TAKING SIDES ANALYSIS
Taking Sides Readings: Issue # 12
Title of issue: Is Genetic Enhancement an Unacceptable Use of Technology?
1. Author and major thesis of the Yes side: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER Michael J. Sandel “Using genetic technology to enhance performance, design children, and perfect human nature is a flawed attempt at human mastery, and banishes appreciation of life as a gift.”
2. Author and major thesis of the No side: PHYSICIAN Howard Trachtman “The medical community should embrace enhancement as a never-ending quest for health that recognizes that perfection can never be achieved.”
3. Briefly state in your own words two facts presented by each side.
YES: FACT 1: The Author talks about a synthetic gene that prevents and may also reverse muscle deterioration. The experiment that proved this fact was performed using mice. This result is fact because in the next couple sentences the author supports the performance of the experiment by stating that this experiment was done by H. Lee Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania.
FACT 2: If Growth-hormone prescriptions are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration they are still legal to sell, although the pharmaceutical companies cannot encourage the use of it. This is fact because the author uses the support of the Food and Drug Administration who can testify of its truth.
NO: FACT 1: With anything that people are given to have a better life, to improve their life, there will be those people that find a way to abuse it. The author explained this specifically by using the medication erythropoietin which is used to improve the lives of people experiencing end stage renal disease, but athletes decide to abuse this same drug to improve their athletic performance. This can be stated as fact because it is supported by a reference. (Schemacher et al.2001)
FACT 2: We will never learn enough/improve so much that we create perfection/mastery in-turn ruining our natural state. The author explains that no matter how much we improve, other problems or questions always tend to occur if it is either regarding the new improvement or if it is regarding an improvement done it the past that all the sudden is no longer effective or has a deficiency. This fact is supported by reference (Kantarjian et al. 2002)
4. Briefly state in your own words two opinions presented by each side.
YES: OPINION 1: The author thinks that the main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering will be that the human race will forget/disregard the greatness in what each individual (given their unique character and body type) can achieve; and instead life will turn into “Who has the most money to create themselves/their offspring to be the most successful.”
OPINION 2: The author thinks that since many parents enroll their children into special things to improve their lives and elevate their chances of success (that are usually expensive), such as hiring private tutors, providing piano lessons, dance lessons, enrolling them in sports or private school, that they would have no problem paying and would most likely pay for genetic enhancements.
NO: OPINION 1: The author explains how not everyone is going to buy the hottest thing on the market and will first look for a “quick fix” treatment/temporary treatment. The author then states his opinion that he thinks Doctors would improve their practice if they took some time to get to know each patient since each patient is very different from one another
OPINION 2: When talking about longer life expectancy the author begins to explain that longer life expectancy means more medications to maintain that life. He then comes to a conclusion that if that happens, then we should have no reason to fear enhancement because it would then be a necessity in order to maintain life longer than that of today’s expectancy.
5. Briefly identify as many fallacies(lack of reasoning or validity) on the Yes side as you can.
· Science moves faster than moral understanding as it does today, men and woman struggle to articulate their unease.
· Proper stance of a human being and the moral status of nature, and about proper stance of human beings toward the given world.
· Human growth hormone has been approved for children with hormone deficiency that makes them much shorter than average, but the treatment also increases the height of healthy children.
· Except in Lake Wobegon, not every child can be above average.
6. Briefly identify as many fallacies on the No side as you can.
· Outcomes in real patients hardly ever live up to the exaggerated claims of the advanced sales pitch.
· Similarly, physicians rarely question why people want to get better as long as they follow instructions and balance the risks and benefits reasonably in their health care judgments.
7. All in all, which author impressed you as being the most empirical in presenting his or her thesis? Why?
I believe the physician Howard Trachtman, in favor of the “No” side presented his these best. He included many different references which supported his claims and did well in comparing both sides of the argument to convince the reader that his side was correct/made more sense.
8. Are there any reasons to believe the writers are biased? If so, why do they have these biases?
YES both writers are biased. Michael J. Sandel is a philosopher so he will be looking at the consequences that result from the patients way of thinking, he will look at how that the world works and will consider the all the negative possibilities in order to see if it is worth it. Howard Trachtman is a doctor and will always support the medical field; the more improvements there are, the better he can attend to his patients.
9. Which side (Yes or No) do you personally feel is most correct now that you have reviewed the material in these articles? Why?
I feel the No side is most correct now that I have reviewed the material. At first I took the Yes side because I would not like a community that is able to purchase their “good looks” just because they have the money to do it. But Genetic Enhancement is definitely a great opportunity to improve medical conditions, continue finding cures for diseases and help enable the disabled. Although I do believe that there must be some limit on these procedures and more availability to those who need it rather than those who just want it. With every new improvement there must be rules.
