The New Atlantis Essay Topics

One of the first things that comes to mind when talking about scientific advancements is how they can benefit people and society as a whole. However, a topic that is not often brought up is the negative aspect of it. So before we get too far ahead of ourselves and reach a point of no return, we should first look at the negative effects. The book The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon beautifully highlights the potentially dangerous relationship that science and nature can have with each other, specifically the exploitation of nature with some scientific advancements. The people of Bensalem perfectly encapsulate how most people view scientific advancements as a sort of necessity and the answer to all needs. This is far from correct and has potential

For example, in The New Atlantis, when all the scientific advancements are being showcased, it may seem like encouraging signs, as you think of the benefits that they can bring to a community, but there is more than meets the eye with all of those inventions. Heavily relying on man-made objects to replace things nature would do naturally could lead to a whirlwind of consequences that could make situations worse than they were before. The people of Bensalem have a seemingly obsession with trying to recreate things nature can do. For example, they "have heats, in imitation of the Sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass divers inequalities, and (as it were) orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we produce admirable effects" (Bacon 25). We want to do our best to avoid replacing nature with man-made objects because one thing that we can never perfectly predict is humans who can be overcome with selfish desires and greediness, which could effectively impede any progress scientific advancement has made. This is especially problematic in The New Atlantis as despite being considered a "utopian society," they are run by an almost dictatorial patriarchal system. So even if they somehow consider every side effect of the experiment and everything is going according to plan at first, a single human decision can cause a

They viewed these animals as some kind of product that they would send to a factory to fix "mistakes" as seen in said, "We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures, like beasts or birds; and have sexes, and do propagate" (Bacon 25). The people of Bensalem saw being able to do this as some kind of great feat; however, they could not be more wrong. Animals are not like products; they are living creatures that are part of an ecosystem and play a vital role in them. The way they are genetically made up is for them to live and thrive in their environment, so genetically modifying them becomes an extremely complicated and convoluted process full of potential inadvertent implications that can do more harm than good. Another concern is if you modify too much of an animal's genetic makeup, you could potentially make them seem like a new species. This is not good, as according to an article titled "Introduction of non-native freshwater fish can certainly be bad" by Jean Ricardo, et al., when a non-native freshwater fish was introduced to a different body of water, it had "catastrophic ecological consequences." The next inadvertent effect is seen in the ecosystem of the animals. In an ecosystem, animals will compete with each other for the