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Biotechnology: An Overview and Evaluation
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13155 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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Date : |
11 / 1987 |
3,945 Words |
| Author
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Van Rensselaer Potter
Van Rensselaer Potter is Hilldale Professor Emeritus of
Oncology at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in
Madison. |
Biotechnology is a highly specialized field that is largely in the hands of molecular biologists and genetic engineers who have left their ivory towers to become businessmen, hoping to reap fabulous profits. In more than one sense they have embraced the goals of the medieval alchemists. This article addresses how biotechnology evolved, how the technological control of life processes impinges on the technology of birth control, and how bioethics became the whistle-blower on the exercise of biological power.
The prefix "bio-" (pertaining to Life) is finding increasing use. It is not a word that can stand alone, but it modifies the meaning of a number of words that have a prior history. Many of these words describe academic disciplines. They name departments in universities and designate Ph.D. fields. An early example of a clearly defined discipline is chemistry, dating back to 1200, when alchemists were identifying chemical elements, attempting to convert base metals into gold, and trying to find a substance that would cure all ailments and enable people to live forever. Shortly after chemistry became an established profession, departments of agricultural chemistry in land-grant colleges and physiological chemistry in medical schools split off from chemistry departments and created their separate doctoral requirements. In the 1930s many of these departments changed their name to biochemistry, often overcoming considerable opposition within their ranks.
Similarly, physics as a discipline began in ancient Greece, with Archimedes a well-known representative. Physics is most easily defined as the study of the natural laws that govern nonliving objects, with Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein as its recent proponents. Rather suddenly, after
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