A Measure of Restraint

In the excerpt, "A Measure of Restraint", Chet Raymo satirizes and parodies human responses to novel and new items. Raymo emphasizes that people are so caught up in the illusion and mirage of discoveries and inventions that they don't think to reflect or speculate any possible dangerous side effects. Following with this, people start to give names to the novelties that reflect their mentalities. Raymo writes that radium was often referred to as "liquid sunshine", "spontaneously luminous" and thought to have "curative powers". Raymo then proves his claim with juxtaposing these positive remarks with Marie Curie's death. He then concedes that all scientific discoveries are good to an extent; in other words, he uses parallel structure to show that a novelty could be an "instrument of healing" but also be an "instrument of death" when used in excess as people in history were doing with radium. People would include radium in their drinks, games, makeup and spas but were totally oblivious and ignorant towards the possibility that the substance could induce death.

Raymo parallels this response to radium with his own childhood experience of catching glowing insects to imply that even adults are gullible like children and seem to believe that novelties are safe. To justify this, he uses various diction to show that humans were drawn to radium because of its glow. In the same way children chase after light-producing items, adults do the same without considering the potential risks.

The tendency for humans to believe that novelties are entirely safe was what caused so many fatalities during the Titanic. Due to its elegance and size, it was dubbed as "unsinkable" and wasn't stocked with enough life-jackets and life-boats in the event of sinking. Just as humans viewed radium as entirely safe that had no possible danger, people didn't foresee any danger of sinking with the Titanic.

To mirror the unexpectedness of the danger of radium, Raymo shifts tones abruptly and provides contrasting imagery. For example, Raymo starts to praise radium and compares it to "an enchanted elfin sprite". However, within the same paragraph, he writes that "the girls is dead...more than two hundred people were contaminated". While reading the passage, readers would not have anticipated that Raymo shift his perspective and would've believed that the item that he was describing was indeed good just as society did when radium was first discovered.

This piece relates to a video we watched in Biology which was describing the potential use of gene editing on humans in the future. The video presented the possible benefits associated with this technology as it would enable doctors and geneticists to correct genetic mutations early-on and would thereby increase the quality of life for an individual. However, the video anticipated that people would take gene editing too far and would try to alter physical and personality traits such as intelligence and height. Raymo proposes that there needs to be a balance on the uses of new technologies because the "unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril". This same sentiment is applicable to digital technologies and future innovations.

The fact that there needs to be a "measure of restraint" was also proved through books like The Great Gatsby where people chased the American Dream to acquire wealth. Gatsby didn't restrain himself at all and acquired so much wealth (some in illegal ways) that he forgot his morals and ethics that are integral to a person. The American Dream serves to be a driving force for people to break boundaries and achieve success but when chased with too much force, people forget who they are.