...Hassan 1 Hussein Hassan Mr. Horn AP Seminar February 2 2015 The Perfect Human: The Flaws in Modern Eugenics With global technologies rapidly advancing, specifically those based in the field of genetics, one might wonder where humanity is headed in terms of their offspring. The answer? Modern eugenics. Francis Galton's eugenics, centered around forced sterilization and selective breeding to eliminate undesirable traits and foster the spread of more advantageous ones (Galton), is dead. However, the idea of focusing on one’s inherited genes to eliminate passed down diseases is alive and well, albeit in a more “modern” fashion. Is modern eugenics the right way of the future for humanity? To what extent should modern eugenics be viable? Before ambitious genetic projects had begun, such as the Human Genome Project which mapped out the entirety of the human genome (Genome.gov), the only way to tamper with an individual’s genes was through their parents. Gregor Mendel earned the moniker “The Father of Genetics” because of his experiments involving the breeding of plants in the mid 19th century (Biography.com). However, modern eugenics focuses on the genes of child more than the parents through abortions and the genetic altering of the embryo to achieve the desired results. This can be achieved through a process called genetic screening, which observes an embryo’s chromosomes for any lapses or breaks (Galloway a). Embryo’s that show signs of a genetic disorders...
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...Eugenics and Beneficence Eugenics and Beneficence On October 27, 2014, the North Carolina state legislature became the first in the country to officially begin compensating citizens and their families who were subjected the state’s forced sterilization program. Ninety years after the legalization of forced sterilization in the United States and forty-one years after the first lawsuit was brought by sterilized North Carolinian Nial Ramirez, it would seem as though the country is now ready to do penance in financial terms for its past actions via reparations to Mrs. Ramirez and others. (Burns, 2014) The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of eugenics, specifically to view it through lens of beneficence, to try and view the issue from the points of view of all involved, and finally to explore some future implications about the nature of beneficence from this episode in the history of American health-care. Eugenics is the study of ways to influence (usually to improve) a population by selective breeding. ("Mosby’s Dictionary," 2009) The idea of influencing the quality of animal populations has existed since the beginning of domestication by humans, but the idea of subjecting the human race to systematic selective breeding is a more recent phenomenon. Western thought about the nature of living creatures until the 19th century had been shaped by Judeo-Christian traditions in which a creator god made and sustained all the diversity of life, and further had created...
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...Ellis Island was the first immigration quarantaine station to operate in the United States. Being located on the atlantic ocean coast of the United States, Ellis Island was a common and frequent destination for Europeans. In Ellis Island the immigrant demographic ranged from western,eastern, southern, and northern European. Typically, the immigrant who was white, able bodied, and had at least a middle socio-economic class was favored to become American citizen candidates. In Galusca’s scholarly research paper, she explains this by, “Health, economic status, and race were central to anti-immigration discourses that labeled immigration as either “poor” or “good,” with the evident implication that immigrants of poor health, poor economic status,...
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...Station when the cover of the latest issue of Time stopped me short. Superimposed on a painting of a blue-skinned, red-lipped woman, her hands clasped in prayer, were the words "The God Gene." The article within reported that in a new book with that title, the geneticist Dean Hamer had traced belief in God to a specific gene. "Does our DNA compel us to seek a higher power?" Time asked. The article left me pondering a different question: Given the track record of behavioral geneticists in general, and Dean Hamer in particular, why does anyone still take their claims seriously? Behavioral genetics, which attempts to explain what we are and do in genetic terms, began with the English polymath Francis Galton, who in 1883 coined the term "eugenics" to refer to his proposal that humanity improve itself through judicious breeding. Galton's measurements of the physical and mental characteristics of various groups had convinced him that upper-class gentlemen like himself were innately smarter than poor white men, let alone "inferior races" like Africans. On a trip to Africa, however, Galton was mightily impressed with the physical endowments of Hottentot women, whose bodies he measured from afar with a sextant because he was too timorous to approach them. Galton's ideas were carried forward in the United States by Charles Davenport, who directed biological research at the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island around the turn of the last century. Davenport believed...
