Brave New World: The Advancement of Science

Brave New World: The Advancement of Science

Christy Campbell Mrs. Doig Eng OAC 2 16 May, 1996

When thinking of progress, most people think of advances in the

scientific fields, believing that most discoveries and technologies are

beneficial to society. Are these advances as beneficial as most people think?

In the novel Brave New World, the author Aldous Huxley, warns readers that

scientific advances can be a threat to society. This is particularly evident in

the fields of biology, technology and psychology. According to Huxley, "The

theme of Brave New World is not the advancement of science as such; it is the

advancement of science as it affects human individuals"(Huxley CLC 79 290).

One scientific advance of which Huxley warns readers of is that in

biology. In the setting of Brave New World, henceforth referred to as the

reservation, the mass production of humans is accomplished with the Bokanovsky

process. In this process, human beings are genetically engineered in

laboratories. "... a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide.

From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed

embryo, and every embryo into a full sized adult"(Huxley Brave New World 4).

One of the threats of this genetic breeding is that no family structures exist

on the reservation. Instead, humans are raised in conditioning centres. R.T.

Oerton points out that "Present knowledge indicates, for instance, that a child

cannot be deprived of parents or parent figures, as were the children in Brave

New World, without suffering lasting pathological damage to his

personality."(Oerton CLC 7 308). Another threat that the Bokanovsky process

poses to society is that life is not highly valued. "Murder kills only the

individual and, after all what is an individual? With a sweeping gesture he [Mr.

Foster, director of hatcheries and conditioning] indicated the rows of

microscopes, the test-tubes, the incubators. We can make a new one with the

greatest ease-as many as we like"(Huxley Brave New World 133). Human life holds

no value because it can be easily replaced through the Bokanovsky process.

Furthermore, Bokanovsky's method of mass production prevents individuality, as

on the reservation, all people are cloned. Starting from the time of decanting,

each embryo is genetically cloned to fall into one of the various social classes.

Within each social class, all members are cloned to be intellectually and

physically equivalent. Biological technology helps to achieve this equality by

genetically shaping the minds of society. In Brave New World , one's

intelligence depends on the amount of alcohol injected into their embryo. For

example, one of the lower classes in society, Epsilons, have quite a high amount