ARW Class Notes for 1/13 Wed

I passed out the Essay No.1 Self-Evaluation Form and explained that it needs to be filled out and handed in together with the essay.

I also announced that deadline for the essay will be pushed back to Monday 1/18 instead of Friday. I hope that leads to more polished essays, and we will use Friday's class for final peer feedback and confirmation of editing points.

The ARW PWT is next Friday, so I showed some examples of Knowledge (summary of Silver's idea) and Reaction (opinion) essay questions that may be asked. We'll do a practice test on Monday for about 25 minutes after I briefly explain the points of a good answer paragraph.

Then we talked about What is Wrong with Cloning? Some of the interesting questions that were reported by each group were:

• Is Jennifer's choice to clone herself to make her daughter Rachel morally acceptable or not? Some groups argued that there will be no particular harm to Rachel and therefore it seems to be an acceptable way to have children. Other groups mentioned that it might be harmful to Rachel because Jennifer may have unrealistic expectations for a person who has the same DNA as her, or Rachel may suffer from seeing how she will age like Jennifer.
• One argument for why cloning is wrong is that it may lead to eugenics. Cloning allows us to know exactly what DNA a child will have, and it leads to a choice of who will be cloned. In other words, we will decide exactly what kind of person we want. It is a type of genetic selection, and that is similar to eugenics.
  
• In relation to the eugenics argument against cloning, one group discussed what we would do if we did a prenatal DNA test for an embryo or fetus and the doctor told us the baby would be born with a disability. Would we go ahead with the pregnancy, or terminate it? That is a fundamental question of humanity. Should technology progress so that only healthy persons are born? Or, is that an insult to people who have been born with disabilities and their families, who have lived meaningful lives in spite of having the disability. Do we want to live in that kind of society where we select who should be born and who should not? Or, is that a unstoppable technological advance?
• How much would you pay for cloning yourself? That cost question and the availability of cloning will probably be decided by the market.
  

Nice discussions!