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...Psychology Perspective Darla Houston AIU Online Abstract In this paper I will be discussing the similarities and differences between the three different Psychology Perspectives or specific theories of early Psychology. One theory used will be Structuralism. Another theory used in this paper will be the Functionalism. And lastly the Evolutionary theory will be used. This paper will explain three to four differences between each of the three theories listed and reviewed facts and see how one of these theories is superior to the others or that all three are comparable or equal. The thesis for this essay is “No matter how careful evolution, structuralism, and functionalism are examined, there is no evidence that these will not change in the future” Psychology Perspectives Structuralism, Functionalism, and Evolutionary theories each have similarities and differences among them. Both Structuralism and functionalism reflect the fact that consciousness is the subject matter, but both differ in how each should be studied. Evolutionary theory has potential to integrate conceptual approaches to study behavioral development for human adaption in both humans and animals which Structuralism and Functionalism stem form. Structuralism has many mental processes that are broken down into basic components. Functionalism forms a reaction to Structuralism which focuses on the purpose of both consciousness and behavior and emphasizes individual differences. Influenced by Darwin’s...
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...“SCIENCE FICTION OR SCIENCE FACT” ARE WHITES INHERENTLY MORE INTELLIGENT THAN BLACKS ? ( Delroy Constantine-Simms University of Essex (UK) & Marciea Monique McMillian University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) ABSTRACT The publication of Hernstein & Murray’s (1994) “The Bell Curve” appears to be the latest expression of pseudo scientific theories with respect to race and intelligence. This paper gives an historical and ideological insight behind the development and application of intelligence tests by citing examples of their impact on legislation, social policy and intervention programmes in relation to Blacks. More importantly, a discussion of cultural bias in test design focuses on the response of Black psychologists who developed Black intelligence tests that portray whites as intellectually inferior in the same manner that Blacks are portrayed as intellectually inferior on tests devised by white psychologist. Furthermore, The hereditary perspective of intelligence is challenged by empirical evidence that centres on children with white ancestry to assess whether white genes influence intelligence while citing several sources that support the environmental explanation of the race gap in test scores. Consequently, this discussion questions the reliability and validity of intelligence tests that are used to reinforce the Black intellectual inferiority myth. The conclusive argument suggests in no uncertain terms that the Bell Curve is nothing more than the repackaging...
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...countries is due to differences in national intelligence. The authors claim that they have evidence that differences in national IQ account for substantial variation in per capita income and growth of a nation. This essay review debunks their assumptions that intellectual and income differences between nations stem from genetic differences. This critique provides an extended review of the research literature that argues against these assumptions and presents a different picture from that presented by Lynn and Vanhanen about the concept of intelligence, what IQ measures and does not measure. The essay exposes the racist, sexist, and antihuman nature of the research tradition in which the authors anchored their studies and the deep methodological flaws and theoretical assumptions that appear in their book. The low standards of scholarship evident in the book render it largely irrelevant for modern science. This essay specifically deals with the IQ value of Ethiopian immigrants that came from Israel, used by the authors as representing the National Education Review Vol. 10 No. 6 http://edrev.asu.edu 2 Average IQ of Ethiopia. Most of these immigrants had rudimentary knowledge of literacy, and experienced an abrupt...
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...-“Strauss versus Brains and Genes or the postmodern vengeful return of positivism.” This essay first started as an answer to what I deemed very problematic, i.e. the disputation which I found in bad faith (un-authentic to use a philosophical term or an existentialist term), of the mediatic, dashing Harvard cognitivist/linguist, Steven Pinker, in his article “Neglected novelists, embattled English professors, tenure-less historians, and other struggling denizens of the Humanities, Science is not your Enemy—a plea for an intellectual truce,” (The New Republic--August 19). Then the counter-arguments against Steven Pinker’s conception of the “human animal” developed into an essay arguing that the New Positivism, not science, or technology per say, was the enemy of humanism and its avatars as such. The point is not to become a postmodern anti-scientific Luddite. Genomics are changing the world in ways we barely imagine yet and will re-define what it means to be human (a becoming already imagined by science fiction writers, social critics and critical thinkers such as the feminist Donna Haraway with her “Cyborg”). The point is also not to turn “anti-brainiac.” Without a brain we would become vegetative, a vegetal…, i.e. a purely “natural body,” a “zombie.” If we make use of this “computer” allegory which is an analog but not a homologue, and which is used ad nauseam used by psycho-biologists, without a hard-drive there is no software. But is this a reason to say that the software...
