Mad Science

Yesterday on Science Friday, an NPR program I seldom miss, the discussion centered on medical advances and what may be on the horizon. It was timely, for just that same morning, I'd had a 1/2 hour conversation with a student about cyberkinetics (brain chip implants) featured in her research essay. For lunch, I spent another 1/2 hour brainstorming a research paper on animal-to-human organ transplantation. I read related blogs daily, and encountered one just yesterday (again) on how eyes work, how they may be "bionic" in the future, and how virtually all vision problems will be conquered in our lifetime, unknown to the next generation. WOW there's so very much going on in medical-technical applications and advances!
Neurotechnology is about to break out. So will advances in stem cell exploration and celluar if not complete organ manufacturing. Designer traits and implanted thoughts are NOT science fiction anymore. Just last week someone was able to generate an internal organ, a bladder, for installation in a person. (Personally, I would have chosen a more flattering organ, not wanting my name to be permanently associated with a bladder; he claims it was one of the easier to make.)
A caller to Science Friday raised a good issue: artificial, bionic limbs and implants, newly-generated or animal-transplanted organs...all of it is grossly expensive to research and practice. The actual 'body modification' might cost and individual a hundred thousand dollars. The caller was puzzled, himself an MD, that so much money is going into research for the benefit of so few. He claimed basic health care needs are not adequate nor available for all, even in the US. His point was refuted, the counter argument running something about it being a matter of distribution rather than access.
I think there's much more to it than that. Someone stands to gain (financially) from engineering expensive eyes. I hear the coins chinking in the temple of technology, like a jackpot payout of jingle bells. I smell money, and not the old wallet, butt sweat, dog-eared dollar--big money (like those 2ft x 5 ft checks you always see being awarded to folks). I can taste the bitter beer of big business, and it's making me girn (not to be confused with grin, no not at all).
Though I love my technology, I don't know that I want so much of it incorporated into my body. I don't want to be a cyborg. I don't want to compete with cyborgs. I don't even know what to think of those who's upgrades are wholly organic rather than mechanical. It all feels a bit like grafting a sixth finger on a pianist's hand. It changes everthing. It plays plate techtonic tap dances with what was once a level playing field.
...and all this is to say nothing of the future of full-blown genetic engineering and the potential of human cloning. That, I guess, will have to wait for another post.
I'm now of an age when I can say I saw things coming. I'm happy I can get it in writing on this blog, so later on down the road, as many of these come into the news again (and ultimately to fruition) I can say "I told you so."