Thursday, April 17, 2014

Science vs. Morality

Cat's Cradle Reflection


“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”

Cat’s Cradle is all about science and the morals behind it or lack thereof. It is centered around a scientist, Felix Hoenikker, who does not look at science as something that should have morals, he is simply curious. He lacks the ability to see that his inventions and research affect the rest of the world and could have very negative repercussions. Hoenikker is very smart and does not really even realize what he is working on. In the beginning of the book the men looking for the atomic bomb came to his son and asked how they could get him to focus on this instead of his current obsession with turtles. Newt told them that all they had to do was take the turtles away and put the bomb in front of him. They did it and it worked. Felix did not want to make a bomb or anything dangerous he was just curious. He has a lot of the same qualities’ as mankind in the face that we are eternally curious and not thinking about what bad things could come from our curiosity. The quote ‘curiosity killed the cat’ reminds me a lot of this book. I think that curiosity is not as important as keeping the peace and I think that while discovering is very important and this is led by curiosity, morals and not hurting other people is more important and this should be remembered.

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