Respond to Nick Lund's Post

I believe that Nick Lund is right with Ethics in Medicine analysis. In Nick's post, he describes an issue in medicine today that is causing a lot of controversy. Stem cell research is when embryonic tissues are grown to help cure diseases. Stem cells have a lot of diseases that it could potentially cure, but the controversy is that people believe the creation, usage, and killing of human embryos is morally wrong. Nick describes the two sides of the the controversy very well, stating both sides in detail. Nick believes that neither side is misrepresented. He believes that both sides make valid points.On one side, the side towards stem cell research, says that people are suffering from cancer and other diseases, and that stem cell research can help cure those diseases. The other argument, the side against stem cell research, says that since scientists are taking human embryos, and those embryos could become human babies, that they are basically killing humans. I agree with Nick's points, and although he takes a neutral view towards stem cell research, I have to voice my own opinion in stating that I believe that stem cell research is necessary. I think that, since the stem cells are just that, cells, that they are not humans, and using them for medical research could be extremely beneficial to the human race. Overall, Nick makes some good arguments for and against stem cell research. The website he used as a resource is also a good source to help his point.

Ethics in Medicine

A huge controversy in modern medicine today is the ethics of testing on animals for medical purposes. There are two sides to this controversy, with many others in between the two extremes. On one side, there are the people completely against animal testing, stating that testing on animals is cruel and unnecessary, since doctors cannot even compare the results of testing on animals to humans because of the anatomical differences. On the other side, people say that without animal testing, vaccines such as the polio and measles vaccine could not have been created, and to find further vaccines we will need to continue animal testing. The in between of the two extremes is that some people believe that some animals should not be allowed to be tested on, and some should. Some believe that primates should not be tested on, but rat and mice should. Others think that primates should, because they are most similar to humans and would be most useful, but other animals that are not close to humans anatomically should not be tested on because they will be no help. Either way, animal testing is a huge ethical issue that is affecting the world of medicine today.

            I know about the conflict because of my explanatory paper. I wrote my essay the ethics of animal research for medical purposes. On the Animal Experimentation Database, they list the pros and cons of animal testing. The pros say that animal experimentation should be a case-by-case basis, referring to whether what the experiment and what the animal is. Another pro is that to reduce human suffering, animal testing is going to have to happen. A con of this argument is saying that animals have the right to be treated as beings of value not to meet human ends. Another con is that millions of animals are dying every year in order to test for medical purposes. I think that the most compelling argument is the con side; I think that the amount of animals that are dying is a ridiculous amount and that it needs to stop.

Response to Max Jentsch's Post

I agree with Max on his demonstration evaluation of how to make a paper airplane. I watched the video on youtube, and you are able to see very clearly all the steps the demonstrator does in order to show you how to make the airplane. Being that the camera was at a bird's eye view, this was very helpful because it was easier to see and also easier to follow along. If I was doing this with the demonstrator I would easily being able to do it at the same time. I also agree with Max in the fact that a person speaking throughout the entire video would get very annoying and frustrating. To be able to just follow along, with having to listen to someone makes the process that much more relaxing.

Some problems that are wrong with the paper airplane video that Max was able to find and I agree with are that the demonstrator does not repeat any steps of the process. Repeating the steps of the process is always  good tactic because it makes it easier for people to follow along. Of course, it is a video so you are able to just rewind it, but if this was a live performance or a 'How to' speech it would be a better tactic to repeat steps. Although the silence was soothing, Max had another observation that I agree with. To put some background music into the video would make the whole demonstration a lot better. Without the music in the background, the process is a little boring.

Technorati Blog Post

When searching Technorati to find a blog that would be relevant to my persuasive essay topic, I found a blog perfect for the discussion of Title IX. The blog is called the National Women's Law Center, and it provides a place for people to express their opinion about laws regarding the welfare of women around the country. The blog authors does not technically have specific authors since the blog is so widespread. Instead it has a group of people that sort of run the blog. The presidents are Nancy Duff Campbell and Marcia D. Greenberger. The center began in 1972 (the year of Title IX as well), and from there they have been fighting for and discussing women's rights. The actual blog had its first entry in April 2007. From there there has been posts about every 2-3 days. The authors use different links in their posts to different articles, videos, and speeches that help prove the point they are trying to make. There is not any music or graphs in the posts, but there are links to videos and pictures.

