Blog Post #4
by scottbl
“Playing God” is a household term that summarizes many views into one phrase. “Playing God” implies when man defies nature, when man’s ambition goes too far, and when man has breached the barrier separating God from humanity. Playing God in Frankenstein’s Footsteps by Hek van de Belt challenges these same negative associations both with “playing God” and the “Frankenstein myth”. Belt describes the research of synthetic biologist J. Craig Venter in a neutral tone, however he also subtly refutes the labels Venter has received by the general public. He cites the “playing God” label as a journalistic “cliche” that downplays Venter’s achievements in creating a new microbial life form from scratch. What is interesting about his refutations is that Belt concludes that the most concern about “playing God” stems from secular organizations and individuals. Religious organizations and individuals even use the term “playing God” as justification for what synthetic biologists are doing, defying our expectations. However, Belt recognizes that as Venter and others have only experimented with microbial life, we have yet to see how people truly feel if one were to create “human” life.
This is exactly what the more secular individuals are concerned about. Although Belt condones the “Frankenstein” myth, it is not to say that Frankenstein does not hold some degree of truth. Right now, synthetic biology is still “ethical”. It is only reserved to small organisms who do not resemble human life at all. But when technology reaches levels where we will be able to create something comparable to man , we will be having a very different discussion. This is because not only have we now assumed responsibility as creators, we have now defied the natural order of “Nature”. We have essentially skipped many generations of evolution and created a being that we cannot entirely understand. While Frankenstein explores the ethical and moral questions of this situation, what scares people the most about Frankenstein are not these questions: it is the monster. That is why people are so wary about “playing God”. They are wary that we will have created a figurative “monster” that is no longer under our control. Humans do not like uncertainty. It is why we are inclined to believe in God, or other such omnipotent beings. It is why some of us believe there is an afterlife. We desire conclusions and answers for our existence; we want to have a purpose in this world. But once we have created something we don’t understand, then we have introduced too much uncertainty into our lives, both about what said creature would do, and about what it makes us. Are we now “creators”? Or have we doomed all of humanity? While Venter’s achievements are monumental for the future of synthetic biology, only time will tell if the general public will embrace the future of this scientific field.
afterprometheus 
This response has a good focus on the metaphor “playing god.” I agree with much of what you say. However, you have not picked an article that is actually about the novel. I would advise you to find an article that considers research ethics and the novel. Then you can build a paper that looks at examples from the text to refute, affirm, or complicate what the scholar says.