Biotechnology In Brave New World Essay

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In his classic dystopian novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley presented his vision of the future state of society. Throughout the book, Huxley anticipated many profound societal changes. The most astonishing predictions in Brave New World are those in the field of biotechnology. Huxley accurately forecasted the development of in vitro fertilization, genetic modification, cloning, contraceptives, and mood-altering drugs. Additionally, of all Huxley’s foresights, it is the biological practices that remain the most relevant to society today. Huxley predicted that the conception of human life would not take place as the result of sexual intercourse, but would rather occur outside of the body through the use of scientific processes (Huxley 1932). Specifically, he anticipated that the conception would involve immersing a test tube containing ova into “a warm bouillon containing free-swimming spermatozoa” and then placing the test tube with the…show more content…
In Brave New World, Huxley described the “Social Predestination Room” (Huxley 1932, 10). This is a room where the processes of identity formation occur, through the use of conditioning and scientific treatment, in order to produce individuals who have the necessary traits and abilities for their specific caste (Huxley 1932). The processes that occur in the “Social Predestination Room” (Huxley 1932, 10) resemble germ line genetic engineering, which would allow parents to modify their children on traits spanning “from obesity to intelligence, eye color to gray matter” (McKibben 2003, 10). Despite germ line genetic engineering having not been actualized with the human population due to ethical guidelines, Huxley remains accurate in his prediction because the technology nonetheless exists and has been demonstrated with a variety of mammals (McKibben

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