DNA Testing and Social Control
Pragmatism is the name of the game when it comes to taking away freedom. The public tends to be against any attempt to curtail civil liberties across the board. It is standard practice, however, to for the government to violate the rights of certain groups in the name of public safety or to fight crime. This is what is happening with the government collection of DNA samples.
The state of New York announced on August 5 that it intends to collect DNA samples from every person in prison, on parole, or in probation in that state for one of a specified list of crimes. Included on this list are murder, sex crimes, drug dealing, and some drug offenses. The samples will be digitized and placed on state computers. Once this database has been establish, police will be able to search it in order to find a match with evidence found at crime scene.
New York is not alone in doing this. All 50 states maintain a DNA database of some type. Mostly though it is only individuals convicted of sex crimes that have their records stored. Eight states sample DNA at a level comparable to the New York proposal. In Louisiana the police actually take and keep DNA samples from any person that they arrest.
Proponents of expanding the use of DNA tests in the legal arena like to point out that these tests will exonerate truly innocent individuals. DNA tests have exonerated some wrongly imprisoned people but it is disingenuous to think this is the real reason for growing use of DNA tests. The real reason for all of this is, of course, to help prosecutors obtain more convictions. It is thus worth keeping in mind that the criminal justice system currently reflects deep class and race biases. Journalist and attorney David Cole argues persuasively in his recently published book No Equal Justice that this is no accident. Rather law enforcement, the legal system, and the prison system operate in a way that insures the disproportionate imprisonment of poor people and people of color. If the government only conducts DNA tests of people convicted of crimes, it will fortify and expand this already unfair process.
Of course one possible way to blunt these biases is to take DNA samples from absolutely everybody. This might seem Orwellian but there is a certain logic to it.
It is also thought that DNA fingerprinting and databases lead to racial disparities within the criminal justice system, since the majority of incarcerated persons are of African American or Latino decent (Chow-White). The ethical argument is that while DNA sample collections are legal and undoubtedly helpful in obtaining convictions, it on the other hand supports and in some ways promote racial disparities (Chow- White). At the urging of multiple anti-watchdog groups, legislation for changes in polices and institutional practices must be implemented to address these disparities and protect individuals within these demographics. The suggestion of encrypted digital codes that limit the information revealed by these databases to individuals are also being evaluated
Gauss’ Law states that no two organisms can occupy the same ecological niche without excluding the other, but what happens when man gets involved with nature and tries to introduce a species where it doesn’t belong which in turn provides a second organism to fill the same niche as the first? The results of human intervention have often been disastrous for the organism that we’re supposedly helping. Humans often times do not understand the complexity of the implications that are caused directly through our intervention. In 1974, the gray wolf was listed on the Endangered Species List, and in an effort to reestablish their populations, wolves were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park, affecting Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho (Wyoming Wolf Management Plan, 2003). Between 1995 and 1996 thirty one wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone and thirty five wolves into central Idaho. The wolf numbers exploded, leaving these western states with the problem of what to do with these wolves to prevent them from exceeding their carrying capacity and where to go from here.
Wolves have always been a symbol of the wild, free in spirit and roamers of the land. These animals are considered majestic and protectors of the wilderness. They have always roamed the western United States, although their population has fluctuated over time. Over the past 10 years wolf reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park has been a controversial topic to those of the United States. As of 1995, wolves have been reintroduced into the park. This has come with some strong opposition and yet has prevailed. The future of the wolf in Yellowstone park is now looking bright, although not certain since there still are those who want them banished again.
It can easily be said that most playful, curious children lie somewhere on the spectrum of what is considered ADHD, which is why the biological basis of the disorder has been continually disputed, as described earlier. This allows for biases and factors based on socioeconomic placement and race to creep into the diagnostic process, which is often described as “frequently discrepant and [lacking] an objective diagnostic basis” [4]. Overdiagnosis is rampant amongst the pediatric community, as the National Health Interview Survey shows that “9.5% of children between the ages of 4 and 17 were diagnosed with ADHD”, however, even that large percentage of children with ADHD is not evenly distributed. “Twice as many boys as girls” [6] were diagnosed with ADHD, which reflects a pervasive idea in modern society that men are inhrently more raucous and inconsiderate than women. The nature of men has essentially been evaluated to be a certain way, and the overdiagnosis of ADHD among young boys underlines society’s reinforcement of that
One of the biggest reasons for the reintroduction of wolves back into Yellowstone was that they had originally roamed from Yellowstone all the way down to Mexico. While a lot of people were in favor of the reintroduction of the wolves, there were many who were against it. The main people who were against the reintroduction of the wolves back into the park were the ranchers who made a living in the areas surrounding the park.
