Greek legend tells of Pelops, the grandson of Zeus, who was killed, cooked, and served to the gods to judge whether they could differentiate between flesh of man and beast. Demeter, goddess of agriculture, ate Pelop's shoulder, but recognizing her error, restored him to life and constructed a replacement prosthetic ivory shoulder.

Fast fast forward. Today, 10% of the U.S. population is estimated to be cyborgs in the technical sense, including people with electronic pacemakers, artificial joints, drug implant systems, implanted corneal lenses, and synthetic skin.

This trend inspires the question: How ready are we to accept further engineered extensions of the human body?

And does our response vary depending on whether these devices are Restorative, Normalizing, Reconfiguring, or Enhancing?

Comments (1)

Gary,

It seems clear that the line is very hard to define. Mechanical hearts and knee and hip replacements for people especially older people....no worries...but knee replacement strength enhancing joints for NBA players....hmmmmm.....sort of the same as the whole steriod issue. Clearly crosses a line.

Posted by mark dziersk | January 16, 2005 12:32 PM

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