Happy (almost) Valentines Day (and Darwin Day, and Lincoln/Presidents Day). Bring health-impairing goodies if you wish.
A brief word on decorum. We're having GOOD conversations, but let's all remember that when we see classmates' hands in the air we should stop talking as soon as we've concluded the thought we're expressing and LISTEN... And generally it's more conducive to good conversation to respond not with a blunt "I don't agree!" but rather with a receptive "I don't understand" or "tell me more about what you mean" etc. It's just basic civility, and humility. Thanks for listening.
1. Concern for individual autonomy and personal sovereignty can obscure what other issue?
2. Why should we expand our notion of bioethics to biopolitics?
3. What popular sentiment on human reproductive cloning did Planned Parenthood not adopt, "fortunately"?
4. As the field of Bioethics evolved, to what approach did it stake a claim?
5. Name two of the distinctive concerns of the "new biopolitics" marking its difference from mainstream bioethics.
6. What "strand in the identification of the undeserving poor" is enjoying a revival?
7. Who was the Social Darwinists' leading spokesperson, and what did conservatives oppose in his name?
8. To whom did German eugenicists say they owed a debt?
9. Who said "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background"?
10. What assumption, according to a cited philosopher, encourages people to treat differences as pathologies?
Premonition
1. What's CEPI, who ran it, and who funded it?
2. What tacit rule did the Trump White House inherit from the Reagan administration?
3. What large gathering did the Chinese government allow in January 2020, after what WHO announcement?
4. Redneck epidemiology is academically ____.
5. What was shocking about the rate of viral reproduction of the novel coronavirus, compared to 1918?
6. What was Carter's favorite metaphor to convey people's inability to conceive exponential growth?
7. What could James Lawler not quite believe about the repatriation of Americans from Wuhan?
8. What was Carter's idea for a fishing expedition?
9. Who did Duane Caneva tell the Wolverines about on Feb 6, 2020?
Discussion Questions:
Why is disproportionately white and middle-class patronage of 23andMe a problem?
Is it inherently and unexceptionally wrong to prescribe dosages based on the patient's race and ethnicity?
- Should the role of medical professionals in the Nuremberg (etc.) atrocities have surprised us?
- Can any form of public/government-sponsored eugenic screening or counseling ever be seriously and cautiously entertained in a free society? Can "university presidents, MDs, judges, scholars" et al ever again advocate respectably for any form of eugenics? (xxi)
- What do you imagine would be the negative consequences, should human reproductive cloning ever be left to "individual choice"?
- How would you respond to any of the "thorny ethical questions" arising from germline engineering, CRISPR, etc.? (3)
- Is our social obligation to ameliorate poverty altered in any way by considerations of poverty's source, particularly in the case of the children of poverty?
- Is the promise of epigenetics to account for the so-called achievement gap, and in support of various interventions in the lives of poor children, scientifically sound? Is there a danger that its misuse will actually set back the cause of effective social reform?
Is it inherently and unexceptionally wrong to prescribe dosages based on the patient's race and ethnicity?
ReplyDeleteYes. We have the erroneous idea that skin color equals certain genetic predispositions and that is demonstratable false. Before a certain point in history, genes spread much more easily through northern Africa and southern Europe than from northern Africa to southern Africa. Crossing the Sahara Desert was a terribly more difficult feat than sailing north. As such, there are people of vastly different skin color that are more genetically similar than people of similar hues. It would not be wrong to use genetics to tailor more effective medicine, but prescribing a different medication based solely on skin color misses the genetic diversity that lies under the surface.
Could you demonstrate how skin color does not equal genetic predisposition? I am genuinely curious as much of my reading of medical texts shows the contrary. I am aware that race is a social construct. To me though it makes sense that someone from a vastly different place and environment is predisposed to different ailments. I can say with confidence that people of a darker complexion have less incidence of skin cancer. I would really like to know a source for your claim. Here are some articles regarding what I have said.
Deletehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24694/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7087065/#:~:text=The%20relationship%20between%20skin%20color,risk%20for%20developing%20skin%20cancer.
I just wanted to circle back around and add some sources to my point here. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8604262/#:~:text=The%20completion%20of%20the%20Human%20Genome%20Project%20in,and%20there%20is%20no%20genetic%20basis%20for%20race.
DeleteThis article explains how race and genetics don't exactly match up. Some people of the same color could actually have very different genetic makeups. Maybe the answer is that race is more useful in deciding who to screen for certain diseases rather than a definitive way to diagnose or prescribe. Race is definitely still useful in our pursuits to make a healthier world, just maybe misleading to rely on in circumstances of individual diagnosis
I think, in an ideal world, genetic code would always be considered instead of race. We discussed a little bit today how impractical that would be when the rubber meets the road.
The article that I read about the Sahara Desert being more difficult to spread genes over than the Mediterranean is much less academic.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/race-genetics-science-africa
Is our social obligation to ameliorate poverty altered in any way by considerations of poverty's source, particularly in the case of the children of poverty?
