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Journalism of Courage
After Dolly the Sheep, it8217;s Doogie the Mouse who is now burrowing a tunnel to give us a telescopic vision of the brave new world ahead. A Princeton University neurobiologist and his team have announced in Nature the virtues of their genetically modified mice, of the enhanced memory and cognitive skills conferred by injecting a single gene called NR2B in rodent embryos. The results, they say, could have far-re-aching effects for us humans, who are but an inevitable target for such manoeuvres in genetic engineering. It is also probably inevitable that the first voices of caution are predicated not on scientific concerns but on sociological unease. Paul Johnson has already declared genetic engineering the greatest evil of the coming century, to be considered on par with fascism and communism; and his concerns about the creation of a new, more insidious caste system taking root will no doubt be once again chorused. With only the rich able to access new leaps in technology 8212; not just electronic gizmos butapplications that genetically enable one to get a headstart in these survival-of-the-fittest times 8212; critics voice, with good reason, fears about a genetic underclass in the making.
And yet, such high-decibel, but ultimately feeble, attempts to halt the inexorable march of technology, coupled with a neo-Luddite impulse to desist from intervention in what is deemed God8217;s realm, obfuscate the real issues. Issues of safety, viability and ethics. Maybe Doogie8217;s godfathers too faltered in the christening of their supermice. Instead of falling victim to the multimedia age and invoking an awkward child prodigy from the idiot box, perhaps they should have remembered another rodent, whose short life was once part of the literature curriculum of many Americans. Flowers for Algernon, originally a highly popular short story by Daniel Keyes and later expanded into a novel, tells the poignant tale of a mouse called Algernon who is suddenly rendered supersmart on being administered biochemical substances and of amentally retarded twentysomething man later plucked out to be guinea pig. As the man, endowed with supersharp intellect in no time, watches Algernon regress for no reason, as he braces himself for his own decline, Keyes highlights all the ethical and psychological dilemmas thrown up with scientific tampering. More significantly, Keyes leaves unresolved the question, in hindsight was the experiment justified?
