WHAT IS LIFE?

Ethics as a subject is not only very interesting but very important in this generation. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of the universe is increasing. Restated, the universe has a tendency for disorderliness. Over the years, man being a component of the universe has demonstrated the truth in that law by various activities of man that has plunged the world from one catastrophe to another.
The most recent global event is the second world war which led to the death of 60 million people. Notable during that war was the scientific experiments during which people were treated as commodities. The chilling effects of that war moved world leaders, including medical doctors to hold series of meetings to prevent future occurrences .The outcome of such meetings are far reaching. It gave rise to:
1 The Geneva Convention on Human rights [http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html]. This observed that contempt and disregard for human rights resulted in acts that are outrageous to human conscience therefore ruled that no one should be subjected to torture.
2 Three months earlier, the World Medical Association[ http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/geneva/] adopted the Physicians' oath. The 6th verse says, '' I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception, even under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity''


After the industrial revolution knowledge has increased and with it science. Science has contributed a lot in uplifting the life of individuals. However, man if left uncontrolled, like the universe, drifts to chaos. This underscores the importance of currently hot topics, in the media, scientific conferences, and labs, namely Abortion, stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering etc Undoubtedly, if the end is of primary importance, all of them are very beneficial, however, if the means is put in question, one can say that it appears we have quickly forgotten the second world war, it appears as if we are drifting from the resolutions taken after the war and the physicians oath.
Both the Geneva convention and the World Medical Association uphold the dignity of human being. On the contrary one feels that the proponents of the above topics regard the human entity as a commodity. Also, whereas the physician oath recognizes life as starting at conception, abortionists, and perhaps embryonic stem cell researchers argue 'it is not yet human'. Where then is the place of the oath?

Another subject of concern is the subject ' life'. What is life? For more than 400 years scientists and philosophers have been asking that question. This question moved the physicist, Erwin Schroedinger in 1944 to write a book with that title. To date, nobody has an answer to it. Carl Zimmer[http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/09/the_meaning_of_life.php?page=3] wrote that in a meeting hosted by the American Association for the advancement of science in 2001, entitled, “The Nature of Life.”a leading Philosopher with NASA said scientists should stop looking for the definition of life as they can't understand what life is and that either it is impossible to define life or it is trivial. To wrap up, this scientist is quoted as saying, “We don't want to know what the word life means to us. We want to know what life is," Carl Zimmer, also said that, Radu Popa stated in his book, “Between Probability and Necessity: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life” that he came across about four hundred definitions of life in scientific literature while researching his book. Rabu Popa is quoted as saying, “"A science in which the most important object has no definition—that's absolutely unacceptable,"

From the forgone, one can summarize that scientists are confused about life and lack the capacity to determine life. If that be the case, one is surprised that they and abortionists are busy destroying the same life they know nothing about.

Concluding, I will like to draw lessons from history. Kenneth Stampp, said ''With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is key to understanding the present. http://hnn.us/articles/1328.html “http://hnn.us/articles/1328.html ”Neglect of historical knowledge is to a nation what the loss of memory is to a man'' [ W. Stubbs, http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/miscellaneous/ob46.html] ''We learn from History that we never learn anything out of history''.[Hegel, http://hnn.us/articles/1328.html]. Since man has been at the center of most of the crisis the earth has faced since historical time it is best not to allow man decide on what will impact on the future. I am for the “ Modified Divine Command Theory” [http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/divine-c.htm]

Mary Chukwu

UHSA