I used the same blog to find a blog post related to my topic. Since the blog is the National Women's Law Center, the blog actually took a slightly different view from my persuasive topic essay. The blog supports Title IX, saying that it has helped women progress in athletics. I completely agree with this statement, as read in my essay, but I believe that Title IX should be changed in some way to help men's collegiate athletics, considering in this day and age men's sports at the collegiate level are being cut to fit the confines of Title IX. The author of the blog is Nina Chaundry. She is explaining her viewpoints on how Title IXis still having the same problems as back when it was first made, just not as severe. This was posted on Jun 23, 2010. The style of writing is different than mine because she is taking a tone of how Title IX is not doing enough, and in my essay I am saying that TItle IX is doing too much to collegiate sports.

Demonstration Evaluation: How to Make a Paper Gun that Shoots without Blowing

In the Youtube video, "How to make a Paper Gun that Shoots without Blowing,"I thought that it was a very good, "How to" video. I found it very interesting and very creative. The speaker had a good tone of voice that had a good volume. It was very informative, and was helpful in making this project. There were many positives and some negatives in this speech. The positives in this video is that he goes over the steps simply and easily. He has a good tone and volume of voice, and he makes the steps simple so they are easy to follow along. The negatives in this video was that we could not see his face. He was sitting down, and was at a table. So since he was sitting down at the table and the camera was not on his face, there was no eye contact with the listener. I think that eye contact with the listener is so important because it helps the viewer follow along. For this video, however, I do not believe that eye contact with the viewer was that important because this video is more of the kind that needs to be focused more on what he is doing rather than his body language. Some more negatives I thought were that he did not repeat steps of the paper gun process. I think that repeating steps for the process is very important because it helps the listener get the steps into their mind and remember them better. It also could help them be able to do it faster and without looking at the video again. Overall, I thought this video was well done. It would have been more helpful by repeating the steps, but it was still very helpful and kind of a cool thing to be able to do with pieces of paper.

Response to Nick Lund's "Demonstration Evaluation: How to Drive a Car with Manual Transmission

Response to Nick Lund's post, Demonstration Evaluation: How to Drive a Car with Manual Transmission, was a good reaction to the Youtube video. I also agreed with Nick that I thought the video was extremely helpful in teaching you how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. I think a lot of people can easily drive an automatic transmission, but driving a manual transmission is a lot more difficult. Driving a manual transmission is a useful technique that could be very helpful in the future. I agree with Nick on the observation that this video seems to be done professionally, or by a professional who has done these types of videos before. There were many more positives to this speaker than negatives. A lot of the positives were that the speaker had a very good tone of voice, and a good volume of voice. He made eye contact and went through each step of the process. I also agree with Nick on the observation that the man did not repeat himself, to stick those steps into the listener's mind. There were also a lot of different camera views that really helped me better understand what the speaker was saying. By using the different directions and angle of the camera, he was able to better show what he was explaining. Overall, I completely agree with Nick's response to "How to drive a car with manual transmission," and I believe it was a very well put together video that was really helpful in teaching the listener how to drive a manual transmission car.

Speech Evaluation

In my demonstration speech, I thought it had its ups and downs. I thought that at first, I was looking down a lot. I had good posture, but I should have been more prepared and known it more so I did not have look down so often. I also thought that I had a good introduction, and thought that it was a good attention getter. As the video went on, I realize I should have had a better visual aid. It was a difficult process to explain to a whole class, and to have every single person be able to create the crane perfectly would have been impossible. But I believe I should have made a powerpoint to better explain it to the class. I thought my body posture was good, I stood up straight. I thought the volume of my voice should have been louder, but I thought while I was doing it that everyone seemed to be able to hear me. There were some times when I thought that I stumbled on words, and that probably could have been fixed by practicing more, but I thought overall delivery was okay. I thought there were times when I should have slowed down, and gone over the steps more so that some of the class could keep up. I thought that I knew the material very well, and that I knew what I wanted to say. But there were also times that my visual aid could not be seen that well, so a powerpoint or a bigger visual aid would have been better suited for this speech. I thought that my speech, overall, was okay, but there was definitely room ffor improvement. There could be improvements in my voice volume, my visual aid, and my overall knowledge and practice of the speech I was presenting.

