Sunday, February 7, 2010

Summary/Critique #1

Summary/Critique of Super Size your child by Richard Hayes

The author is talking about how giving us a way to chose what characteristic our child will be. He talk about the discovery of the 5-HTT for reducing the risk of depression and the DAF-2 gene variant which double the life span of nematode worm which if successfully applied to human will double our life span. He also discusses some gene manipulation in order to increase IQ or the determination of “gay genes”. The author cited numerous groups against gene manipulations. The involvement of the law prohibited this kind of technology to go further and out of control.
The author presented factual reports from scientific magazines. He pointed out the different scientists who discovered gene variants that can be manipulated or altered to make our children perfect. The author also uses terms that are directly related to genes and DNA’s that are known to affect the focus of the discovery. The author pointed out that the responses on these discoveries are impossible and inevitable. Due to the involvement of government, his reflection says that it is possible and definitely not inevitable. Hayes also empowers his essay by making us aware of the consequence if we are to genetically engineer our children. It would be again a separation of master and slave, or perfect and imperfect, normal and altered.
The author did not present the good side of this discoveries and science research, which is the initial reason of finding cure for cancer and preventing physical characteristics that can disadvantage a child. This will at least address the prevention of child being born without a complete limb or having some kind of hereditary disease. He forgot to mention the positive advantage of stem cell research to prevent diseases like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease to name a few.
The author essay talks a lot of gene manipulations and the effect to our community, people and laws. The author opposes with genetically engineered babies. There are always good and bad sides of every discovery.

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