TAKING SIDES ANALYSIS REPORT (LONG FORM)

Name: Savannah J. Diebold

Course: BIOL 1090
Book: Taking Sides; Clashing Views in Health and Society
Issue number: 12 Title of issue: Is Genetic Enhancement an Unacceptable Use of Technology?
1. Author and major thesis of the Yes side. Michael J. Sandel believes that 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. Howard Trachtman says that the medical
community should embrace enhancement as a never-ending quest for health that recognizes that
perfection can never be achieved.
3. What fallacies of question-framing are made by the authors of the text? Both the yes and
the no side consisted of fallacies the difference between them is that the yes side was able to
rebuttal themselves. For example one might say that when Sandel said, Some who worry about
the ethics of cognitive enhancement point to the danger of creating two classes of human beings:
those with access to enhancement technologies, and those who must make do with their natural
capacities. And if the enhancements could be passed down to generations, the two classes might
eventually become subspeciesthe enhanced and the merely natural that that was a fallacy.
However he did say that some who worry. He also later said ...the fundamental question is not
how to ensure equal access to enhancement but whether we should aspire to it in the first place.
4. Briefly state in your own words two facts presented by each side.
Yes Side: Sandel mentions research that is being done on mice by H. Lee Sweeny, of the
University of Pennsylvania. Sandel mentions the synthetic gene that was injected into the muscle
cells of mice. He states that when it is injected it prevents and reverses natural muscle
deterioration. He also says that the researchers found that the injection also strengthens healthy
muscles too.
No Side: Trachtman was explaining that throughout history many people believed that they have
gotten as far as possible in technology and discoveries. He says that a few decades after
physicists in the nineteenth century were confident that they had the natural order of things under
control, David Hilbert and colleagues asserted that they were closing in on verification of the
internal consistency and validity of mathematics and by inference all of philosophy. He then
goes on to explain that nothing ever goes as planned and he lists some examples: Einstein and his
relativistic quanta, Godel and his incompleteness theorem, AIDS and Ebola, and the attack on
the World Trade Center.
5. Briefly state in your own words two opinions presented by each side.
Yes Side: Micheal J. Sandel. from "The Case Against Perfection", stated, "I do not think the
main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering is that they undermine effort and erode
human agency. The deeper danger is that they represent a kind of hyperagency- a Promethean
aspiration to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our
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desires. The problem is not the drift into mechanism but the drive to mastery. Michael J.
Sanders argues that genetic enhancement would be a negative impact on human nature. It is
unnatural to use technology to enhance ones performance, a child for a certain sport or just to
make them look better, or correcting any disliked feature of the body. Accepting the way
human nature created a child, a childs gender, genetics, and yourself.
No Side: Physician Howard Trachtman believes that we should not fear progress or try to limit
medical manipulations. Later he is basically stating that if these technologies help improve lives
in a safe way, there is nothing wrong with it. There will always be striving for a better, healthier
life but never a perfect life.
6. Briefly identify as many fallacies on the Yes side as you can. Sandel tried to say that genetic
enhancement is not a good use of technology because many athletes will be eager to avail
themselves of genetic enhancement. This doesnt negate the positive of curing muscle
dystrophy. He then goes on to express that not everyone will have access to the enhancements
and that that will simultaneously create a subspecies. One species will be the enhanced and the
other the natural.
7. Briefly identify as many fallacies on the No side as you can. "Is erectile dysfunction an
ailment like salmonella enteritis or a failure to perform? If I can confidently help the patient with
their problem safely and effectively, I for one would just as soon avoid categorizing their
complaint into an acceptable versus unacceptable category." The language in this sentence makes
the opposing side look bad as "not helping" someone if they had erectile dysfunction because
they view it as "unacceptable". This argument also appeals to our emotions, as human beings and
our desire to help others, and criticizes those you don't have the same opinion. This is a use of
pathos, to appeal to our human emotions for sympathy. Demonizes entire groups of people when
uses phrases such as, "Each medical advance from X-rays to imatinib has ALWAYS been
heralded as the advent of the new millennium", "Outcomes in real patients hardly EVER live up
to the exaggerated claims of the advanced sales pitch", "...intent has ALWAYS been a difficult
barometer to gauge the behavior of ANY professional. MOST patients are ONLY interested in
getting better or improving their health. They RARELY concern themselves with the motivation
of the care provider..."
8. All in all, which author impressed you as being the most empirical in presenting his or
her thesis? Why? The yes side by far. The No side is strictly speaking out about the future and
how this might help some things out in the long term. However in the long run they fail to
mention how this will affect people and the average population. In the yes side they do a lot of
applying of present and past experiences to help determine how this will affect humanity as a
whole.
For example the YES side mentioned about how not everyone would be able to afford some of
these enhancements therefore they cant even have this new breakthrough available to them.
Possibly causing different subspecies or groups of people. This creates barriers between people.
You can see by this kind of thinking that they carefully observed the past to make a well thought
out decision for the present.
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9. Are there any reasons to believe the writers are biased? If so, why do they have these
biases? I think that one could argue if Sandel is biased in his writing because he is a political
philosopher. This might cause him to not see the whole picture as a medical breakthrough that
can help so many people. Stopping genetic enhancement might lead to stopping genetic research
and genetic therapy. As a political man he is thinking of the people in a different way. However I
do think that he prevented any biases from occurring by fully backing up all of his statements
with research and reason. I did notice how Trachtman did state many opinions in his
writings. "...it is surprising that physicians and bioethicists should have such unrealistic view
and apprehensions about prospective therapeutic interventions..." It is not able to be proven that
the view is unrealistic, therefore it is not a fact, only an opinion. I think he could be bias because
he is a physician and he too can be clouded to not see the full picture and maybe just the medical
benefits. He does not do as good of a job in backing himself up with facts rather than opinions.
10. Which side (Yes or No) do you personally feel is most correct now that you have
reviewed the material in these articles? Why? The yes side did a better job at giving examples
and explaining the point of view with facts and reason. I personally believed more of the yes side
because of this. Everything he stated he had something to back him up on it. I do not personally
agree that genetic enhancement is so terrible as he seems to see it, I think it is a great
advancement. However, I feel that because the no side seemed to give more of an opinion and a
lot of fallacies that I agree more with what the yes side said.