by Frankenstein follows Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant scientist with a passion for wanting to create life. After successfully developing a creature, Victor immediately is terrified by the “monster” and makes the decision to abandon it. Throughout the novel, the reader follows the monster’s struggle with finding happiness and being accepted into society. Additionally, Victor grapples with the pain of death and loss at the hands of his own creation. The novel allows the reading to ponder the moral implications of Victor’s actions. Is Victor selfish for creating a monster that would never fit in society just to live out his personal dream? Were Victor’s actions immoral and made him a bad scientist? And to these questions, I would say yes.
Victor prioritized his personal goals over the livelihood of his creation. Bad science is a combination of bias and mistakes. With the elimination of those factors, bad science becomes good science. Good science is prevented when the scientists’ goals exceed what is better for the overall world. The manipulation of good science is something that now is in the hands of people and companies of higher power. For example, when an employee of a company creates something, it is now controlled by the company that the employee works for. These companies are businesses that can about profit which results in them taking advantage of good science
Now, there is more to science and technology than just the creation of the product. The moral aspect of a creation coincides with the economic aspect. In this day and age, the success of technology made does not only depend on how groundbreaking it is but also on how much money the product makes. We are in the middle of the pandemic and, hopefully soon, there will be a vaccine that can help prevent the spread of Covid-19. However, the creation of the vaccine is just the beginning. The process of distributing the vaccine to everyone will be a difficult task. The vaccine will most likely be expensive and lots of marginalized communities will not be able to receive it. Therefore, Covid-19 will continue to plague their communities in even more extreme ways. If this vaccine is created and able to extend to all communities affected by it, then it will embody good science. However, if the communities that are disproportionately affected by this illness do not have equal access to this vaccine due to money issues, then I will not deem this discovery successful. Benefiting of the expensive prices versus eliminating the virus does not fall into the category of good science to me. However, this does not always fall on the scientific community. The companies that help produce these vaccines hopefully will be able to access people in all communities.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein teaches the reader about the dangers of prioritizing your own goals at the expense of violating morals and the wellbeing of others. As scientists get closer to discovering a vaccine, I hope that the companies that will mass produce this will not manipulate good science.
Images:
https://www.bd.com/en-us/clinical-excellence/bd-institute-for-medication-management-excellence/blog/immunizations-at-risk-understanding-disruptions-in-the-cold-chain
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/covid-19-vaccine-may-not-work-for-at-risk-older-people-say-scientists