Today we had a round-the-table discussion on the article we chose and presented it. The many presentations that we have found were interesting, and sparked various discussions interestingly.
Surgical Risk Calculator and it's implications on the field of medicine
A fellow student's TOK presentation that discussed the ethical implications of the Surgical Risk Calculator (SRC) and how that will effect the field of medicine. The surgical risk calculator takes all sorts of factors into account (Such as but not limited to the age, weight, height, gender, previous medical conditions, and much more) and uses that to produce a percentage of risk. This lead to a discussion on whether or not it is easier to trust a doctor or a calculator online, which showed that the majority of our class believed that at least in Nairobi it would be challenging to trust a doctor. I previously did not know that doctors use risk calculator prior to her presentation and wonder what this holds for the future of medicine.
Her research question: Is emotion a relevant way of knowing when making decisions using the surgical risk calculator?
This research question is interesting because every problem to the world has a risk, so she didn't know how to answer this with certainty, but she asked if it was even wise to confront a calculator that itself is ironically not even 100% accurate. Some thought it was necessary to use emotion to calculate risk, however I personally thought that emotion has no place in analyzation of something as statistical as risk, which like said, everything has it's own set of risks that must be taken into account.
CRISPR gene editing
CRISPR found a property of bacteria's immune system capable unravelling and removing parts of DNA to remove viral diseases. It also is able to make pig organs "Human compatible", improving the health of many people. However, a lot of people are worried that this advancement in science will allow the "Designer babies" which is a controversial topic concerning ethics.
Her research question was: Can we rely on scientists or governments to set ethical boundaries for research and use of scientific technology and remain true to these boundaries?
Her Knowledge question was well crafted and sparked a discussion in our table concerning how trust worthy governments or privately owned companies are. We made the conclusion that it is ultimately not trustworthy because the ability may provide the advantage necessary for these companies or governments to succeed. We can never know for a fact how successful governments will be in sticking these boundaries and creating new things that are highly controversial to the public. Some students in our table thought it wouldn't matter because either way scientific advancements would be made and trying to stop things such as designer babies is dumb. But isn't that how large advancements are made in scientific communities?
