Science of Oryx and Crake

Having now finished reading the book, i come to realize that the rate at which scientific progression happen was the downfall of the society. Scientists are always happy to advance in whatever way they can, and put no limits on this advance. While on it's own, this is not a problem, the issue lies in using these advances before we have developed the mentality to be able to. Morals are always behind, as morals cannot possibly be created ahead or even at the same rate as scientific advance. we don't develop morals around things we cannot do, simply because we don't need to. Morals cannot even be parallel in development, because the idea for something always is thought of before the implications of it.

In Oryx and Crake, the major scientific revelation is genetic modification. The people of the story have learned how to modify almost any creature, in to anything that they need. This ability sparks great innovation, but at the cost of becoming an unstoppable rolling stone. The people go from making pigoons, which are simply pigs that grow extra organs, to making genetically modified chickens that no longer even have a brain, and are simply meat that grows.

This ultimately leads to the downfall of the human race, when Crake decides that humans should be replaced with his enhanced version of humanity, The Crakers. Because of genetic modification, Crake is not only able to make people, but kill the current ones.

All of this was able to happen because of the lack of moral ability. Human morals had not yet caught up with the ideas behind genetic modification, and so, science could keep stretching things farther and farther.



A blue strawberry. While this may seem benign, what harm is a blue strawberry? The people of the book probably asked themselves the same question. What harm is a pigoon? and on and on from there.