Genetic
engineering
Genetic
engineering can encompass a wide variety of techniques
for altering the make-up of living cells. Here are some sources that
cover a variety
of ethical and policy issues that arise in relation to these techniques:
Below are some examples
of topics that typically fall under this general heading. These headings
provide links to more specific resources as well as some general discussion
of the sorts of issues that arise for each topic. Each section also
includes questions and/or critical thinking exercises about that subject.
These are highlighted in this color.
Each of these is discussed
briefly below, with links to more resources that are specific to these
topics.
Stem Cell
Research:
In 1998, human embryonic
stem cells were first isolated. Even before that time there were
concerns about the ethical implications of using human stem cells.
From the time that stem cells were isolated in other animals
and particularly since 1995 when it was shown that they could
be isolated in primates, there have been concerns about their
use. One of the main concerns has been tied to their use in cloning
and so many of the issues here are tied in with the issues that
are discussed under that heading as well.
- A good outline
of the timeline in the stem cell debate can be found at the NPR
website.
Here are some
questions to ask yourself about stem cell research:
- Is there any
moral difference between embryonic stem cells that are already
in existence and those that might be created in the future?
- What are some
of the benefits that are claimed for stem cell research? What
is the evidence that those benefits might be worth pursuing?
- What are some
of the main objections to stem cell research? Do you agree
that this particular form of research ought to be regulated
by the government? Are there other types of scientific research
that ought to be regulated by the government? What are the
dangers of doing so?
For discussion
of the role of government in scientific research see Values
and Science on the home page.
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Cloning
There are several
issues about cloning that create controversies. There are two that
this page will deal with:
1) Ethics and cloning:
The question of the ethics of cloning more generally, but also
specifically
the
cloning of humans.
These resources
will give you a start in thinking about these issues. Here are
some general questions to ask yourself though:
- What is natural?
- What is the relationship
between what is natural and what is ethical?
- Is there are
difference between cloning humans and cloning other animals?
If so, why?
- What difference
(if any) does it make what type of cloning is used? Why?
2) Ethics and scientific
research: Scandals in cloning research which raise general questions
about scientific
integrity,
the reliability of claims made by scientists, and the methods by which
such claims are checked. These questions might be classed more
generally as questions about scientific misconduct. There have
been several cases around the issue of cloning.
Some questions to
think about in relation to legitimate and illegitimate scientific
research:
- What are some of
the key differences between the fraud that was uncovered in the
case of the Korean cloning scandal and the non-scientific claims of
the sect that was behind Clonaid?
- Why is reproducibility
and important feature of scientific research? How is this revealed
in the cloning scandal?
- What is the value
of peer review?
An overview of scientific
method at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
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Genetically
Modified Foods
There are several issues that are connected
to genetically modified foods.
1) The
safety of the food for human consumption.
2) The use of genetically modified food to increase food supply.
3) Economic vs, other concerns.
4) Dangers to
local non-GM crops.
For an overview
see the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United
Nations Ethics page. There
are several philosophers working on ethical issues in relation
to genetically modified foods.
A Critical Thinking
exercise:
- Examine the
following website: AgBioWorld Do
you think this website is a good source of information? Can you
see any reason to think that it might be biased?
- After considering
these questions search for information about the founders
of AgBioWorld, Professor Prakash and Gregory Conko (you can
find information on them through the "About" link at the
top of the AgBioWorld page). When you found this information,
did it change your mind about the reliability of the information?
If so, why? If not, why not?
- Do you think
that it is possible for biased information to nonetheless
be useful? What needs to happen in order for it to be useful?
For a fuller discussion see the section on bias.
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Genetic
Testing
It might seem
puzzling that there could be controversy about genetic testing.
After all, isn't it always better to have as much information
as possible about your own or your children's susceptibility
to diseases like cancer, diabetes, and the many other diseases
that have genetic markers? Isn't it better to know the likelihood
that your children will be born with life-shortening incurable
diseases like Huntington's Chorea or Tay-Sachs? But of course,
here is already one of the problems. Parents who have such genetic
testing done then are faced with decisions about whether to risk
having children, which might include considering whether or not
to abort a fetus. At the very least, this line of reasoning leads
to issues of morality (the morality of abortion).
Abortion is not
the only issue though. In some cases, it can be argued that genetic
testing provides too much information. So, for instance,
a particular gene mutation ( BRCA1-mutation) increases susceptibility
to breast and ovarian cancer. Should all women be tested to
see if they have this mutation? The genetic test that
will give me this information also costs money, so it would seem
prohibitively expensive to recommend that all women be tested
to see if they have this mutation. How much information is it
reasonable for us to seek? How much information is it reasonable
for us
each to have? (See here for
recommendations from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force.)
Suppose that I
have been tested and am found to have this mutation. The next
question that arises is what should I do?
An increase in the probability that I will get ovarian cancer,
which is a relatively rare form of cancer (the incidence rate
for ovarian cancer is approximately 1 in 11,673 or 0.01% or
23,300 people in USA per year) may not be enough to warrant any
change
in my behavior.
