• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.163-188
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• 2018

Through the action of Major Barbara, Shaw advocates the improvement of human race and civilization through fabian eugenic socialism in the based on the Galtonian eugenics and social Darwinism in late Victorian period. In the play, Shaw contrasts two ideologies, Barbara's spiritual institutionalized Christianity with Undershaft's worldly power to control the conventional society. For the dramatic purpose, Shaw symbolically combines the power of the munitions maker, the intellect of the scholar and the faith of the Salvationist. Shaw seems to believe that the best way of improving the human society can be comprised by effective eugenic agencies regarded Shavian trinities. In relation to the eugenic discourses for social betterment, this essay explores how Shaw's ideas on social eugenic is perceived in Major Barbara through main characters as spiritual, intellectual and economic agencies in terms of social Darwinism for the progress of the human society. As always, Shaw's evolutionary agencies are disillusionized from the idealistic faith through the realistic awareness of economic facts, which is manifested in their practices to advance the institutional society Shaw attacked. It is obvious that the significant facts of eugenic socialism/social eugenics based on social Darwinism are promoted by Barbara, Cusins and Undershaft in Major Barbara to maintain a worthy evolution of society and humanity.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.307-316
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• 2010

This thesis attempts to describe the basis and value system respectively selected by opinions pro and against bio engineering technology and to induce discussions on the basis of the concept called 'two culture' issue by C. P. Snow - science culture, human culture, a teleological ethical theory and a deontological ethical theory, traditional eugenics, and liberalism eugenics. In addition, it will discuss about inconvenient truth about science and bio engineering which we have wrongly understood up to now - a myth on objectivity of science, autonomy of science and a scientist, a hunger of world, science expected to be responsible for all men. Lastly, it will describe study ethics and social responsibility, openness, moral imagination, self-examination, character of a bio engineer as professionalism.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.52
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• pp.277-312
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• 2018

First-order cybernetics during the 1940s and 1950s aimed for control of an observed system, while second-order cybernetics during the mid-1970s aspired to address the mechanism of an observing system. The former pursues an objective, subjectless, approach to a system, whereas the latter prefers a subjective, personal approach to a system. Second-order observation must be noted since a human observer is a living system that has its unique cognition. Maturana and Varela place the autopoiesis of this biological system at the core of second-order cybernetics. They contend that an autpoietic system maintains, transforms and produces itself. Technoscientific recreation of biological autopoiesis opens up to a new step in cybernetics: what I describe as third-order cybernetics. The formation of technoscientific autopoiesis overlaps with the Fourth Industrial Revolution or what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call the Second Machine Age. It leads to a radical shift from human centrism to posthumanity whereby humanity is mechanized, and machinery is biologized. In two versions of the novel Demon Seed, American novelist Dean Koontz explores the significance of technoscientific autopoiesis. The 1973 version dramatizes two kinds of observers: the technophobic human observer and the technology-friendly machine observer Proteus. As the story concludes, the former dominates the latter with the result that an anthropocentric position still works. The 1997 version, however, reveals the victory of the techno-friendly narrator Proteus over the anthropocentric narrator. Losing his narrational position, the technophobic human narrator of the story disappears. In the 1997 version, Proteus becomes the subject of desire in luring divorcee Susan. He longs to flaunt his male egomaniac. His achievement of male identity is a sign of technological autopoiesis characteristic of third-order cybernetics. To display self-producing capabilities integral to the autonomy of machinery, Koontz's novel demonstrates that Proteus manipulates Susan's egg to produce a human-machine mixture. Koontz's demon child, problematically enough, implicates the future of eugenics in an era of technological autopoiesis. Proteus creates a crossbreed of humanity and machinery to engineer a perfect body and mind. He fixes incurable or intractable diseases through genetic modifications. Proteus transfers a vast amount of digital information to his offspring's brain, which enables the demon child to achieve state-of-the-art intelligence. His technological editing of human genes and consciousness leads to digital standardization through unanimous spread of the best qualities of humanity. He gathers distinguished human genes and mental status much like collecting luxury brands. Accordingly, Proteus's child-making project ultimately moves towards technologically-controlled eugenics. Pointedly, it disturbs the classical ideal of liberal humanism celebrating a human being as the master of his or her nature.

• Development and Reproduction
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2021

This article aims to introduce German discussion on the approval of the non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD), which started with the development of PrenaTest^® by LifeCodexx AG. The discussion started with the concern that the non-invasive nature of NIPD, such as PrenaTest^®, may rapidly expand the use and scope of similar tests, thus leading to a new era of eugenics. Based on this concern, the need for clear clinical guidelines on specific indications for NIPD has been suggested. Along the same line, it was discussed whether PrenaTest^® is against the Basic Law prohibiting discrimination on grounds of disability and whether the test is outside the scope of the purpose of gene testing limited by Genetic Diagnosis Act. Through such discussion, the Federal Ministry of Health of Germany established the preconditions for inclusion of NIPD in the German public health insurance system. For this, the German motherhood guideline was amended and the information for the insured persons provided to pregnant women was included in the amended guideline. Such discussion made in Germany provides insight on which points should be considered when various gene testings are accepted in Korea, in which genetic communication has not been systematized yet. In particular, German counseling system for pregnant women will provide valuable insights for Korea where the direction for regulations on abortion has not been established even after the ruling by the Constitutional Court that charges for abortion are against the constitution.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.131-158
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• 2008

