This application of genetic engineering to enhancing human nature has been disparaged as attempting to create “designer genes,” “recreate eugenics,” or rejected as “playing the role of God.” But the latter is precisely what scientific knowledge has achieved, as Kaku indicated in showing how scientific attainments have often mirrored the earlier alleged supernatural powers of the gods. In fact, as I write this an analogous example of the contentiousness due to the attempt to remove and replace certain genetically inheritable defects has just been reported in the Washington Post.135 The question of replacing defective genes to eliminate harmful traits from being inherited has already arisen in the recent FDA debate over the possibility of creating three-parent babies called “three-parent IVF.” The new procedure would enable mothers who carry mutated or defective DNA in their mitochondria that would transmit such tragic inheritable defects as blindness, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and Down’s syndrome to their embryos could have them surgically removed from their extracted egg cells and replaced by refined mitochondria taken from the eggs of a healthy or normal women. Then, after being fertilized in a laboratory, the mother’s refined eggs would be replanted in her uterus so that the embryo would not carry the abnormal mitochondrial inheritance.
While this gene replacement procedure would have to be very carefully supervised and regulated, it does not deserve the harsh moral criticism and rejection it has received by some moralists and religionists. Yet such a way of eliminating abominable human traits, analogous to removing sources of horrible diseases and crippling human physical defects, would seem to be another major benefit of genetic discoveries. Consider the tremendous advantages of replacing such inherited genes causing such innate human drives as sadism, pedophilia, hedonism, harmful addictions, avariciousness, vindictiveness, dishonesty, treachery, viciousness, and despotism. Improving human nature and conduct is what I would like to see as the primary achievement of the fourth transition in our revision of reality and way of life. In my view, this would do more to alleviate human suffering and enrich our lives than all other achievements and advances, and it’s within our reach.
ENDNOTES
*Galileo Galilei, The Assayer, trans. Stillman Drake and reproduced in Stillman Drake and C. D. O’Malley, The Controversy on the Comets of 1618 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960), p. 3112.
1. Robin Lane Fox, The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p. 87; brackets added.
2. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House, 1995), pp. 424–26. The subsequent parenthetical citation is to this work.
3. Richard H. Schlagel, Contextual Realism: A Metaphysical Framework for Modern Science (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1986).
4. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1080b16–22; Ross translation.
5. Richard H. Schlagel, From Myth to Modern Mind: A Study of the Origins and Growth of Scientific Thought, Vol. I, Theogony through Ptolemy (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995).
6. Plato, The Republic, trans. by F. M. Cornford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), ch. XXV.
7. Richard McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 159.
8. Schlagel, From Myth to Modern Mind, p. 320.
9. Cf., Charles Singer, A Short History of Scientific Ideas to 1900 (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), Ch. III. Also see John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray, eds., The Oxford History of the Classical World: Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
10. T. L. Heath, ed., The Works of Archimedes with the Methods of Archimedes (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 19??), pp. 221–22.
11. Henry Osborn Taylor, The Medieval Mind: A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages, Vol. I, fourth ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 73.
12. Frederick B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p. 82.
13. Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 92–93.
14. Nicolas Copernicus, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, trans. by Charles Glenn Wallis (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995), p. 6.
15. Letter to David Fabricius, “Johannes Kepler,” Gesammelte Werke, Vol. XIV, p. 409. Quoted from Arthur Koestler, The Sleep Walkers (New York: The Universal Library, 1963), p. 330. The two subsequent parenthetical citations are also to this work.
16. Johannes Kepler, Astronomia Nova, “Introduction,” Gesammelte Werke. Quoted from Arthur Koestler, The Sleep Walkers, p. 337.
17. Max Caspar, Kepler, trans. and ed. by C. Doris Hellman (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993), p. 286.
18. Johannes Kepler, Harmonice Mundi, Book 3, ch. V. R. M. Hutchins, ed., Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 16 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952), p. 1020.
19. Letter to Herwart von Hohenburg, 1612, 1598, G. W., Vol. XIII, p. 264 seq. Quoted from Koestler, The Sleep Walkers, p. 340.
20. Richard H. Schlagel, Forging the Methodology that Enlightened Modern Civilization (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2011), p. 42.
21. James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1988), p. 41.
22. Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 100.
23. Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius (or The Sidereal Messenger), trans. by Albert Van Helden (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 36–38.
24. Quoted from Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work, p. 200. Unless stated otherwise, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to his book.
25. Galileo Galilei, Discourse on the Comets, reprinted in The Controversy on the Comets of 1618, trans. by Stillman Drake and C. D. O’Malley (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 1960, p. 53.
26. Galileo Galilei, The Assayer, reprinted in Drake and O’Malley, The Controversy on the Comets of 1618, p. 311. The subsequent parenthetical citation is also to this work.
27. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems—Ptolemaic and Copernican, trans. by Stillman Drake (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962), p. 108. Until otherwise indicated, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
28. Drake, Galileo at Work, p. 336. The subsequent parenthetical citations are also to this work until otherwise indicated.
29. Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, trans. by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1963), p. 147. Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
30. Alexander Koyré, Galileo Studies, trans. by John Mepham (New Jersey: Humanities Press), 1978. For the quotation and the source for Mersenne, see p. 126, f.n. 177; for Descartes, see p. 107 and source p. 126, f.n. 176.
31. Maurice Clavelin, The Natural Philosophy of Galileo: Essay on the Origins and Formation of Classical Mechanics, trans. by A. J. Pomerans (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1974), p. 383.
32. Richard S. Westfall, Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 143. Until otherwise indicated, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
33. Sir Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Vol. I, The Motion of Bodies, Motte’s trans., revised by Florian Cajori (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), p. xv. Unless or until otherwise indicated, subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
34. Sir Issac Newton, Opticks or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, & Colours of light (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1952), p. 351.
35. Sir Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World, Vol. II, Motte’s trans. revised by Florian Cajori (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962), p. 397. Until or unless otherwise indicated,
the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
36. Westfall, Never at Rest, p. 473. Until otherwise indicated, subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
37. I. Bernard Cohen, Franklin and Newton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 120. Further textual references to this work will be followed by the author’s name and page number.
38. Sir Isaac Newton, The First Book of Opticks, Book three, Part 1, in Opticks or A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light. The subsequent parenthetical citations will be to this work unless otherwise indicated.
39. Schlagel, From Myth to Modern Mind, Vol. II, Copernicus through Quantum Mechanics, pp. 324–25.
40. William Gilbert, De Magnete, trans. by P. Fleury Mottelay (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1958), p. x; brackets added. Unless or until otherwise indicated, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
41. Duane Roller and Duane H. D. Roller, The Development of the Concept of Electric Charge: Electricity from the Greeks to Coulomb, in James Bryant Conant, General Ed. and Leonard K. Nash, Associate Ed., Vol II, Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 560. This section includes three drawings of Hauksbee’s ingenious apparatuses. Unless or until otherwise indicated, the immediately following parenthetical citations are to this work.
42. Schlagel, From Myth to Modern Mind, Vol. II, Copernicus through Quantum Mechanics, p. 330. Until otherwise indicated, all parenthetical citations are to this work.
43. Cohen, Franklin and Newton, p. 468.
44. Roller, The Development of the Concept of Electrical Charge, pp. 604–605. The subsequent parenthetical citations are also to this work until otherwise indicated.
45. Plato, The Republic, Part III, Ch. XXIII, Sec. VI, 509c.
46. Peter Achinstein, Particles and Waves (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 19. The following two parenthetical citations are to this work.
47. Sir Edmund Whittaker, A History of the Theories of Aether & Electricity, Vol. I, The Classical Theories (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), p. 171.
48. Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951), pp. 155–56.
49. Joseph Priestley, Experiments on Air, 1790, Vol. I, p. 248. Quoted from J. R. Partington, A Short History of Chemistry, third ed. Revised and enlarged (New York: Harper and Brothers 1960), p. 137. The following three parenthetical citations are to this work.
50. James Bryant Conant, The Overthrow of the Phlogiston Theory, in James Bryant Conant, General Ed. and Leonard K. Nash, Associate Ed., Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science, Vol. I (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 69–70.
51. Elizabeth C. Patterson, John Dalton and the Atom Theory: The Biography of a Natural Philosopher (New York: Anchor Books, 1970), p. 21. This summary of Dalton’s early life and the textual references are largely based on her excellent study. Subsequent parenthetical references are to this work.
52. Leonard K. Nash, The Atomic-Molecular Theory, in James Bryant Conant, General Ed. and Leonard K. Nash, Associate Ed., Harvard Case Histories in Experimental Science, Vol. 1, p. 222. The immediately following parenthetical reference is also to this work.
53. Frank Greenaway, John Dalton and the Atom (Ithaca: Cornell University. Press, 1966), p. 133. The following quotation is also to this work.
54. This discussion of J. J. Berzelius is based on Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (New York: Broadway Books, 2003), pp. 105–106.
55. Nash, The Atomic-Molecular Theory, p. 248. All of the subsequent extensive numerical citations are to the work.
56. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, Faraday Lecture, 1889, The Principles of Chemistry, Vol II, in William C. Dampier and Margaret Dampier (eds.), Readings in the Literature of Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959), p. 115.
57. Michio Kaku, The Future of the Mind (New York: Doubleday, 2014), p. 133.
58. Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, p. 129.
59. Peter Achinstein, Particles and Waves, pp. 17–19.
60. Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica, Vol. II, p. 547.
