Science and technology are changing the world with new inventions and discoveries — for better and for worse. Breast implants, sex-change operations, and nuclear and chemical weapons are just a few of the widely varying misapplications of knowledge in the brave new world.
Perhaps the most important way in which science is a threat to sanity is in its potential to change the human body. In the past, people used science to manipulate the world outside of the human body; but now the border of the body has been breached; as science is used for plastic surgery, gene manipulation, and organ replacement, our very selves are increasingly being altered. Is someone with silicone in their breasts, an artificial heart, steroid-generated muscle tissue, or a genetically engineered brain still “human” in the sense that we use the term? What if they had all, rather than just one, of those technology-enhanced body parts? Is someone who is kept alive indefinitely on life support systems still really “alive”?
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...and strategies for coping with 34 other everyday situations in our insane world!