With the intention of revealing that biological determinism is not the truth verified as scientific facts but ideology which conceals or reproduces the white male-centered social order of western capitalism, this article considered the peculiarities of human being from a perspective of cultural anthropology and examined the social contexts of biological determinism. From these studies, it found that the human is not born, but rather become, that biological determinism, from phrenology and social evolutionism to social biology and IQ determinism, emerged for the breakthrough of crisis in which a number of disclosed social contradictions drove the established ruling order into a collapse, and that it cannot but function as dominant ideology rationalizing racial, ethnic, class and gender discriminations. Hence, bioscience must overcome biological determinism in order to be the hope of both all people and all sort of life. But it is without the transformation of unequal structures that the problem of biological determinism cannot be surmountable at all.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.47-71
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• 2005

The unexpected increase of violent crimes in Korea urges people to look for more dynamic explanations of criminal behavior other than sociological eugenics such as a struggle between social classes or assimilation to deviant social environment. In this study, criminal behavior is treated as personal matter according to the tradition of psychological theories of crime rather than sociological phenomenon. Furthermore, aggression is supposed to be one of the most basic dispositional characteristics of violent acts. Therefore, this study explored the relationship between aggression measured by BPAQ and criminality evaluated based on seriousness of criminal offenses. On the other hand, the cross-validity of BPAQ was also investigated since prevalence and expressive forms of violence is known to vary across cultures and even within a society. The variance analyses and causal modeling presented that BPAQ had satisfactory level of cross-validity and dispositional aggression measured by BPAQ might have causal effect on criminality of Korean offenders. Additionally, a theoretical internal structure of BPAQ had been confirmed to be reasonable by confirmatory factor analyses.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.5-41
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• 1979

Vast volumes of studies of the medical and public health aspects of fertility and family planning have been published by the various institutes of health related research and university scholars in Korea. None of them, however, have dealed with the population problems associated with biologically and mentally handicapped people. It must be emphasized that the purpose of Korea's population policy should be to improve the quality of the population rather than to decrease its rate of increase. In this spirit, the first report of this study is to identify problems related with mentally and physically less fitted population, and to attempt to offer the possible solutions to the health planners and policy-makers. Several nation-wide surveys of the handicapped people in Korea have been compared. Each survey shows a wide range of difference in the prevalence of the handicaps(see Table 13). In this study, the data on the handicaps are collected by two independent system ; one by the nation-wide survey and the other by the reporting system existing at the Seoul National University Demonstration Health Project. The Chandrasekar-Deming technique was used to estimate the total number of handicaps. The estimates are summarized in the tables 8, 9 and 10. Estimate of total number of handicapped people in Korea is 601, 400 with the prevalence rate of 16.1 per thousand persons. Even if taking a number of conditions which may result in a biased estimate of the total number of the handicaps into consideration, the proportion of handicapped people in Korea has increased in the past two decade as the result of the rapid decline in fertility and childhood mortality, which consequently prolonged life expectancy of persons with congenital or acquired impediment. An increase in the proportion of handicapped people will eventually bring about serious problems of social welfare, medical care, and population qualities from various aspects including eugenics. To tackle the problem, there must be an increased emphasis on the prevention of handicaps from the government and private sector. Based on the amount and quality of data, and from the practical point of view, this study prepared a set of recommendations for the government to strengthen its programs of the preventive activities during the prenatal period and early childhood, early finding from routine examinations, and proper social and medical rehabilitation.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.99-112
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• 1985

It was measured to check the state of health education by the survey of the items related to the health with the first grade of students in middle school who mastered elementary courses. Totally 50 questions, which were selected from Standard and Dong-A reference books, were given to teachers and have got answered by the students who were totally 959(491 from urban areas and 468 from rural areas). It's done just after they entered middle school for a month, from April 10 to may 10, 1984. There were totally 782 items of health in all subjects of all grades. In contents, the most cases were about mental and emotional health(17.7%), exercise and rest (15.1%), environmental health, health life, personal health care, nutrition and foods, social health and organization, physiology and anatomy, statistics of public health population problem, disease and care, food sanitation, school health, parasitic and communicable disease control, eugenics and heredity(0.4%), etc were followed. In subjects, Korean language had 44.7% of mental and emotional health in 114 cases, arithmetics 46.4% of statistics of public health in 26, sociology, 23.1% of environmental health in 118, natural science, 60.1% of physiology and anatomy in 30, ethics, 40.3% of mental and emotional health in 176, music, 21.8% of mental and emotional health and accidents in 23, art, 42.9% of exercise and rest in 28, physical education, 38.6% of exercise and rest in 201, practical course, 36.2% of nutrition and foods in 61, and there was nothing but only one case in Korean history. Subjects in total cases of health informing items are below: Physical education 25.8, ethics 22.5%, sociology 15.1%, Korean language 14.6%, practical course 7.8%, natural science 3.8%, art 3.6%, arithmetics 3.3%, music 2.9%, Korean history 0.6%. Grades in total cases of health informing items are belows: the sixth grade 29.1%, the fourth grade 21.2%, the fifth grade 18.9%, the third grade 11.6%, the first grade 11.5%, the second grade 7.7%. The sections related to health matters were average 35.4%. According to the grades, the fourth and the sixth grade were 38.2% each other, the highest, and the second grade was 29.3%, the lowest. All scetions in physical education included them. The acceptability to the knowledge for health was belows: 56.3% in urban students and 53.9% in rural students. There was some difference in acceptability between two parties (p<0.005).