Title: Re: [Assam] Fw: DESIGNING HUMANS:
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Chandan:
Sorry. Try this.
I will try to get you a copy of the paper. I think there is copy
right restriction for publishing otherwise.
Rajen
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2005 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] Fw: DESIGNING
HUMANS:
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.stfx.ca/people/wsweet/maritain.html
Archana is my younger sister. At present she is visiting
Houston.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rajen Barua, Houston
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