Univ Reflection Paper

There are two kinds of people in the world; the people that see the human as a perfect being, and the people who see their imperfections and try to make it better. This is what genetic engineering is all about, to pursue perfection. And although some would say that perfection is impossible, others are trying to make the impossible possible by experiments to improve the actual estate of every animal, plant, flower or human in the planet. Genetic engineering is topic that must keep in mind, reading stories or watching the news, because someday the mind we have could have been genetically engineered.

“Flowers for Algernon” by David Keyes is the story about a mentally retarded man named Charlie Gordon, who as a part of an experimental surgery gets his triples his IQ. Charlie works as a janitor in a bakery and before de operation he believes that his coworkers are good friends, is not until he becomes intelligent when he realizes that they only made fun of him. When his teacher Alice recommend him to be a candidate for the experiment, the doctors start testing him by competing with a mouse named Algernon, who has already had the experimental surgery performed on him. After the operation, as Charlie becomes gradually smarter, he realizes that he has feelings for his teacher Alice and he also discovers that the intelligence he gained with the surgery is temporary and that he will soon start to experience a regression to his previous level of intelligence. Algernon dies and when Charlie’s regression is complete, he leaves a request in his diary to leave fresh flower in Algernon’s grave.

The idea of a surgery to become smarter is a little far from reality in

the present days. Doctors haven’t yet entirely studied the brain, and a surgery of that level may be dangerous. In the story there are different scientific terminology and some mathematical terminology, when Charlie starts studying advanced math and when he starts making his own research about the surgery. The Algernon-Gordon effect is how Charlie called the phenomenon the starts suffering.

With this idea of the possibility of becoming more intelligent with a surgery, the author David Keyes brings in social and ethical issues. If a experiment like that is