As the complexity and convenience of technology increases, some of the
new advancements such as microchip implant for humans and animals can be very controversial. At first, the implants may seem to have benefits but in the long run they will actually cause more trouble than they are worth. These potential "troublemakers" are about the size of an elongated grain of rice and are injected in the skin under the arm or hand (Feder, Zeller 15). The chip is not powered by battery and there is nothing that can possibly leak out into the body (Posada-Swafford 8). An early form of this technology was used to monitor salmon and has been used for other wildlife research (Verhovek 5). The idea of the chips was started from the September 11 tragedy when the firefighters going into the Twin Towers were "IDing" themselves by writing information on their arm about their blood type, health conditions, and their identity with a permanent marker (Bentley 10). The VeriChip Corporation, which is owned by Applied Digital Solutions, saw this as an opportunity to market their product. As a result of their marketing ploys, Applied Digital claims that so far there have been about 1,000 human recipients of the chip.
The idea for human microchip implants was actually started from the microchips in pets and other animals. "Tracking devices have already been available to pet owners for nearly ten years"(Daugherty 2). They were designed to be more secure and to take the place of the old external tags (Feder, Zeller 15). Besides monitoring salmon, the chips were first used to keep track of livestock, but now they have migrated to use in domestic pets. Although there is still a seemingly low number (about 1.6 Million) of chipped pets in the United States, the...
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...03:26. Proquest Platinum. Proquest Information and Learning Co. Glenwood High School Lib., Chatham, IL 25 Oct. 2004
Lubell, Sam. "An electronic tag for the peripatetic pet." New York Times 24 Apr. 2003: G.1. Proquest Platinum. Proquest Information and Learning Co. Glenwood High School Lib., Chatham, IL 25 Oct. 2004.
"Microchip Implants Closer to reality." The Futurist. 33.8 (1999): 9. Proquest Platinum. Proquest Information and Learning Co. Glenwood High School Lib., Chatham, IL 25 Oct. 2004
Posada-Swafford, Angela. "I've Been Chipped!" Hispanic 16.12 (2003): 56. Wilson Select Plus. First Search. Glenwood High School Lib., Chatham, IL 25 Oct. 2004
Verhovek, Sam Howe. "Ethical issues arise in boom in pet microchips." New York Times. 12 Jun. 1999: A.9. Proquest Platinum. Proquest Information and Learning Co. Glenwood High School Lib., Chatham, IL. 25 Oct. 2004.
Safire emphasizes his argument around a comparison of a lost dog with a newly developed chip fixed underneath their skin which would let animal shelter alert owner of their pets. He declares that using a chip to find a lost animal would be a good side of technology, whereas fear of terrorism has placed American in threat of trading our right to be let alone for the fake security.
David Damrosch and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. Vol. 1c. New York: Pearson Education, 2010. 2544-2548. Print.
Kennedy`, David, Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Bailey. The American Pagent. Fourteenth Edition. Boston: Wadswoth Cengage learning, 2010. 782-83. Print.
11th Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau, eds. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Group, a division of Thompson Learning, inc. 2002, 53-77.
Scientific and Humane Issues in the Use of Random Source Dogs and Cats in Research. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press, 2009. Print.
of the book. Boston: Pearson Education, 2012. Print. The. Madaras, Larry, and James M. Sorelle.
Engineers are developing new systems to use genetic information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs, and deliver vaccines.
My purpose is to initiate a discussion of the ethics of implanting computer chips in the brain and to raise some initial ethical and social questions. Computer scientists predict that within the next twenty years neural interfaces will be designed that will not only increase the dynamic range of senses, but will also enhance memory and enable "cyberthink" — invisible communication with others. This technology will facilitate consistent and constant access to information when and where it is needed. The ethical evaluation in this paper focuses on issues of safely and informed consent, issues of manufacturing and scientific responsibility, anxieties about the psychological impacts of enhancing human nature, worries about possible usage in children, and most troubling, issues of privacy and autonomy. Inasmuch as this technology is fraught with perilous implications for radically changing human nature, for invasions of privacy and for governmental control of individuals, public discussion of its benefits and burdens should be initiated, and policy decisions should be made as to whether its development should be proscribed or regulated, rather than left to happenstance, experts and the vagaries of the commercial market.
Melnik. "Cybernetics, genetic engineering and the future of psychotherapy." Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 25, no. 1-2, 2013, p. 39+. General OneFile,
One of the first problems with Digital Angel and the Verichip is the sparseness of information relating to the technology. A quick tour of the Applied Digital Solutions’ Verichip website will give you a quick synopsis of what RFIDs are, and then list a few possible uses of the technology. The Frequently Asked Questions page on the website is equally shortchanged on information, with just a short tidbit on how the chips are installed, among other information. With a device that people will be living with for the rest of their lives (should they choose to bestow it upon them), I feel that many would rather have available detailed information on the technology. This is even more applicable when you consider the hostility that many people breed to technology that could lead to their mass surveillance (i.e. fear of conspiracy); many of these people’s concerns will likely be alleviated just by releasing more detailed info out on the web for the public to see.
“…molecular machines of nanotechnology will increase, by orders of magnitude, our individual and collective capacity to transform desires into material reality”
Brumfiel, Geoff. “The Insane and Exciting Future of the Bionic Body”. Smithsonian Magazine, Sept 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/the-insnae-and-exxciting-future-of-the-bionic-body-918868. Accessed 14 Dec 2017.
It is incredible to see how far genetic engineering has come. Humans, plants, and any living organism can now be manipulated. Scientists have found ways to change humans before they are even born. They can remove, add, or alter genes in the human genome. Making things possible that humans (even thirty years ago) would have never imagined. Richard Hayes claims in SuperSize Your Child? that genetic engineering needs to have limitations. That genetic engineering should be used for medical purposes, but not for “genetic modification that could open the door to high-tech eugenic engineering” (188). There is no doubt that genetic engineering can amount to great things, but without limits it could lead the human race into a future that no one today could even imagine.
Human enhancement is any attempt to temporarily or permanently overcome the current limitations of the human body through natural or artificial means. It is in our human nature that we somehow increase our life expectancy, become stronger, fearless, independent and smarter. It is no surprise we turn to all sorts of technologies – neurotechnology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology – to improve human performances. While they might improve our performances and abilities, their use raises serious health, ethical and economic issues, furthermore, not enough is known about the long-term consequences.
Web. The Web. The Web. 21 Feb. 2011. https://courses.northwestern.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Fcontent%2Ffile%3Fcmd%3Dview%26content_id%3D_2611856_1%26course_id%3D_271781_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue>.