body but also reshape it? How should we as individuals and as a society respond to new drugs and genetic technologies? Sheila and David Rothman address these questions with a singular blend of history and analysis, taking us behind the scenes to explain how scientific research, medical practice, drug company policies, and a quest for peak performance combine to exaggerate potential benefits and minimize risks. They present a fascinating and factual story from the rise of estrogen and testosterone use in the 1920s and 1930s to the frenzy around liposuction and growth hormone to the latest research into the genetics of aging. The Rothmans reveal what happens when physicians view patients’ unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their bodies—short stature, thunder thighs, aging—as though they were diseases to be treated. The Pursuit of Perfection takes us from the early days of endocrinology (the belief that you are your hormones) to today’s frontier of genetic enhancements (the idea that you are your genes). It lays bare the always complicated and sometimes compromised positions of science, medicine, and commerce. This is the book to read before signing on for the latest medical fix.


Seeking Perfection

Seeking Perfection

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  • Author: Matt J. Rossano
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1351491644
  • Category : Philosophy
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 218

"How would Socrates and Plato react to a modern world where secularism and religious fundamentalism are growing while the gap between the human mind and animal mind is narrowing? Using some creative license mixed with real history, science, and philosophy, Seeking Perfection addresses that question. Matt J. Rossano uses a narrative/dialogue format to superimpose on modern times ancient Greece's two most eminent philosophers, along with its government and culture.The story begins with Plato's daring escape from Sicily, where he tutored Dionysius II in philosophy. On board his homebound ship, Plato recounts his experiences in Sicily. In this narrative, the intellectual difference between practical rewards and the pursuit of ideals provides the basis for a series of dialogue on science, secularism, religion, and the uniqueness of the human mind.Upon the ship's arrival home, Plato's mentor, Socrates, is arrested and his trial provides the venue for the book's final dialogue. The final dialogue serves as a counterweight to the earlier ones. Rossano begins and ends with a philosopher imprisoned by his views, indicative of one of its main messages: the true philosopher uses a well-disciplined mind and the best knowledge of the day to get as close to the truth as possible. In doing so, he invariably gets into trouble. This imaginatively constructed tale will absorb those interested in what the philosophical masters might say about today's world."


Isis Code

Isis Code

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  • Author: Ariane Page
  • Publisher: iUniverse
  • ISBN: 9781475967470
  • Category : Brain
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

A legend from ancient Egypt tells us of the god Osiris, who was murdered and dismembered by Seth, his own brother. Isis, his soul mate, embarked on a quest to find and rejoin all of his scattered pieces. In Isis Code, author Ariane Page shows how our quest for love is similar and how our inner Isis attempts to connect our physical, emotional, mental, rational, and universal aspects which --through our limited worldviews-- are kept disconnected. Isis Code reveals a unique system behind this ancient Egyptian tale, one that was used by most traditions and particularly in ancient China and India, becoming an integral part of these cultures' medical care. Through research, stories, illustrations, and diagrams, Isis Code shows how this system can also be found in the brain structure and deciphered to help understand humans, their illnesses and needs. Building on these ideas, we follow the stages of brain maturation from conception to death to better understand what, why, how, and who we are. Page explains that humans have been using mostly a masculine point of view --associated with what psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung named the animus-- to comprehend the world, instead of the two this system, as well as our brain, show are available. This factor has impacted everything in our life: our perceptions, feelings, health, relationships, everything we created, the quality of our environment, and even our governmental structures. As a result, the path towards love, evolution, perfection, health and happiness is blocked. By combining system science and the study of the brain, Isis Code provides insight into the direction evolution is taking to bring humanity to perfection and happiness. It presents a tool that can allow us better control over our destiny and can bring a much needed peace to our hearts.


The Case for Perfection

The Case for Perfection

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  • Author: Johann Roduit
  • Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
  • ISBN: 9783631671504
  • Category : Bioethics
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

This book critically examines what role, if any, should the notion of perfection play in the debate regarding the ethics of human enhancement. It defends that the concept of «human perfection» needs to be central when morally assessing human enhancements.


Complications

Complications

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  • Author: Atul Gawande
  • Publisher: Metropolitan Books
  • ISBN: 1429972106
  • Category : Medical
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 292

A brilliant and courageous doctor reveals, in gripping accounts of true cases, the power and limits of modern medicine. Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This book is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is -- complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high, yet decisions must be made. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad. He also shows us what happens when medicine comes up against the inexplicable: an architect with incapacitating back pain for which there is no physical cause; a young woman with nausea that won't go away; a television newscaster whose blushing is so severe that she cannot do her job. Gawande offers a richly detailed portrait of the people and the science, even as he tackles the paradoxes and imperfections inherent in caring for human lives. At once tough-minded and humane, Complications is a new kind of medical writing, nuanced and lucid, unafraid to confront the conflicts and uncertainties that lie at the heart of modern medicine, yet always alive to the possibilities of wisdom in this extraordinary endeavor. Complications is a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.