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...| | When compared to other industrialised countries the US has one of the most significant homicide rates and crime rates. According to statistics published by the UN in 2010 the probability of being of a homicide victim is more than five times greater in the US than in the Netherlands and close to three times greater than in Canada. However in spite of these statistics and contrary to general public perception the United States have experienced a continued decline of its crime rates since the second half of the 1990’s. In 2010 there were 5.4 homicides per 100,000 persons compared to 9.8 in 1991 at its peak according to the US Bureau of Statistics (2004). Similarly, other statistics[1] published annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Justice statistics[2] have highlighted that violent crimes and property crimes rates have gradually declined, on average, in the US from their height in the beginning of the 1990’s to a low point in 2004 and continues to further decrease in spite of the current economic crisis. One would have expected that the recession would have ended this virtuous circle but instead “crimes of violence began going down in 2007, falling 0.7 percent that year and then an additional 1.9 percent in 2008. The trend accelerated [in 2009] with a 5.5 percent reduction in overall crime ...” (Jerry Markon, The Washington Post...
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...sympathetic to those that are oppressed ; steps up and opposes lincoln’s plan; doesn’t think the oppressed have been helped enough through concrete measures. Big supporter of freedman’s. * Sumner was beaten by canes in the senate chamber – personal animosity toward slavery and democracy in the south * almost like restarting over; a do-over * idealism and political motive * wanted to create a republican party in the south * Wanted to * Punish southerners * Protect freedmen * Strengthen republican party * 14th amendment * granting citizenship to African americans; can vote and hold office * outlawed black codes * righting wrongs that had popped up * some African americans were actually elected to senate; although this doesn’t last * 15th amendment * can’t deny someone the right to vote based on race * designed to reinforce democratic party taking over the south; new political role in the south * “Redemption “ * Around 1870, things look like they’re making progress * Grant elected president in 68, steps out of the way and let’s congress do what it wants * General amnesty act (1872) * Granted...
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...Religious background of Holocaust 1. Introduction Anyone who bothers to investigate in any depth the Holocaust, and its many involved attendant subjects, inevitably encounters intellectual and emotional difficulties not usually met in other fields under examination. When studying the Holocaust, it is extremely difficult to maintain the same level of professional distance and objectivity that one practices with other subjects. Obviously, the magnitude of the destruction and suffering, the millions of lost lives and their untold stories, their unfulfilled hopes and dreams can be overwhelming. Furthermore, thoughtful and honest investigators will occasionally find that they have encountered an area of the Holocaust wherein are found agonizing personal ramifications. That is to say, the scholar is studying an event or a complex of issues that share key components of one’s personal background, beliefs, and values. It is highly unlikely that the scholar will be able to maintain absolute objectivity, feeling completely uninvolved in what is being examined. Instead, the person will most likely be compelled to ask some rather pointed personal questions, or probe into realms in which the investigator has close personal ties. When this occurs, it can be very distressing and painful. 2. A short insight on the background of Jews in Poland, Germany and Russia Several Polish noblemen of the middle ages showed special favour to Jews who immigrated because of persecution in Germany...
