Brave New World - Eugenics Essays - Applied Genetics, Bioethics

Brave New World - Eugenics In chapter II of a Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, Huxley makes some very bold statements on the current state of our nations increasing technology towards medicine. This leads to the formation of the idea that we need to institute a eugenics program. Though there are many drawbacks in using eugenics, the ultimate goal is very beneficial. Huxley gives a very clear example on why we need a system like eugenics when he states an example which involves introducing a cure for malaria to a tropical island. Suppose someone was to go to a tropical island with DDT and wipe out malaria. After two or three years, hundreds of thousands of lives are saved. Though the intentions of this act were good, there would now be a lack of shelter, clothing, education and food to go around. Though a quick death by malaria was avoided, now there is a slow, undernourished feeling of death creeping all throughout the island. This is a perfect example of how the disruption of the natural selection process can cause chaotic damage to a society Instead of giving out drugs to help keep alive people (people who might have been dead without them), eugenics can be used to reassure that there are no bad defects in someone whence they are born. Think of all the handicapped people that are born (Armless, legless, blind, deaf, retarded, etc?). Instead of sustaining these people after birth, there should have been a way to prevent all of these defects from occurring in general. If we were to apply some sort of science to maintain a healthy baby at birth, we might not be seriously disrupting the natural selection process. When most people think of eugenics, the first thing that comes to mind would have to be Hitler. What we must remember is that Hitler's form of eugenics is not what I am inferring here. Eugenics consumed the German medical, biological and social scientific communities in the decade before World War II. Many physicians and scientists were frantic about threats they saw to the genetic health of the nation posed by the presence of inferior populations such as Jews, Gypsies, Slavs and, and African people. The steps they took to protect against the public health disaster of a polluted race were so awful, and so immoral that they have changed all following discussion of the ethics of both human genetics and eugenics. The things to remember when using a technique such as eugenics, is that there is no evidence to support the biological theory of the innate inferiority of races or the biological superiority of specific ethnic groups. This was the main understanding of Hitler which led to the H olocaust. In applying eugenics, one must keep in mind that they cannot force sterilization of someone, commit infanticide or genocide, and most certainly cannot force someone to partake upon using eugenics to form a child that is to their liking. The effects of such a system of birth on our society is one that may come highly pleasant if the right precautions are taken. As seen in the movie Gattaca, one must not form a discriminatory view towards those who have not been conceived through the use of eugenics. That is why medical history of those who were born through eugenics should not be revealed to anyone, and there should be no way for one to find out if they have been or have not. Parents should not treat their kids differently based on the idea upon them received through the use or absence of eugenics. This is comparable to Frankenstein in a way. Though Frankenstein created the monster, he should have treated it with the respect that it deserves since it was now a life as any other. With the lack of this treatment the monster is enraged and therefore wreaks havoc. If we don't treat the people the same either with eugenics or without eugenics, there will just be a lot of civil unrest till a catalyst comes along to form a civil war between eugenic people and non-eugenic people. This is in essence the same theory behind the NATO bombings. Eugenics is not a bad thing when

The eNotes Blog Why You Should Read Stanford’s Mandatory Reading for First Years Homegoing by YaaGyasi

Why You Should Read Stanford’s Mandatory Reading for First Years Homegoing by YaaGyasi Photo via Stanford News Stanford University’s â€Å"Three Books† program encourages incoming first years to read three selected titles before beginning the school year. This year, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi was chosen as one of them. Gyasi’s debut novel details the lasting effects of slavery, both culturally and generationally. It spans over three centuries and seven generations beginning with two half sisters: Effia and Esi in Ghana. Effia marries a white man and moves to the Cape Coast Castle, notorious as a slave-trade center. Merely a few floors below Effia, her half-sister, Esi, is kept in captivity in the castle’s basement and eventually sold into slavery in America. This sets the rest of the book in motion, closely following the two different lineages. Gyasi includes a total of 14 different characters in the novel, with each allotted one chapter dedicated to them. Some chapters focus on one particularly important period in their life, while others span their whole childhood and more. While this choppy narrative is a bit difficult to keep up with initially, its impact is profound. Through this structure, Gyasi includes several important historic and cultural moments, which would have been impossible if she’d chosen to limit the number of characters. These important moments include the slave trade, convict leasing, the Great Migration, and the Harlem Renaissance, to name a few. This means that Homecoming reads less like a novel and more like interconnected short stories. Photo via Paperback Paris This narrative structure not only allows Gyasi to explore the numerous historical experiences of being black in America, but it also reveals the reverberating effects of slavery on families in both the United States and Ghana. â€Å"I didn’t want my writing to be about pretty flowers in a field. I wanted to be engaged with the world around me.† Yaa Gyasi Through masterful storytelling, Gyasi creates experiences that transport readers back in time. For example, while the slavery chapters are not pleasant to read, they are written in acute detail creating a powerful reading experience. With important themes that range from family to race and racism, Gyasi does not shy away from the tougher topics but rather tackles them head-on, creating a distinctive reading experience. Gyasi stated, â€Å"I didn’t want my writing to be about pretty flowers in a field. I wanted to be engaged with the world around me.† In an era of â€Å"fake news† and â€Å"alternative facts,† it is important to keep in mind who holds the power in choosing which stories are told. As one character, Yaw, explains to his students, â€Å"[W]hen you study history, you must always ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too.† Homegoing brings forth that suppressed story, writing about the devastating effects of slavery from 14 different point of views in different time periods of time. Gyasi highlights these suppressed voices to show the search for their identities, their roles in society, and for a place they can call home. Read the Homegoing   summary and study guide with characters, themes, and quotes. If you enjoyed Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, be sure to check these additional titles: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Difference between Smuggling and Trafficking Coursework

The Difference between Smuggling and Trafficking - Coursework Example It often engages in a great deal of varied crimes, across a number of countries.Trafficking involving persons can be explicitly compared to contemporary forms of slavery that involves the utilization of people through threat, coercion, force, and deception including human and constitutional rights misuses for instance debt burden, denial of independence, and deprived of control over autonomy and employment. Every year, multitudes of migrants are smuggled illegitimately by highly and extremely well thought-out worldwide smuggling and trafficking persons or groups and usually in precarious or inhumane state of affairs. This occurrence has been on the rise in recent years and the international community and related persons and organizations are taking decisive actions to stop the progress of these severe criminal actions. The following involves various scholarly and peered reviewed books, articles, and journals explaining the difference between smuggling and trafficking. Accepted defini tions of smuggling and traffickingTraffickingTrafficking, mostly in persons, is broadly defined as the recruitment, moving, relocating, harboring or delivery of persons by way of threat, intimidation or use of power or other levels of compulsion or duress, of seizures, of deceit, of trickery, of the exploitation of power or in a situation of susceptibility or of the offering or receiving of money or benefits to accomplish the assent of an individual having power over other person and for the intention of full exploitation.