Rajen:
The web-link does not open.
Do you have the whole paper as an electronic file that could be
transmitted?
c
At 2:40 PM -0500 6/13/05, Rajen Barua wrote:
DESIGNING HUMANS:
The idea of what it means to be human has been changing throughout history. As technology rapidly changes, so too must our relationship to
humans. Some such issues drew the attention of thinkers and philosophers of the world at the recently concluded "Technology and the Changing Face of Humanity" Conference held at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. The conference was organized by the Canadian Jacques Maritian Association in association with the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as a part of a large symposium on the same theme. About 7000 delegates from many countries from Canada, America, Europe, Middle East and Asia participated in the symposium. The objective of this conference was to explore issues such as what it means to be human as well as how technology influences our understanding of ourselves as persons.
Dr. Archana Barua, Department of Humanities and Social Science, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam had the honor to be selected as one of the speakers in the conference and as the sole representative from entire Asia. She read her paper 'Designing Humans' which drew good attention and was acclaimed by the delegates as observed from their questions and answers that followed the reading. Following is a summary of her paper presented in the conference:
"Genetic engineering raises issues about the nature of life itself, about what it is to be human, about the future of human race and about our rights to knowledge and privacy. Until now we have all been children of nature, the progeny of evolution. We were neither designers of the flora nor the fauna, nor responsible for the being of man or of nature. With genetic engineering at our doorstep, we are not only physicians and healers acting as midwife to assist birth, but we are basically active manipulators and skillful surgeons with sophistication and excellencWith the Human Genome Project man will be able to map the human genetic code and will change its design removing the defective genes. But the question remains, 'how to identify a defect'? What is the improvement that is aimed at? If all our distinctive human traits, our sensitivity and emotions, our altruism and compassion, is written in our genes, if these are identified as our weak points that need to be corrected, human designers will replace the sport of nature with models of human fancy. Genetic engineering will provide genetic therapy for disease and inability provided these are not culture laden terms but are similar to the problems in mathematics to be solved in a matter of fact way by the disengaged and detached man of reason. In this journey from being designers to becoming designed, human identity is undergoing tremendous change that needs to be addressed from a philosophical perspective. With these and various other issues, the paper is an attempt at understanding humans as designers and humans as designed with reference to imperfect way of natural selection and the proposed alternative of a perfect way of human designing."
http://iago.stfxca/people/wsweet/maritain.html
Archana is my younger sister. At present she is visiting Houston.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rajen Barua, Houston
_______________________________________________
Assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
Mailing list FAQ:
http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html
To unsubscribe or change options:
http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
_______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam
Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
