The purpose of this survey was to
gauge the public reactions to genetic engineering and the advancement of
science. The survey was targeted toward undergraduate students, who were
divided into two sub categories, Male& Female, and Religious
&Non-religious. Each subset was then matched with the other to create four
data sets: Male Religious, Male Non-religious, Female Religious, and Female
Non-religious. Of these categories, there were 8 F-R, 8 M-N, 7 F-N, and 7 M-R.
This would show how gender and religious affiliation affected the individual’s
views on the field of genetics and genetic engineering. The questions were
mainly designed to question about ethical issues of synthetic organs.
Survey
Are you Male or Female?
Do you consider yourself to be a religious person?
For the following
questions, rate your response from 1 to 5, 1 being strongly disagree, 3 being
neutral, and 5 being strongly agree.
1.
Research in the area of genetics, genetic
engineering, and gene splicing are a good thing.
2.
The research mentioned in question one has the
potential to bring great advances to the way we live our lives.
3.
Meddling with genetics is trespassing in the
territory of a higher power.
4.
If someone important to me was in dire need of
an organ transplant, and the only available organ was grown artificially inside
of an animal, such as a cow or a pig, I would urge him/her against getting the
transplant for ethical reasons.
5.
Replacement human organs grown in and harvested
from animals are more ethical than cloning an entire human for the sole purpose
of harvesting organs.
6.
There could be unforeseen, long-term, and
dangerous ramifications of meddling with the genetic structure of living
things.
7.
Science has effectively removed the need for a
“God” figure.
8.
Life’s great mysteries are part of what make
life interesting, and science should not seek to unravel them.
9.
Science has the potential to give us all of the
answers.
10.
Recently in China, cows have been genetically
altered to produce human breast milk, as a substitute for baby formula. You
find this disturbing.
The answers were as follows (red= M/R, blue=F/R, Green= F/N,
Black=M/N):
q1 q2 q3 q4 q5 q6 q7 q8 q9 q10
5 1 122 1 11 2234 121 321 122
4 2132 2223 2411 11 4433 3221 2423 1 3332
3 4545 3533 5354 3335 1211 3634 125 3153 3234 3422
2 12 11 31 2313 2 2551 1 3423 21
1 3 431 122 1
The distribution of the data was
similar to what I had expected. Naturally, religious subjects answered the more
religious questions with a little more fervor; however there was not really a
trend in responses from the non religious subjects. Male and female subjects
responded in ways that did not differ with any statistical significance. Many
people answered neutral (3) for questions that were difficult or were out of
their range of control or knowledge (most notably question 4and question 6).
The questions that were almost unanimous across the spectrum were questions five
and seven. Religious and non-religious, male or female, all agree that
scientific advancement does not do away with the need for God, for moral or
spiritual reasons, and that creating human life for the purpose of harvesting
organs was unethical. Question 10 had the most varied responses, and gender and
religious views had little impact on the outcomes. It was different from person
to person regardless of the two observed factors. Other than that, there was no
statistically significant evidence that Religious view or gender affected a
person’s moral opinions on genetics or genetic engineering. Perhaps this would
change among better informed subjects.
No comments:
Post a Comment