61. Singer, A Short History of Scientific Idea to 1900, p. 360. The subsequent parenthetical citation is also to this work.
62. G. Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen, Annals of Physics and Chemistry 110 (1860): 160; trans. in Philosophical Magazine, 20 (1860): 89. Quoted from Abraham Pais, Inward Bound (Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 168. Until otherwise indicated, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
63. J. J. Thomson, “Cathode Rays,” Philosophical Magazine 44 (August 7, 1897), p. 311.
64. Richard R. Schlagel, “The Waning of the Light: The Eclipse of Philosophy,” Review of Metaphysics 57 (September 2003): 105.
65. Emilio Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1980), p. 47. The following two parenthetical citations are to this work.
66. Pais, Inward Bound, p. 112. The following quotation is also to this work.
67. Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. by G. Gaynor (London: William and Norgate, 1950), p. 7. Quoted from Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 83.
68. Armin Hermain, The Genesis of Quantum Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), p. 23. Quoted from Segrè, From X-rays to Quarks, p. 76. The following three parenthetical citations are also to this work.
69. Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, p. 7. Quoted from Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 86.
70. Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, “Autobiographical Notes,” ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp (Evanston, IL: The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949), p. 45.
71. Jean Perrin, Brownian Movement and Molecular Reality, trans. by F. Soddy (London: Taylor and Frances, 1910), concluding paragraph. Quoted from Abraham Pais, “Subtle is the Lord . . .”: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 95.
72. For a schematic representation of the experiment see Leo Sartori, Understanding Relativity (Berkeley and Los Angles: University of California Press, 1996), p. 30.
73. Albert A. Michelson, American Journal of Science 22 (1881): 120. Quoted from Abraham Pais, “Subtle is the Lord . . . ,” p. 112. The subsequent parenthetical citation is to this work.
74. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theory (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1961), pp. 32–34.
75. G. J. Whitrow, The Structure and Evolution of the Universe (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959, p. 85.
76. Milic Capek, The Philosophic Impact of Contemporary Physics (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1961), p. 201.
77. Pais, “Subtle is the Lord . . . ,” p. 178.
78. Albert Einstein, James Clerk Maxwell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), p. 66. Quoted from Abraham Pais, Inward Bound, p. 244.
79. Pais, Inward Bound, p. 189.
80. Jean-Baptiste Perrin, Review Scientifique 15 (1901): 447. Quoted from Pais, Inward Bound, p. 183.
81. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks, p. 136.
82. Yuval Ne’eman and Yoram Kirsh, The Particle Hunters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 14. The subsequent parenthetical quotation is also to this work.
83. Philosophical Magazine 37 (1919): 581. Quoted from Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks, p. 110.
84. Niels Bohr, Philosophical Magazine 25 (1913): 10. Quoted from Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 128.
85. Pais, Inward Bound, p. 198. The subsequent parenthetical citation is to this work.
86. Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann, The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), p. 27.
87. Pais, Inward Bound, p. 199.
88. Pais, Niels Bohr�
��s Times, p. 152.
89. Einstein, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, pp. 45–47.
90. Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr’s Time, p. 152.
91. Ne’eman and Kirsh, The Particle Hunters, p. 37. The subsequent parenthetical citation is also to this work.
92. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations, trans., from the German by Arnold J. Pomerans (New York: Harper and Row Publishers Inc., 1972), p. 38. Until otherwise indicated, the subsequent parenthetical citations are to this work.
93. Crease and Mann, The Second Creation, p. 50. The subsequent parenthetical citation is to this work.
94. Ne’eman and Kirsh, The Particle Hunters, p. 44. The following two parenthetical quotations are to this work.
95. Crease and Mann, The Second Creation, pp. 52–53. I have rearranged the brackets to make the quotation more grammatical.
96. J. C. Polkinghorne, The Quantum World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 30. For those who are interested, in addition to giving the formula, he describes the meaning of the different mathematical symbols more fully.
97. Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 285. In footnotes Pais gives the sources for this quotation.
98. Crease and Mann, The Second Creation, p. 55. The immediately following two parenthetical quotations are to this work.
99. Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 286. The subsequent parenthetical quotation is to this work.
100. Max Born, My Life and My Views (New York: Charles Scribners and Sons, 1968), p. 55.
101. Segrè, From X-Rays to Quarks, p. 165.
102. Pierre-Simon Laplace, Inroduction à la théorie analytique des probabilities (Paris: Oeuvres Complètes, 1886), p. VI. Quoted from Capek, The Philosophic Impact of Contemporary Physics, p. 122.
103. Quotation from Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr’s Times, p. 309.
104. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1958), p. 42.
105. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, “Can Quantum Mechanical Descriptions of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” Physical Review 47 (1935): 777–80.
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