Discussion

Your task is you write a text in which you discuss the issue of CRISPR technology. In what follows, we will provide a few points that can help you in a discussion about your topic. First, we will look at the pros and cons of CRISPR technology, and then we will focus on the future of CRISPR.

Pros and Cons

The four sources in your exam material cover the topic of CRISPR and present both pros and cons of this technology.

If you choose to focus on the disadvantages of the CRISPR technology, we encourage you to take a look at “Promise and peril of gene-editing technology CRISPR” (Text I), “Critics of ‘designer babies’ speak out” (Text II) and “Many Americans are wary of using gene editing for human enhancement” (Text III).

If you decide that the advantages of CRISPR outweigh its disadvantages, we recommend you take a look at “Promise and peril of gene-editing technology CRISPR” (Text I) and “China Has Launched the First-Ever CRISPR Gene-Editing Trial in Humans” (Text IV). Also, “Many Americans are wary of using gene editing for human enhancement” (Text III) contains several positive aspects regarding CRISPR.

In what follows, we have outlined the pros and cons of CRISPR as they appear in the four sources in your exam material.

Here are some pros of CRISPR, as mentioned in the source material:

1. The possibility of CRISPR curing genetic diseases, including cancer, cystic fibrosis, and HIV (Text I);
2. In the US, developers of CRISPR technology are delaying trials on human beings until they have further information about the long-term side-effects (Text I);

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Here are some of the cons of CRISPR, as presented in the texts:

1. CRISPR could be used to edit human embryos and create ‘designer babies’, which is a worrying idea (Texts I, II, and III);

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The future of CRISPR

In a report from the future, you are invited to discuss the issue of CRISPR by imagining the way the technology will evolve based on an overview of its past (based on the four texts in the source material).

On the one hand, the information from “Many Americans are wary of using gene editing for human enhancement” (Text III) indicates that there is a current debate on whether CRISPR should be accepted when it comes to altering human embryos.

Imagine how the technology will evolve if society, as a whole, accepts the application of CRISPR on human embryos. How will CRISPR evolve if the application on human embryos is rejected? Text III suggests that there would be an increasing social tension between normal people and enhanced people in the future, as one category would be less privileged than the other.

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