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...Unit 1 VOCABULARY Text Muscle Binds (p. 3) virtue (n.), virtuous (adj.) to involve smb. in smth., be involved in/with, involvement (n.), involvement with/in strenuous (adj.) smugness (n.), smug (adj.) superiority (n.), superiority complex, superior (adj.), superior to smb. (opposite) inferiority (n.), inferiority complex., inferior (adj.), inferior to smb. lure (v), lure (n) eternity (n.), eternal (adj.) cripple (v.), cripple (n.) flourish (v.) humiliate (v.), humiliation (n.) fad (n.), passing fad drag (n.), real drag charity (n.), charitable (adj.) mortal (n., adj.) obsess (v.), be obsessed by/with smth. obsession (n.), obsession with smth terms (plural) in practical/political/economic terms, in terms of time/money/efforts Word Combinations to result from smth to result in smth apart from Expressions with “come” (p.7) Idiomatic expressions (p.8) Physical complains (p.18) Text How are your genes? (p. 19) span (n.), life span determine (v.), genetically/culturally/biologically determined, to determine + whether/why/who/what Text of the sample composition (p.30) benefit (v.), to benefit from, benefit (n.), to reap/receive benefit from, beneficial (adj.) test-tube (n.), test-tube baby controversy (n.), to create/cause/spark/stir controversy, controversial (adj.) affect (v.) hostility (n.), hostile (adj.) interfere (v.), interfere in/with abuse (v.), abuse (n.) ban (v.), ban (n.), ban on smth. One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s...
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...Course Study Notes: hsctutoringnotes@outlook.com MODERN HISTORY Topics World War One Germany Albert Speer The Cold War 1 Course Study Notes: hsctutoringnotes@outlook.com World War One Themes War on the Western Front Home Fronts in Britain and Germany Turning Points of the War The Allied Victory 2 Course Study Notes: hsctutoringnotes@outlook.com War on the Western Front Reasons for the development of the Stalemate A stalemate is an end of a war movement. It refers to the deadlock resulting from high levels of defence. The stalemate developed from four major reasons: i. The Faults of the Schlieffen Plan ii. The Faults of Plan XVII iii. Problems with Communications and Tactics iv. Problems with the High Command • The Faults in • There was an incredible reliance on speed – quick defeat of the France and a slow response by Russia Schlieffen • Unexpectedly strong resistance by Belgian forces – sabotaged Plan railway lines • Strong resistance from French • Troops were diverted from the West to the Eastern front • The “hammer swing” was shortened, so they approached Paris from the East which was expected • The Treaty of London was disregarded as a scrap of paper • Germans weren’t adequately trained for modern warfare strategies • The Faults in • French underestimated number of soldiers available to Plan XVII Germany • French were preoccupied with revenge for Alsace-Lorraine • Insufficient forces were given to the French...
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...STARS WITHOUT NUMBER For Eden, who gave me a reason. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ..............................................................................................................5 Character Creation ....................................................................................................7 Psionics ...................................................................................................................25 Equipment ..............................................................................................................33 Systems ...................................................................................................................59 The History of Space ...............................................................................................71 Game Master’s Guide ..............................................................................................78 World Generation ...................................................................................................87 Factions .................................................................................................................113 Adventure Creation ...............................................................................................128 Alien Creation .......................................................................................................138 Xenobestiary ........................................................................
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...Specimen Papers and Mark Schemes for English Literature For first AS Examination in 2009 For first A2 Examination in 2010 Subject Code: 5110 Contents Specimen Papers Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Resource Booklet Assessment Unit A2 2 1 3 9 15 25 Mark Schemes Assessment Unit AS 2 Assessment Unit A2 1 Assessment Unit A2 2 29 31 61 95 Subject Code QAN QAN 5110 500/2493/0 500/2421/8 A CCEA Publication © 2007 Further copies of this publication may be downloaded from www.ccea.org.uk Specimen Papers 1 2 ADVANCED SUBSIDIARY (AS) General Certificate of Education 2009 English Literature Assessment Unit AS 2 assessing The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 and the Study of Prose 1800-1945 SPECIMEN PAPER TIME 2 hours INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES Write your Centre number and Candidate Number on the Answer Booklet provided. Answer two questions. Answer one question from Section A and one question from Section B. Section A is open book. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES The total mark for this paper is 120. All questions carry equal marks, ie 60 marks for each question. Quality of written communication will be assessed in all questions. 3 Section A: The Study of Poetry Written after 1800 Answer one question on your chosen pairing of poets. Heaney: Opened Ground Montague: New Selected Poems 1 John Montague and Seamus Heaney both write about the Irish past. Compare and contrast the two poets’...
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