It might make me more vigilant
and perhaps indicate that I should have an ultrasound on my
ovaries as part of a routine examination. But should everyone
with this
genetic mutation have routine ultrasounds? Many, many more
women have the trait than will ultimately develop ovarian cancer
and
ultrasounds are cost money. Plus knowing that I
have this mutation may cause me unnecessary worry. (For
information
on ovarian
cancer see the National Cancer Institute webpage.
I am not offering any answers here but pointing out that the
answers are not obvious particularly when we consider rising
medical costs and quality of life. In many ways, the "too much
information" argument is particularly interesting because it
raises the question of paternalism. If the information is available
but getting it is discouraged for "our own good," is this an
objectionable or acceptable control of information?
One other sort
of worry that is frequently linked to the issue of genetic testing
is that people will seek "designer
babies".
(See The Center for the Study of Technology and Society webpage for an overview and more links.) Sperm banks sometimes advertise
that their donors have specific desirable
characteristics.
Those
desiring
children
through
in
vitro fertilization may currently choose particularly sperm donors
by their characteristics. If we are able to sequence the human
genome and identify genes for
specific
characteristics
this might greatly increase the ability of people
to chose
their baby's
characteristics (brown eyes, no myopia, not shy, good heart,
etc.)? After all, what parent does not want the "perfect" child?
The 1997 film
Gattaca takes
this as its premise and provides a thought-provoking treatment
of this worry. This website provides
the scientific background to the movie.
A less fictional
issue is that there have been cases of "savior babies". These
babies were born after genetically testing embryos for desired
genetic features that would allow their stem cells to be used
to treat children who are suffering from leukemia or a rare form
of anemia. The morality of this practice has also been debated.
It involves choosing from among embryos and so destroying some
and not others and then, of course, it also involves the birth
of a child whose stem cells are to serve a particular purpose.
More on designer
babies:
More questions:
- Would you want
to know all the details of your genetic make-up if that information
was available to you? Why or why not?
- What, if anything,
do you think is the moral issue in choosing to have babies
in order to use the stem cells for another child?
- Note that there
is an assumption that is made in many of the discussions about
the role of genes. We might describe this assumption as "genetic
determinism," the idea that genes determine our behavior. This
assumption is severely challenged by the current genetic research.
The following review of Nature via Nurture by Matt
Ridley can give you an idea of what the current understanding
of issues involving questions of genes and the environment.
How do you think this information would affect a discussion
of designer genes?
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Genes
and the Environment
A long-standing controversy over human behavior is the
nature vs. nurture controversy. The question is to what extent
the way we are is a result of our nature, what it is to be a human
being, what it is to the particular human being with this genetic
make-up, and what is the result of nurture. We can construe nurture
quite broadly to mean any influence from our environment. For instance,
the way our parents treat us, our education, what kind of food
we eat, what activities we engage in, what climate we find ourselves
in or any other "external" features all might contribute to the
way we are.
The discovery
of genes and the role that they play has opened a new episode in
this debate. The idea that it is ultimately our genetic make-up
that determines not only our physical characteristics but also
our behavioral characteristics (genetic determinism) is very appealing.
Whether the intuitive appeal can be supported by data remains
debated. One way of approaching the problem has been through
Twin
Studies,
one
of the
best
known is the Minnesota
Twin Studies. The idea is that by looking at identical twins
one is examining two individuals with the same genetic make-up.
If those twins were also separated at birth you would seem to have
a natural experiment. However, it turns out that there are a variety
of environmental factors that can affect this experiment and so
it is not quite as "pure" an experiment as it might seem to be.
Any conclusions that are drawn would have to be tentative.
See this
report from the American Psychological Association.
The biggest flaw
in the assumptions of this new version of the nature/nurture debate
lies in the distinction between the environment and the genes.
Current thinking in genetics is that it is not possible to distinguish
the gene from its environment since the gene and the environment
together make up a system that has certain characteristics. In
reality, gene and environment are never distinct and the way the
gene expresses itself is dependent on the environment in a way
that means that it make no sense to talk about what the gene determines
apart from the environment that it is in. Though not always reliable,
Wikipedia has a good entry on this issue at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture.
For a good popularized account of these issues you can also see LiveScience.
Some questions:
- Does it make any
difference to how we think about human beings if much of their
behavior is predisposed by genes? (Does it affect how we think
about free will?)
- If we were
to discover that a clear correlation between particular genes
and intelligence would such a discovery provide a justification
for particular public policies, like tracking people of "lower"
intelligence into less mentally demanding jobs based on their
genetic tests?
- Given what
you have discovered about genes and the environment do you
think it is likely that we can isolate a genetic cause for
intelligence?
- Clearly there
are currently limits to our knowledge about this subject at
the moment. What conclusions should we draw about how to form
social policy in the face of knowledge that we know to be incomplete?
Are there any general claims that we can or should make?
See the Nature
of Science and Values and Science for further discussion of these
sorts of issues.
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