BookRags.com Literature Guides Literature
Guides
Criticism & Essays Criticism &
Essays
Questions & Answers Questions &
Answers
Lesson Plans Lesson
Plans
My Bibliography Periodic Table U.S. Presidents Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up
Research Anything:        
History | Encyclopedias | Films | News | Create a Bibliography | More... Login | Register | Help

Search "Biotech Ethics"

Contents Navigation
 

Biotech Ethics

Print-Friendly  Order the PDF version  Order the RTF version
About 13 pages (3,907 words)
Bioethics Summary

Bookmark and Share Know this topic well? Help others and get FREE products!

Biotech Ethics

In the seventeenth century the philosophers Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and René Descartes (1596–1650) advocated a new way of doing science that would have the power to conquer nature for human benefit. (The old science had seemed to be more concerned with contemplating nature than controlling it.) In the contemporary world biotechnology is providing the technology for controlling and changing living nature, including human nature. However, because biotechnological power over the living world offers not only the promise for doing good but also an opportunity for doing evil, this has provoked an ethical debate over the modern scientific project for the mastery of nature through technology.

Biotechnology in History

Biotechnology can be defined as the technical manipulation of living organisms or parts of those organisms to provide products and services to satisfy human desires. If it is defined in this broad way, one can see that biotechnology has been employed throughout human history.

The history of biotechnology can be divided into three periods: ancient, modern, and contemporary. Ancient biotechnology began more than 10,000 years ago with the emergence of agriculture in ancient Mesopotamia. Modern biotechnology began in the nineteenth century with the development of industrial microbiology. Contemporary biotechnology began in the 1970s with new techniques for genetic engineering.

This is a free page. This page contains 201 words. This article contains 3,907 words (approx. 13 pages at 300 words per page).

Read the rest of this Article with our Biotech Ethics Access Pass.

Ask any question on Bioethics and get it answered FAST!
Answer questions in BookRags Q&A and earn points toward
discounted or even FREE Study Guides and other BookRags products!
Learn more about BookRags Q&A
Copyrights
Biotech Ethics from Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. Copyright © 2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group. All rights reserved.

Join BookRagslearn moreJoin BookRags




About BookRags | Customer Service | Report an Error | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy