In this module, we learned a lot about the historical circumstances that led to the formation of new NIH policies governing rDNA research in the 1970s. These policies, as we saw, remain significant for genome editing today, so they represent an important case study in the science policy analysis process (and in the history of biology more generally). In this writing exercise, we want you to put together what you’ve learned about policy analysis, stakeholders, and rDNA.
For this assignment, consider what you read in Perusall activity by Berg et al. (1974), Berg et al. (1975), and Berg (2008). (Don’t worry: all three pieces together are only 6 pages.)
Now, imagine that you are a policy maker at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1975, and that you have been asked to take a stance on whether the NIH should fund new research in a field of biology that is literally making headlines: rDNA.
Instructions
In at least 250 words (total):
(1) Address whether the NIH should fund rDNA research.
(a) State whether the NIH should fund rDNA research. Your answer could be yes, no, or somewhere in between.
(b) Provide details from the readings and/or lectures to support your stance.
(c) Identify one stakeholder (individual or institution) whom you believe would support the stance you have chosen.
(d) Tell us why you believe this stakeholder would hold your stance.
(2) Create a counter-argument.
(a) Use specific details from the readings and/or lectures to demonstrate a counter-argument to the stance you chose above.
(b) Identify one stakeholder (individual or institution) whom you believe would support this counter-argument.
(c) Tell us why you believe this stakeholder would support this counter-argument.
http://beck2.med.harvard.edu/week13/The%20Science%20Letter.pdf