ReplyDeleteI do not believe in free-will. Previously, we thought bad readers were just lazy because they didn't try hard enough to read. Then we learned of dyslexia. It wasn't that these people didn't have the will to read well, it was that there was a genetic predisposition that made reading more difficult. We used to think of people as just lazy until we discovered depression. I think, with enough research, we will discover the attributes and society causes that combine to make someone poor. Adopting this perspective would have major implications for how we treat poor people.
While this idea of a lack of freewill is controversial, it should not at all be controversial when applying this philosophy to children. Children are the highest population of people who suffer poverty, and yet they have done nothing to deserve it. Children can't work. They can exercise no will to overcome their poor situation.
No matter what your stance is on free will, I think it is always important to help those in a more disadvantaged situation than you. While we talk about the idea of "the self-made man," the truth is that people are not able to escape certain levels of poverty. This argument is even stronger when we are talking about children in poverty who have no means of attaining employment and self-sustainability. It's not due to negligence and laziness, but rather, it is due to the structure and socioeconomic state of our society.
DeleteI would have to agree with Jaxon here, there are certainly situations of inescapable poverty. Likewise there exists unearned wealth. I think it is our moral obligation to help those in need, to the best of our community/nations ability.
DeleteWhat do you imagine would be the negative consequences, should human reproductive cloning ever be left to "individual choice"?
ReplyDeleteA dystopia I immediately imagined was having a million billionaires. Like a billionaire copies himself a million times over. You go to Jeff Bezos house and there exists a hive of Jeffs there, at his disposal. Now I go on to wonder if each Jeff gets his own vote or if we would have to restrict his vote to just the first Jeff. This really presents some interesting political questions too!
I could see a government contracting the cloning group to make a bunch of clone slaves for them to do either manual labor or to serve as soldiers. Seems like maybe the most profitable application.
DeleteI personally feel like that cloning should definitely be based on individual choice. As we go farther into technological advancement, the humanity of our society becomes more expendable. As these hypotheticals become more and more real we will have to grapple with these questions of what makes a person a person or whether a clone is truly the same person.
Deletethis comment was made by Jaxon Spinell I forgot to put that on the comment
DeleteWhy should we expand our notion of bioethics to biopolitics?
ReplyDeleteThe reason that bioethics has to expand to biopolitics is because the way we run our government and keep in place our policies for public health, pandemic control, etc. directly affect the spread of diseases, vaccines, and more. As we see in this chapter, a lot of issues that the government runs into are due to bipartisan bias, causing the Trump administration to refuse to acknowledge the occurrence of a pandemic during COVID. This is a serious issue because the politics of todays government can potentially prevent life saving plans and policies for a potential pandemic.
Why should we expand our notion of bioethics to biopolitics?
ReplyDeletePolicy determines the real world implications of the decisions we make in bioethical considerations. Philosophical discussions lay a groundwork for political ones, so when discussing bioethics it's important to talk about the ways in which real-life large problems are resolved through policy.
Is our social obligation to ameliorate poverty altered in any way by considerations of poverty's source, particularly in the case of the children of poverty?
ReplyDeleteI think that no matter poverty's source, we should strive to eradicate it because it has tremendous negative effects on one's wellbeing. Impoverished children are a good example of this, because they are born into a life of poor conditions through no fault of their own.
Is it inherently and unexceptionally wrong to prescribe dosages based on the patient's race and ethnicity?
ReplyDeleteI think that these traits should not effect a doctor or prescribers outlook and feeling totally, however there are considerations that race and ethnicity bring into view. One pertinent example is that of sickle cell being significantly more common amongst the African American population. I believe testing based on ethnicity for congenital conditions more common within that ethnicity makes great sense. I do not think that people should be given a better or worse standard of care based upon their race.
I have to agree with your point that ethnicity could be a way to increase efficiency in testing and screening. Some diseases and syndromes occur more in certain populations. It makes sense to be on higher alert about diseases in certain populations when you're dealing with someone in that population.
DeleteRegarding the Nuremberg atrocities, considering the Nazis had a lot of scientists and scientific knowledge. These scientists, though, put their expertise to lots of horrific and unethical testing.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the “thorny ethical questions” regarding CRISPR I would say that the technology should be approached in a neutral manner. It could be seen as a way to prevent and irradicate disease, but at the same time it could be used to justify atrocities in the name of science.
Regarding reproductive cloning, I think that it raises a lot of ethical issues on whether you should have a genetically identical offspring. I think the most important issue would be how things would advance, especially considering the government.
4. As the field of Bioethics evolved, it staked a claim to providing a detached, secular approach to the questions of life and death. Ensuring a non-religious point of view is important as a bioethicist if you want to ensure that the principles can be applied to anyone, whether they be Catholic, Jewish, or atheist.
ReplyDelete9. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murry said "low intelligence is a stronger precursor of poverty than low socioeconomic background"? They also determined that this was an inherited trait, further solidifying the idea that the poor were inferior in more ways than one. They were, on a fundamental level, flawed.
10. According to philosopher Jesse J. Prinz, the assumption that human nature is "biologically fixed" encourages people to treat differences as pathologies. In my opinion, it's important to see varying attitudes and capacities as an advantage in human diversity, as having differences between us helps keeps our society flourish.