Assignment #1: “Curse and a Blessing”
Question 1
Jared Diamond, author of “Curse and Blessing”, wrote this piece regarding the disease known as Tay-Sachs. His main hypothesis consists of the idea that Tay-Sachs is prominent in the eastern European Jewish culture, which seemingly has a lower rate of deaths from tuberculosis. Children who receive the homozygous recessive allele gained from Tay-Sachs heterozygous parents, suffer uncontrollable laughter, shaking, muscle control, drooling, sometimes even blindness. This is clearly miserable for the homozygous children, however Diamond exams the idea of heterozygous carriers having benefits from carrying the recessive allele. Analyzing the history of when this allele began to spread, it was observed …show more content…
Due to this connection, his writing is quite passionate and perhaps even a tad bias as the issue is very personal. Diamond is in fact of the Eastern European Jewish heritage, the group which he analyzes with regards to Tay-Sachs. Scientists who study Tay Sachs may not have the thorough history which Diamond observes to fully understand the disease, as there is no significance behind it for them. Another bias is presented in the very first few paragraphs, when Diamond and his partner gratefully discovered they were not carries of Tay Sachs. Having to take the step of being testing himself, the author sensed the distress which many others are afraid to face. This trait likely drove Diamond to desire to dig deeper and know as much about the disease as possible. Not only for himself, but for the benefit of so many others which he can relate to as well. Despite Diamond’s personal attachments, he focuses much more on the biological components of the disease, especially in the first half of the article. As stated before, this is another example of where other scientists could easily overlook small details. Diamond went back far over time to discover the accumulation of fatty substance, ganglioside. Analyzing the biological and historical components together gives diamond a different angle than many scientists
Question 1
Jared Diamond, author of “Curse and Blessing”, wrote this piece regarding the disease known as Tay-Sachs. His main hypothesis consists of the idea that Tay-Sachs is prominent in the eastern European Jewish culture, which seemingly has a lower rate of deaths from tuberculosis. Children who receive the homozygous recessive allele gained from Tay-Sachs heterozygous parents, suffer uncontrollable laughter, shaking, muscle control, drooling, sometimes even blindness. This is clearly miserable for the homozygous children, however Diamond exams the idea of heterozygous carriers having benefits from carrying the recessive allele. Analyzing the history of when this allele began to spread, it was observed …show more content…
Due to this connection, his writing is quite passionate and perhaps even a tad bias as the issue is very personal. Diamond is in fact of the Eastern European Jewish heritage, the group which he analyzes with regards to Tay-Sachs. Scientists who study Tay Sachs may not have the thorough history which Diamond observes to fully understand the disease, as there is no significance behind it for them. Another bias is presented in the very first few paragraphs, when Diamond and his partner gratefully discovered they were not carries of Tay Sachs. Having to take the step of being testing himself, the author sensed the distress which many others are afraid to face. This trait likely drove Diamond to desire to dig deeper and know as much about the disease as possible. Not only for himself, but for the benefit of so many others which he can relate to as well. Despite Diamond’s personal attachments, he focuses much more on the biological components of the disease, especially in the first half of the article. As stated before, this is another example of where other scientists could easily overlook small details. Diamond went back far over time to discover the accumulation of fatty substance, ganglioside. Analyzing the biological and historical components together gives diamond a different angle than many scientists