The draft and more sexism (CC)

Keeping with the theme of gender issues, I have decided to talk about the draft. That being, for those who don't know, the ability of the government in times of war to mandate that males 18-25 can be forced into military service. The draft was technically stopped in 1973, now instead we have "selective service" whereas in times of "national emergency" this agency, yes there is an entire agency devoted to this, would hold a literal lottery where they would draw birthdays out of a lottery drum and if its your birthday you must sign up to fight. More on this later. Now, in both cases women are totally exempt from any form of conscription. Is this sexism - against men? The simple answer would be yes. Indeed it would appear that men are being cast as macho warrior, eager to fight the enemy, while women are once again considered fragile homemakers, the very core of their idea fundamentally incompatible with fighting. In this case, the entire institution in question is rife with gender typing and stereotypes. Neither gender should have to feel obligated to either go into combat, for men, or stay out of it, for women. I do understand that women on average are significantly weaker than men, but less physical strength does not necessarily for a less capable soldier. Moreover, I'm sure that the thinking when women were excluded from the draft was not that they were necessarily less capable, but rather that "women were weak" or "women should be cleaning not fighting" or other such overgeneralized false aphorisms. Even discounting the moral problems with forcing people into military service, the system of the draft remains yet another relic of a less developed and resoundingly worse time for people in general. I hope to see it reformed soon.        

"Playing like a girl" (IR)

The idea of "playing like a girl" has been one of the few almost totally ubiquitous insults that has been passed down throughout Americana, and cultures worldwide. The BBC article I read discussed whether this term was offensive or not. Frankly, I'm surprised they had to ask the question. When someone "plays like a girl" or does "x, y or z like a girl" it of course has nothing to do with how feminine the action in question was, it is used to paint something as weak, poor, and just bad overall. This then implies that just because something is associated with women or females at large it is automatically inferior to it's male counterpart, and any man should be ashamed to be part of any such things. This then feeds back into the idea of straw feminism. Men who defend or otherwise affiliate with women are viewed as weak and are looked down on. This is a major problem with the advancement of women's rights. These sentiments are rooted incredibly deep, so much so that even as I am writing this, the idea of a man in a traditionally female position is still off putting, still tugging at some resoundingly sexist part of my basic social schemas. This, of course, does not justify these sentiments. To add a stipulation, and refute a potential counterargument, I do understand that the large majority of men are quite a bit stronger than women in general. The article states this obscure fact by saying that women don't throw things as far as men can. Brilliant. I suppose in some minds this would justify the use of that statement claiming that it is factually accurate. It most certainly does not. The use of this statement in conversation is not fueled by logic or used as some sort of poorly-wrought scientific simile, it is used simply as a cheap insult drawing on old cultural sexism.          

/b/, Twitch, and the rules of the internet (TA)

It seems possible if not inevitable that "women become full and active participants in our digital world", but it isn't going to happen without the digital world putting up a fight.

Anyone who has become part of, or even just observed an internet culture will know that they are dominated by men, in more ways than one. Moreover than just sheer volume, the most successful members of the most popular sites are all men. And yes, I mean all of them. Go check for yourself - I point to Twtich TV and Youtube as prime examples of this male-dominated culture. In the rare and gawked-at event in which a female attempts to become part of this culture it is viewed as extremely odd, and yes, an intrusion, one which is necessarily met with blatant sexism or misogyny, but rather infantilized, made "cute", set up as a spectacle in which the male participants laugh at the ridiculous notion that a woman could actually be part of this culture. I have not seen many successful women come out of these cultures, but in the few cases that I have seen the women in question would be considered "sexy", and draws excessive attention to the fact that she is a woman. In several cases I have seen these types of female accounts/channels/whatever manner of distribution are an accessory to an already popular male one. This type of corruptive dichotomy, as well as the atheistic characteristics of said female participants serve both to perpetuate the stereotypes of women on the internet as hypersexual and manipulative, as well as serve as a microcosm of the dependency of women on men that is already such a problem, (to use the common phrase), IRL.
   
On to Ms. Sarkeesian's predicament. I reference 4Chan's rules of the internet to attempt to explain why this happened. Rule 30: There are no girls on the internet. Obviously not true, but this idea points out the fact that it is indeed a male-dominated culture. People claiming or who actually are female are viewed with suspicion, often leading to mocking or slander. They are obviously the minority, so this makes this easy. Rules 42 and 43: Nothing is sacred, and The more beautiful and pure a thing is - the more satisfying it is to corrupt it. The anonymity of the internet lets people mock things in ways that would be wildly unacceptable, such as the misogyny shown throughout various sites. Rules 18 and 19: Anything that can be labeled can be hated, and The more you hate it the stronger it gets. Rule 20: Nothing is to be taken seriously. The amalgamation of these "rules" is the mindset and act of "trolling". That is, deliberately inciting anger or other such emotional responses in people by acting in an ignorant, extreme or otherwise inflammatory way.

