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wildweasel105 's review for:
The Island of Dr. Moreau
by H.G. Wells
In 1896, H.G. Wells shocked the public with one of his science fiction novels dealing with man's intervention with nature. He speculated what would happen if man, the superior creature, happened to physically alter animals in order to bring their intelligence and behavior closer to man's? Would they be a hybrid of qualities between the two, forever changing the destiny of evolution? Or would these altered animals degrade back to their former selves, unfit to exist along side mankind except as pets, or beasts of burden?
This whole debate is played out in Wells' story of a shipwrecked sailor rescued and brought to a remote Pacific island populated by a race of mutated beings: half-animal, half-human. The island is the laboratory for Dr. Moreau, who was banished from the London medical society some ten years previous because of his physiology experiments (read, vivisection) on animals.
The sailor, named Mr. Prendick, faces a harrowing existence on this island, observing the results of Dr. Moreau's bizarre experiments, and like the reader, must contemplate whether or not man has the philosophical if not the technological right to alter the natural order of living creatures.
Wells took on Darwinism, medical research, and the ethical protection of animals all in one fell swoop, but did so in an intelligent manner so typical of him. Considering the date of publishing, one has to wonder how brilliant Wells was in speculating the possible future as we NOW know the extent of genetic and stem cell research.
This whole debate is played out in Wells' story of a shipwrecked sailor rescued and brought to a remote Pacific island populated by a race of mutated beings: half-animal, half-human. The island is the laboratory for Dr. Moreau, who was banished from the London medical society some ten years previous because of his physiology experiments (read, vivisection) on animals.
The sailor, named Mr. Prendick, faces a harrowing existence on this island, observing the results of Dr. Moreau's bizarre experiments, and like the reader, must contemplate whether or not man has the philosophical if not the technological right to alter the natural order of living creatures.
Wells took on Darwinism, medical research, and the ethical protection of animals all in one fell swoop, but did so in an intelligent manner so typical of him. Considering the date of publishing, one has to wonder how brilliant Wells was in speculating the possible future as we NOW know the extent of genetic and stem cell research.