From Marcus Munafo
The Frankenstein metaphor is used with increasing frequency to describe the
work of scientists that the public find troubling
(“Beastly work”, 30 September, p 48).
This has always surprised me. In the novel, the creature created by Dr
Frankenstein is not in itself the problem. Rather, the disaster that follows is
a consequence of the reaction of ordinary people, including Dr Frankenstein
himself, to that which they do not understand. If anything, the novel is a
metaphor for the damage that can be done by a misguided emotional reaction to a
neutral scientific advance.
This more accurate metaphor certainly has a place in the debate on
genetically modified food and vivisection, among others, but perhaps not in the
way that those opposed to these might hope.
Institute of Health Sciences, University of Oxford
