Jurrasic Park is a great novel! One of it's
themes is scientific hubris in the quest for
adding to the corpus of human
knowledge and achievement. Another
interesting book which deals with this
subject is Frankenstein by Mary Shelly,
which can be seen as a morality play
about what happens when man tries to
play God.

Many scientists, on the other hand,
complain about the religious "torches and
pitchforks" crowd who are forever trying to
storm the castle and halt the progress of
science. They maintain that science was
held back for a long time from the
Church's rules and restrictions, including
both extreme cases, such as threatening
scientists like Galileo with torture for their
views, as well as milder obstructions, like
making it difficult for medical students to
learn anatomy and surgery by making it
difficult to practice on cadavers.

Does anyone know of a novel which
portrays the pioneering scientist as the
hero and the unwashed masses
attempting to thwart his progress as the
villains?

On the "Playing God" issue, isn't all
modern medicine in a sense "playing
God?" Comments?

Prof. Borrowdale
borrowdalej@lanecc.edu