[DOWNLOAD] "Behavior Control: From the Brain to the Mind (Essay)" by The Hastings Center Report " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Behavior Control: From the Brain to the Mind (Essay)
- Author : The Hastings Center Report
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Life Sciences,Books,Science & Nature,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 154 KB
Description
Of the four major research components that The Hastings Center focused on at its inception, "behavior control" may now appear the most enigmatic. "Death and dying" was obvious; the problems in prolonging life had already begun to make dying a living hell. "Genetics" was inevitable; Crick's and Watson's achievements had fully entered the public agenda in 1969, and the prospects of "designing our descendants" excited the public imagination. "Population control" had to be addressed; the abortion debates were as polarizing and fulminating then as now, and the feminist movement was marching abortion rights on its path to the Supreme Court. But behavior control? Its potential was less certain and its methods less clear. Plainly, there was important medical work afoot. Researchers were beginning to identify areas of the brain that were responsible for particular behaviors, and these discoveries led some scientists to look for ways to change brain function as a means of modifying undesirable or even threatening behaviors. Forms of brain surgery were devised and performed for this purpose, and medications were used to control psychiatric patients and, later, unruly schoolchildren. These efforts captured the public imagination, but for all the wrong reasons. There has always been something unnecessarily ominous in the term "behavior control." We attempt to control climate, populations, disease, unemployment, and crime, all to general approval, but research that is seen as changing or controlling "the nature of our species" or our behavior and "free will" seems to pose a special threat. With other research we glory in our identification with the scientist. Such scientific pursuit elevates us above, and distinguishes us from, the common animal host. With behavior control, we identify with the research animal as well as the researcher. The research reasserts man's kinship with the pigeon, the rat, and the guinea pig. The more technological the control devices--psychosurgery, electrode implantation, "voodoo" drugs--the more titillating they are.