Peer Response to Luke Goodnetter

In response to Luke Goodnetter's 2nd Post: Organs For Sale, I have to say that I disagree with a few of his main points. For his first point, I do not think that there would be a problem in society between the upper and lower class. Even today, with no legalization of organ selling, there are still lower class, poorer, people that need organs that are not able to get them. I believe that legalizing organ selling would have an opposite effect, and that there would be more organs available to people who need them so he price would be lower and more lower class people would be able to afford them.

            Luke’s next point is that allowing the selling of organs would give a greater possibility that patients may get severely hurt or injured during surgery. Although that surgery is a risky procedure altogether, all organ surgery has the same high-risk possibility. The surgery depends on the doctoral ability, and a competent doctor should be able to remove a kidney if a patient needs it. Also, assuming that organ-selling is made legal, there would be regulations on how many organs you can possibly sell, and obviously you cannot sell so many organs that you die once an organ is removed. Also, the selling of your organs is your decision, it’s not like a person is forced to. So if you sell a kidney, you need to realize that you are not able to drink the same or eat the exact same as you did with two kidneys. But the choice is still yours.

            And to Luke’s last point, assuming that organ selling is made legal, then there would be regulations, laws, and checkups on the people selling the organs. The hospital would not just let some random person with a damaged kidney sell it to someone who is in need of one. The selling of organs would create a whole new business that could possibly benefit a lot of people.

Should We Be Allowed to Sell Our Bodies?

I believe that an individual owns his or her own body. That means that they own the cells they have, the tissues, the organs, and everything else. So I think that a person ahs the right to sell his or her own body organs. Personally, I think it is stupid, because if you have organs in your body they are there for a reason, but if a person wants to sell them than that is their own decision. The circumstances that they should be able to sell them under are if someone else is in need for an organ, and will die without it, then someone else should be allowed to sell that to them. After reading the article “Sell Organs to Save Lives” by Martin Wilkinson, his opinions within the article completely agree with my own. When he states, “People should not be stopped from selling their organs because they have a right to do what they want with their bodies,” that is exactly my own viewpoint. If the person is not harming anyone else with what they do with their body, and in reality they would just be helping them, then why shouldn’t they be allowed to do what they want? There is also the chance that more organs would be available if people were allowed to sell their organs. There is also the chance that there would be a decline, which is also mentioned in the article. But I believe that if there could be a good outcome of legalizing the selling of organs, and if it backfires you can make it illegal again. There is always a need for transplants, and if we are able to make more organs available, more people have that chance of survival. I don’t think that ethical issues even come in to this argument, from my opinion, because you own your body, and what you decide to do with it is your own business and no one else’s.

The obstacles facing reading and writing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I think there are many reasons for the story of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to be heard by the public. For one, when I read about the uses of Lacks’ DNA cells, I was astonished by what her cells have been used for. The fact that this woman, who is deceased, had her cells taken to find cures in medicine such as the polio vaccine and other great discoveries, was unknown to me, and to much of the public. It is also important for the public to know this story because Henrietta Lacks did not give permission for scientists to take her cells and use them for science.  It poses the ominous question of whether or not we own the cells we are made of. Personally, I believe we do. As the cells being part of her body, they are hers and no one else’s. So the scientists that took her cells should not have been allowed to, or should have asked her for them. She received none of the profit from all of the breakthroughs in medicine her cells gave the world, and neither did her children. This also poses another question of whether her children, since they have her DNA, should be profiting from their mother’s cells, since her cells sparked a multi-million dollar industry.

            I think a major challenge facing Skloot while writing this book was that the general public had little to no knowledge of this story. The story is extremely interesting, but without any prior knowledge to this material, the novel might not be successful. So Skloot had to be able to give the audience all of the details of what happened, while still keeping the flow of the story.

            A major challenge to me as a reader will be to be non-biased while reading this story. I already have an opinion on whether or not you own the cells of your body, as I said above, so keeping an open mind throughout this book will be a challenge.