3rd Article

PROS AND CONS OF DESIGNER BABIES

Accuracy: The website that allowed this article to be published was buzzle.com, which allows anyone to publish, as long as they can provide a simple profile of themselves. This neglect from buzzle.com allowing almost anyone to publish on their site is perfectly visible in this article: there are frequent grammatical and factual errors, as well as biased quotes from people. It is clearly visible that any fact checking or editing team are either undermanned, non-existent or incompetent.  

Authority: There seems to be no relevant qualifications for the author, Priya Johnson, whose university qualifications are limited to a Master in Business administration. Also, her point of view and somewhat biased sources lean towards her Christian ideals and values. Once again, it seems that because she is a ‘nice’ person, buzzle.com have allowed her to publish on their site, regardless of lack of qualification.

Objectivity: Unlike the other articles, a clear opinion is taken, which is fair enough, although this is only done after slight ‘tampering’ with the evidence that she had procured. Using a quote from a Christian leader and comparing genetic selection to the Aryan supermen that Adolf Hitler aimed to create in his reign outweigh her small ‘pros’ for designer babies: that they can be used to save lives.

Picture
Currency: Although there is no clear date on the work, her final points on why we should steer well clear from genetics seem very much outdated. She procures the idea that scientists are not well trained, and never will be, to deal with such things as DNA. She also is quite ignorant in claiming generations will be ruined if we seem to tamper with genetics, or play God. Obviously, she is either very poorly informed or has a low view of genetics to stake such a claim in this article.

Coverage: To her credit, Johnson does cover the general scientific principles and adds some points for both sides of the story. This gives a large proportion of the piece justification and coherence before she ruins it with her Dark Ages rabble.