And I think Ms. Sarkeesian got trolled. Hardcore.

Now, I of course DO NOT CONDONE these actions, or in any way believe that such trolling MAKES THIS ACCEPTABLE. Rather, I think that the "troll" mindset of slander and incitement, combined with male dominance of video game culture and the internet at large made her an outlet for the aimless misogynistic sentiments that reside on the internet. As for the organization of the hate campaign, the internet has an incredible ability to loosely organize itself, especially if it is against a particular individual or organization. I point to the "battletoad" meme as a more humorous example (WARNING - some strong language) http://imgur.com/VY2xE .

In conclusion, the attacks Ms. Sarkeesian are an exemplification of the worst parts of internet culture. Juvenile, thoughtless attacks based on nothing but casual misogyny and a misguided sense of tribal belonging. Even though the culture of the internet is deeply rooted, the culture in our offline lives have a profound effect on our digital ones. And as such, in our offline lives, even though women are essentially equal to men under the law, they are increasingly objectified in new and more horrible ways. We stand at a crossroads here. Will rational thought lead us to a society where genders are no longer typed, packaged and sold, or will educational and intellectual apathy combined with corporate greed lead us to a typed and chauvinistic society?

I really don't know.                

Flipped education? (IR)

I recently came across a quite interesting opinion piece in the New York times describing a different method of education, using "mastery learning" and "flipped classrooms". I guess the basic premise is that instead of the teacher determining the speed of the class, the students do. As well as that, students can work independently of one another, proving their mastery through some sort of assessment. At it's core, the idea sounds excellent, but as always, theory greatly differs from practice. Right out of the gate I am questioning the nebulous nature of the classroom environment. The article talked about one aspect of the "flipped classroom" being that rather than the teacher giving live lectures, they would create pre-recorded videos of them for students to view at their leisure. At least from my experience, the dynamics of live lectures, questions being proposed by both the teacher and the students, the discussion that stems from that an other things etc., are incredibly useful learning tools. As well as that, if my sentimentality may be excused, the idea of video lectures. would seem quite dead. The overall rationale for the video lectures being that the teacher now has time to work with individual students on practice problems and projects, the lecture being the actual homework. This lack of homework seems like it could be both a good and bad thing. Once again from personal experience, I have certainly had the displeasure of sitting at home confused about homework, having on one to really help me. Then again, having constant help on homework somewhat decreases its value, depriving students to have the challenge of practicing concepts on their own. A double edged sword I suppose, as is the entire system in a way. Speaking for the third time empirically, I went to elementary school in a Montessori classroom, where the main focus was the use of materials, but we also had a great deal of freedom to work as we pleased, but that was combined with many structured group activities, and interjections from the teacher. Now, this may have worked great with a bunch of 1-4th graders whom thought learning was "exciting", but to be perfectly frank, any system of learning that gives students large amounts of time to do with as they please is probably going to end up as more of a social time than a work one.

Or maybe that's just us.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/in-flipped-classrooms-a-method-for-mastery/              

Cats (FW)

I like cats. I enjoy the softness of their fur, the playfulness of their temperament, and the excellent companionship they can provide. I, however, do not own a cat. This is due in no small part to the fact that my dad does not like cats. I do not understand why. He sides with most people in his adoration of dogs and dislike of cats. That, however, is not to say I do not like dogs. I find it strange that people group themselves as either "dog" people or "cat" people. "Dog" people associating themselves with extroversion and boisterousness, "cat" people associating themselves with introversion and quietness. But why do people feel the need to group themselves in such a manner? Perhaps it is simply a feature of human disposition. People obviously have this group attachment mentality, as one can see easily from the formation of cliques. If people didn't have this desire, would there be such thing as a "cat" or "dog" person? Or is it a deeper, less frivolous connection? Perhaps we do see some sort of solidarity between our individual psyche and the generalized behavior of a species of animal. But then again, if people have a desire to fit in to a particular group, could they be wrongly interpreting themselves as a mechanism for fitting in? And, in that case, could that extend beyond the "cat"-"dog" dichotomy, to behavior, even entire personalities?

Maybe. Probably not.

In any case, cats are furry and awesome, and in fact, are the superior animal. QED.            

Aliens (CM)

An absurdity to some, a reality to others, the idea of extraterrestrials have captivated people's interest for centuries, and even more so in the modern world. The origins of people's belief ranges from solid scientific reasoning, to poor education, to downright psychosis. People's disbelief usually stems from internal skepticism, solid scientific reasoning, and in some cases, religion. I myself fall on the "believe" side, I hope for solid reasoning. To expound on that hopefully solid reason, I would like to begin with a staple of extraterrestrial belief, Drake's Equation. 

