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15 UCLA L. Rev. 273 (1967-1968)
The New Biology and the Future of Man

handle is hein.journals/uclalr15 and id is 275 raw text is: THE NEW BIOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF MAN* Roderic Gorney** I. INTRODUCTION This is the most marvelous moment of man's history in which to be alive. For the first time we are about to have enough to go around. But the new life promises more than a sufficiency of things. It promises more than freedom from drudgery and disease, more than freedom to be and to explore, more than distraction of the leisured few from the pain of the many they enslave. It promises that all human beings may look forward to a fully human life. It is sadly ironic that at this wonderful moment when our long struggle is about to pay off, some of us are still tempted to wipe out the experiment of man through the evolutionary mistake called war, and thus throw away the victory that belongs to us all. Throughout most of our two million years, the human species has lived in the era of scarcity which required us to submit more or less helplessly to limitations imposed by seemingly uncontrollable fate. The central fact of human life today is that we are leaving that old era of scarcity. Admittedly, abundance is not yet evenly dis- tributed, but the general trend is evident everywhere. And more important, Word of it is reaching people everywhere. Even the poor- est peasant, as he scratches the world's most underdeveloped land With his wooden plow, can often be found plugged into the news of forthcoming abundance via the transistor radio button in his ear, He is becoming aware that various scientific and technical advances have liberated at least those of us who live in wealthier lands from famine, pestilence, barriers of time and distance-and have introduced surpluses, pollution, overcrowding and nuclear war. He is learning, as we are, that ineffective magical efforts to woo supernatural forces are being replaced by definite acts of control, placing increasing power in our once helpless hands, and reposing increasing responsibility on our once benighted minds. * Copyright ©D 1968 by Roderic Gorney. Excerpted from his forthcoming book, THtE HUMAN AGENbA. ** B.A., Stanford University, 1948; M.D., Stanford University, 1949. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in Residence, U.C.L.A. School of Medicine; Staff Psychiatrist, Neuropbychiatric Institute, U.C.L.A.

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