The Paradox Of Technology

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The Paradox of Technology There is no question that technological growth trends in science and industry are increasing exponentially. Many critics of technology believe that the rapid advancement of technological development, despite the benefits, has become in many ways detrimental to society and life. The study of genetics, molecular engineering and robotics is a few areas of technology that is advancing rapidly. The paradox of the 21st century technology is will our growth in technology benefit society or will it potentially destroy society. Gene therapy is a promising approach to the treatment of genetic disorders, debilitating neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and endocrine disorders such as diabetes. This technology may therefore yield profound benefits for human health and quality of life (Medical News Today, 2004). Genomics tools have potential to make significant impacts on the area of environmental monitoring, better understanding of complex ecosystems, and basic science discovery of new species in our oceans, soil and air (J. Craig Venter Institute, 2005). The dangers of biosynthesized systems stems from the ability of biological processes to easily support self-replication. Some observers believe that self-replicating itself should be strictly banned as the only way to fend off the threat of some engineered molecular system running rampant (Brown, 2004). They also can lead to the accidental or deliberate creation of pathogenic biological components (Brown, 2004). Molecular engineering is any means of manufacturing molecules. It may be used to create, on an extremely small scale, most typically one at a time, new molecules which may not exist in nature, or be stable beyond a very narrow range of conditions. this is an extremely difficult process, requiring manual manipulation of molecules using such devices as a scanning
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