Ethical Issues In The Disembodied Universe

The Disembodied Universe The Accidental Universe, by Alan Lightman, is considered one of the most controversial and fascinating novels. Lightman ponders unanswered questions about the universe, as well as the emotional questions such as molecular biology and other scientific discoveries. For example, in the chapter titled “The Disembodied Universe”, Alan Lightman mentions that there have been particular molecules discovered that encode the instructions for making new human beings. After reading this, one may wonder, “Making human beings? Is that even possible?”. While this is a reasonable question, since there has already been research and tests conducted, the real question should be: what are the social, ethical, and physical problems of coding new humans? While Alan Lightman only touched lightly on the subject of molecules making new humans, one may …show more content…
The movie, Morgan, is about a girl who was created and raised in a laboratory. She was designed by a group of scientists and exceeded their expectations because within a month, she was walking and talking. However, Morgan has a tantrum in which she viciously attacks and injures one of the scientists. So, they have to bring in a specialist to determine whether or not she should be terminated. However, while the specialist is in there, Morgan escapes and goes on a killing spree. The scary factor of this whole situation is that it is very likely something like Morgan could happen. The fact that Morgan, who was just an innocent baby before they modified her, was raised in a lab and forced to be an adult after only a month affected her development physically and mentally. She just wanted to feel “normal” and didn’t want to be kept in a laboratory until she was stable enough to go into the real world. This mutation in her ability to form both physically and mentally made her react in a harmful way to her