- Oct 2023
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www-tandfonline-com.wv-o-ursus-proxy06.ursus.maine.edu www-tandfonline-com.wv-o-ursus-proxy06.ursus.maine.edu
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Improvising Race: Clinical Trials and Racial Classification
Q: HOW IS INFORMATION STRUCTURED AND PRESENTED? A: Valdez starts her article with an abstract giving a brief description of what she will be discussing in the rest of the article, in the abstract she highlights two figures that are referenced throughout the article. Since the topic has to do with race she gives the subject its own paragraph going into detail about how it emerged and why it is used in science. She writes a paragraph telling the origins of how the issue of improvising race came to her attention. - The subjects of her article are explained in detail before she goes into the main topic of her article. I surmise she did this so the reader will have a better understanding of her position on the topic. - The main topic of her article is improvising race and the issues this presents in clinical studies. So before she delves into the topic she gives prerequisite information.
Once she gives the necessary background information she goes into detail about the UK census and how it contributes to improvisation of race. - In other words after giving the necessary background information she goes into the main topic of her article.
In the conclusion she gives a summary of her findings
Q: CONVENTIONS, ANALYTICAL APPROACHES, AND DISCOURSE A: Valdez approaches this topic with the goal of solving a problem that is not apparent. She uses a scenario in which the issue occurs and highlights the fact that those involved in the study did not notice the issue until she pointed showing that there is a clear disconnect between the research subjects and the scientists who came up with the classification system they are being asked to use.
Q: HOW IS EVIDENCE IDENTIFIED AND KNOWLEDGE CREATED? A: The evidence to support Valdez's hypothesis came from the people involved in the clinical trials
Q: WHAT INFORMATION IS PRIORITIZED? A: Any information that is important to the main topic there is no "fluff" and the author never goes on a tangent that is not relevant to the topic.
Q: HOW IS EXPERTISE/VALIDITY ESTABLISHED? A: Valdez's credentials are mentioned in the notes section of the article.
Q: WHY DO YOU WISH TO EXPLORE THIS TOPIC FURTHER? A: This topic is something I have noticed myself especially when it comes to "mixed" people or people whose origins deviate from the norm.
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Racial improvisation, as a concept and framework, is based on the idea that race is unstable and inconsistent (Abu El-Haj Citation2007; Anand Citation1999; Marshall Citation1993). To illuminate the mercuriality of race, I focus on processes of improvisation. For instance, how do ethnicity codes generate the improvisation of race in practice?
Here Valdez defines the topic of her article: racial improvisation.
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The juxtaposition of both classification systems, the Borges list and the ethnicity list #1–10, makes the ethnicity code from the UK trial appear silly or out of context. Making something like the ethnicity code seem strange is an anthropological endeavor into the implicit politics of classifications and hierarchies that are not explicit when used in what might be considered a “proper” context. Whereas Borges’ list was intentionally exaggerated to make a point about the arbitrariness of classification systems, the classification list from the StandUP clinical trial in the United Kingdom was intended to order ethnicities for the production of scientific knowledge.
Valdez points out the arbitrary nature of ethnic classification systems.
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The improvisation of race is a window into the movements, negotiations and temporality of racialization in clinical practice. By conceiving race as mercurial, I argue that improvisation is a key mechanism for the routinization of racial categories in clinical practice.
Valdez is exploring how race can be hard to properly identify due to its arbitrary nature.
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- Sep 2023
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human.libretexts.org human.libretexts.org
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Having immersed myself in these movies and the technologies that inspire them, it’s clear that, if we want to ensure these trends don’t cause more problems than they resolve, we desperately need the perspectives that movies like Ghost in the Shell and others reveal. The alternative is risking losing our own “ghosts” in the drive to innovate bigger and better, without thinking about the consequences.
These statements highlight Maynard's cautionary approach.
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Yet as the narrative unfolds, we learn that this is not a person, but an AI developed by US security services that has escaped the leash of its handlers.
In our current world "rogue AI" is a growing concern amongst experts.
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In 2012, the South African athlete Oscar Pistorius made history by being the first runner to compete in the Olympic Games with two prosthetic legs. His iconic racing blades came to represent the promise of technological enhancements to overcome human limitations. Yet they stirred up fears of them giving him an unfair advantage that led to him being barred from competing in the previous Olympics. The same year that Pistorius successfully competed in the Olympics, the Canadian researcher Steve Mann was allegedly assaulted because his computer-augmented eye extension offended someone. And in 2015, patient-advocate Hugo Campos discovered he didn’t legally have access to the implanted defibrillator that kept him alive. These are all relatively small examples of the tension that’s growing between conventional thinking and human augmentation. But they illustrate how the angst that Kusanagi feels about her augmented body, and how it defines her, is already part of today’s society. And we’ve barely touched the tip of this particular iceberg.
It'll take time for the general public to accept this new reality and even if most people do there will still be people who don't.
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Throughout Ghost, Major Kusanagi is plagued by doubts of who she is. Do her cybernetic augmentations make her less human, or having less worth? Is her sense of self—her “ghost”—simply an illusion of her machine programming? And what autonomy does she have when she malfunctions, or needs an upgrade? These are questions that are already beginning to tax developers and others in the real world. And as robotic and cyber technologies become increasingly advanced, they are only going to become harder to navigate.
The line between human and machine is a common topic in the science fiction (particularly the cyberpunk genre).
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Inspired by the neural laces of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels, and echoing Ghost, Musk announced on Twitter that, in his opinion, “Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines.”
Technology like AI that is currently being developed is quickly approaching and in some cases are currently at the level of human intelligence. In order to adapt we must integrate technology within our own bodies.
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doldrums
a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or depression.
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When the anime movie Ghost in the Shell was released in 1995, the world wide web was still little more than a novelty, Microsoft was just beginning to find its GUI-feet, and artificial intelligence research was in the
Technology was relatively primitive when Ghost in the Shell was first released but even, so it was ahead of it's time with the technology presented and ideas surrounding them.
Annotators
URL
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human.libretexts.org human.libretexts.org
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This is the purpose of ethically appropriate research with careful oversight. The ban does not change the need for discussion. If anything, it brings the debate back to the reality of patients seeking care for diseases that currently have no cure.
Menke is making the point that banning ethical gene-editing research is the equivalent of putting your head in the sand.
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These editing therapies will permanently change all the descendants of a couple. In some cases it could rid a family of a genetic disease. In others, the unintended effects may be worse than the disease itself.
Editing genes will affect the entire bloodline going forward for better or worse.
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The technology is here, but we know so much less about its effects than we should.
This is precisely why this topic is as controversial as it is. We have the technology to "play god" but we at this moment in time don't know enough about the long-term effects of doing so.
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These traits are often the product of multiple genes working in tandem. The products of these genes work together throughout our lives, which makes the impact of editing at the embryonic level impossible to predict.
The long-term effects of gene editing are impossible to predict and have a possibility of causing problems down the line.
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heritable genetic modification
Heritable human genome editing - making changes to the genetic material of eggs, sperm, or any cells that lead to their development, including the cells of early embryos, and establishing a pregnancy
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