Genetic Engineering Argumentative Essay

Dangers of Genetic Engineering: An Evaluation of the Argument

Author’s Thesis: Genetic engineering is too dangerous and should not be allowed due to the difficulty in determining how hazardous each experiment is for the human race. What Sinsheimer wants to establish here is, because of the uncertainty behind it, we should not push forward with genetic engineering. He highlights the large variance of scientific opinions on this matter at the Asilomar conference for being one of the large contributors towards the uncertainty behind genetic engineering. He goes on to say that although scientists have these ranging opinions and the right to do genetic engineering, he believes they should not try to justify their work in this field. “Freedom of the press is a right but it is subject to restraints,

I think not” (Sinsheimer 482). Sinsheimer wants to establish that this does not call for a stop in scientific advancement, but instead we must take a look at what we do in a more mature way. He continues by saying that at the conference they failed to take into account some of the broader social and ethical issues this could cause. He says that rights are not formed in nature, but in a society, so we must take these social and ethical issues into account. From this point on, he wants readers to understand that although there is a lot of uncertainty we need to be prepared for what is to come. “It is not yet clear how these techniques may be applied to higher organisms but we should not underestimate scientific ingenuity” (Sinsheimer 483). To continue this conversation on genetic engineering, Sinsheimer proposes a question about the future of this phenomenon; “How far will we want to develop genetic engineering” and will this lead to controlled evolution (Sinsheimer 483)? As he proposes these series of questions, he begins to doubt the advancement of a major change of any human gene pool. If this were to advance, it