Science Trap

Science has hypnotizing effects. In our time, as everything is becoming much faster paced, many of us are losing our quality of patience. We want to discover solutions and possess materialistic goods with as much immediacy as possible. Our curiosity has further driven us to become possessed by our desire for quick results and science has become our bridge to these answers and objects. The problem is that we often become consumed with the task of delivering results and forget or downplay the consequences that could arise. So instead of discussing the order of theory and experimentation as we did in class, I want to bring up the idea of how scientific results overshadow consequences. Should we be putting more consideration into the possibility of repercussions before we even go about conducting the experiments?

In my opinion, the obvious answer to that question is ‘yes’, but it is often not the case. As shown in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, Aylmer is a good representation of our scientific society today. This ‘man of science’ is overwhelmingly possessed by his task of removing a mark that graces his wife’s cheek that he knows no boundaries and devalues the consequences at stake. For Aylmer, the balance between Georgiana’s life vs. beauty falls to the latter of the two. And what hypnotized this scientist “became the central point of all” (Hawthorne 86). He was surprised at what “lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace” (Hawthorne 87). That desire for results took away his rationality and replaced it with blind fervor. The life of his wife was but a necessary sacrifice for the possibility of even the slightest fade in her facial blemish.

Today, I think we are being trapped by our demand for immediate results and are overlooking the consequences that could result. We are so focused on the task at hand that we are in a way hypnotized from reality. If we continue to choose experimentation before contemplating repercussions, then we may find ourselves in Aylmer’s shoes at the end of The Birthmark, trapped by our own stupidity for rashness.