ADHD is a disorder that has been on the rise for several years now. The disorder is one that can cause many impairments to a child’s attention span, making it difficult to concentrate and to keep on task, especially on schoolwork. (Graham, 2007) The statistics have been growing ...
“Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).” Tish Davidson, AM., Teresa G. Odle., and Laura Jean Cataldo, RN, Ed.D. The Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders. 3rd Edition. 2010.
National Institute of Mental Health (1999). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Retrieved April 2, 2003 from www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm#adhd3
Chandler, C. (2011). The Science of ADHD: A Guide for Parents and Professionals. New York:
According to a variety of clinical studies appearing in various peer-reviewed journals, only 8% of children and 5% of adults have ADHD, but 21 to 45% of all criminals in US prison have ADHD (Quily.) One of the most prevalent mental conditions in children, ADHD is also one of the fastest growing mental health problems for school-age populations (Wolfe.) Its occurrence appears to be anywhere between 2 to 10% of children in school, and corresponds to 7.4% of parents with children ages 3-17 indicating that they have been notified that their child has this condition. As a result, treatment numbers for ADHD have dramatically increased over the last few decades; ADHD is more commonly diagnosed in boys than girls although there are no discernible disparities in diagnosis by race. A great deal of research has focused on short-term consequences of this condition on school-age children, including an increased...
Wolves had live throughout parts of the world for thousands of years before humans just kept rising in population and minimizing the wolves’ population through the expansion of their territories for farm agriculture and industrialization. It is only in the United States where humans completely annihilated wolves; they did this by hunting the wolves down until the last wolf was killed in 1926. However, in 1995, 14 wolves were caught from Canada and release into Yellowstone National Park. This makes it almost 70 years since the wolves have been reintroduced back into Yellowstone National Park (17 July 2009)
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm., and J. M. Child. The Early Mathematical Manuscripts of Leibniz. Mineola, NY: Dover Publ., 2005.
Let me tell you something. In 1970, Gray Wolves used to have a population of 250,000. But now due to mass wolf hunting, the numbers are down to 500. Hello everyone. Today, I’d like to speak on behalf of the Wolf Conservation Center about the importance of wolves, and why they should be protected. Wolves are too often a misunderstood creature, instead of showing fascination, we always fear them, which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. The society of wolves is just like ours, sorted by ranks, defined by confidence, and full of emotions. We are more like them than we think. Except they are being hunted, and we are not. In many parts of where they range, all types of wolves are being persecuted for killing livestock. As a result, humans have been killing wolves for years, because of us, their numbers are decreasing by thousands.
The Human Genome Project is the largest scientific endeavor undertaken since the Manhattan Project, and, as with the Manhattan Project, the completion of the Human Genome Project has brought to surface many moral and ethical issues concerning the use of the knowledge gained from the project. Although genetic tests for certain diseases have been available for 15 years (Ridley, 1999), the completion of the Human Genome Project will certainly lead to an exponential increase in the number of genetic tests available. Therefore, before genetic testing becomes a routine part of a visit to a doctor's office, the two main questions at the heart of the controversy surrounding genetic testing must be addressed: When should genetic testing be used? And who should have access to the results of genetic tests? As I intend to show, genetic tests should only be used for treatable diseases, and individuals should have the freedom to decide who has access to their test results.
...ocity. On the other hand, Leibniz had taken a geometrical approach, basing his discoveries on the work of previous thinkers like Fermat and Pascal. Though Newton had been the first to derive calculus as a mathematical approach, Leibniz was the first one to widely disseminate the concept throughout Europe. This was perhaps the most conclusive evidence that Newton and Leibniz were both independent developers of calculus. Newton’s timeline displays more evidence of inventing calculus because of his refusal to use theories or concepts to prove his answers, while Leibniz furthered other mathematician’s ideas to collaborate and bring together theorems for the application of calculus. The history of calculus developed as a result of sequential events, including many inventions and innovations, which led to forward thinking in the development of the mathematical system.