Mary Shelley’s novel in 1818 concerned a scientist whose experiment goes awry.
21st Century Frankenstein
The Modern Prometheus is still with us
very near 200 years.
This literary creation was the first science fiction.
His hideous progeny lives in human memory
and spawns discussion of biomedical innovation.
Now, more than ever before,
Frankenstein alters the mind.
The world of imagination fuses with the realm of legislation.
Ultrasound sonography shows us things we cannot see.
A CT scan, MRI, and EEG are benefits of electricity –
the same joule that caused the monster to move.
Genetics may alter but processes may falter.
It is a fact, science is not exact.
With a clone you are never alone.
Will dependence on engineered corn hold traditional farming methods to scorn?
Agrochemicals may give us a longer lifespan but it may be the end of man.
Will our diet of hormone-fed beef ultimately bring us grief?
Would you trust a café that sells burgers from lab-grown muscle cells?
The locks on Pandora’s Box
are there for a purpose, not to thwart us.
Fifty years’ research of DNA may allow us to choose our legacy someday.
Future babies we hold dear may be scientifically engineered.
If we tamper with genetics, do we meddle with our ethics?
We must watch the path we trod when we suppose that we act as God
or Mary Shelley’s creature will seem tame in our future.
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