The science and technology show Découvete, which airs on the Radio-Canada (French-language) television network, is going to air a show on Feb. 27 entitled: The Boy Without a Penis. Tell me if there's not something you find ethically disturbing about this.
Here's the (translated) description:
Sexual identity, is it innate or acquired? A fundamental question which was the object of a human experiment in Canada in the 60s. This week on Découverte, we tell you the troubling story of David Reimer, a Canadian from Winnipeg who, at 7 months, had his penis burnt off during a surgerical procedure...
This alone should answer the answer the question about ethics. But it gets worse...
and of John Money, the psychologist who treated him. This psychologist advocated one of the most celebrated hypotheses in modern psychology: any boy could be raised as a girl. During the first 14 years of his life, David Reimer was raised as a girl and, unfortunately, the experiment turned badly.
When I was in Guinea, a good friend of mine who was a biology/chemistry teacher, often said, "La science sans conscience sera la ruine de l'homme."
"Science without conscience will be the ruin of man."
How can a modest middle school teacher from a tiny African village continue to be so much more right than the world's smartest minds? I guess it goes to show yet again the difference between wisdom and intelligence.
2 comments:
Sometimes I think that even science with a consience will be the ruin of man. As a gaunt Dr. Oppenheimer once said:
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
I don't know if you have heard of the Bruce/Brenda (David Reimer) case before, but it was the subject of a book "As Nature Made Him" about this guy's story and his struggle to overcome what was done to him and his family by this freakish dr.
Sadly, David Reimer committed suicide last year.
-NYCO
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