(Bad copying srry D: Please click the image)

R_* = the average rate of star formation in our galaxy

f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_l = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point

f_i = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)

f_c = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space 

Through a series of very complicated estimations, and some very simple multiplication, the current answer comes out to be 36.4 million at current estimates. However, this is still not really the point of the equation. The point is to show how improbable it is that life doesn't exist elsewhere. When thought about, even only our galaxy is an incomprehensibly large place containing an estimated 300 Billion stars. If the majority of those stars have planets orbiting them, and in all of those solar systems there is the "Goldilocks" zone, where the heat from the sun is neither too cold nor too hot. In a galaxy and universe full of elements waiting to be formed into planets, than it would seem highly probable that a significant number of planets have formed in this zone. These planets would have been very similar, if not identical to the early conditions of our planet. The aliens, you might be wondering, come in not long after this. Though the molten and volcanic early planet may seem inhospitable, in 1953 Stanley Miller proved that organic compounds such as amino acids would be formed by running electric current through an abiotic chemical environment, one that would closely resemble the atmosphere of early Earth. This process, as I sit here typing my highly abstract thoughts into my semi-conductor powered electric computation machine, obviously works. 

As another point of information is the discovery of several "super-Earths" relativity close  to our solar system. These planets are larger than ours, but are in the same "Goldilocks" zone, and NASA says, are potentially habitable.

If this is what lies within our small view of the Universe from here on Earth, I can hardly imagine what lies outside it. 

http://www.space.com/20720-earth-like-alien-planets-discovery.html  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake%E2%80%99s_Equation     

Vaccines (CM)

As much as people (myself included) hate vaccines, they are indeed a vital part of modern healthcare. They have been proven again and again has an effective method of preventing many diseases, such as measles, mumps, rubella and more. It would be very difficult to dispute their effectiveness. People still do however, and even more than that, that claim that vaccines are the cause of, mainly, autism of all things. The idea is intrinsically preposterous. Autism is a disorder that is not fully understood, and what we do know about it points to it being mainly genetic. That is even besides the point. There have been multiple studies showing that there is no correlation between vaccination and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition to that, it is a well established statistic that as many as 1 in 88 people have some sort of ASD. That compared to the large amount of people that receive vaccines, its not hard to draw a pseudo-scientific relation between the two. A final, and very sad reason that people may blame vaccines for autism is that the parents of children with severe autism may simply be looking for something to blame. Sad, but it's not a unreasonable conclusion. Hopefully you can see that vaccines have been proven to be effective, and the surprisingly large faction that believes autism and vaccines are connected, are very wrong.

Some citations:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10997&page=1
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism/      

A cornucopia of convoluted corrupting fallacies (CC)

As we have been discussing fallacies in class, and we need look outside of our classwork for examples, I new I needed to look no further than the Holy grail of fallacious reasoning and rhetoric, a veritable treasure trove of examples and a testimony to just how bad people's reasoning can be - Conservapedia. Written from "a self described American conservative and Christian point of view" (Wikipedia), it is also described by it's rival site, RationalWiki, as a " purposefully deceitful, heavily biased, conservative blog project  encyclopedia project". The site's use of fallacies are quite literally too numerous to list (as you will discover if you visit the site yourself), but I will list 3 of the best one here for your enjoyment. 

A good place to start is the page on Liberals. "A liberal is someone who favors increased government spending, power, and control, as in ObamaCare, as well as the censorship of Christianity.". My Webster's  dictionary says otherwise. "Liberal: Not literal or strict; tolerant; favoring reform or progress.". Wikipedia defines liberalism as "A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.". This is a very clear, yet poorly executed, example of a straw man fallacy.

Moving on down the auricle into a list of what "liberals" support and or practice, I see more fallacies than I even really care to mention. They seem to greatly using the appeal to tradition fallacy, as things listed include "Anti-Americanism", "Destroying the Christian foundations on which America was built on", "Ending western morality", and "Denial of traditional gender roles". None of these arguments have any real substance behind them, merely hollow appeals to tradition.

Moving even deeper into the article, we find this gem of a section "Liberalism and bestiality", entirely based on the total skewing, debasement and slandering of a professor of ethics, Peter Singer. They claim he supports such things as bestiality, infanticide, necrophilia, etc. etc. you get the idea. These claims are, of course, entirely false, but moreover than that the argument of the entire section is a a kind of reverse genetic fallacy, as well as a false cause and effect fallacy. Peter Singer supports bestiality, Peter Singer is a liberal, therefore liberals support bestiality. The article also repeatedly talks about the connection between atheists and liberals, and below the section it has a link to an entirely separate article about "Atheism and bestiality". Implying the argument that "Liberals are Atheists, Liberals support bestiality, therefore Atheism leads to bestiality" - wait what? Either way, there you have it, a genetic and false cause and effect fallacy all wrapped up into one nice little package.

I could write for pages and pages about the hundreds if not thousands of fallacies they employ throughout their thousands of pages of swiss-cheese consistency writing. But frankly, I have better things to do with my time, and I'm worried that that would just dignify it.

So I leave you with a link, and a quote from Dante. 

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page                    

Metaphors (RD)

The more eloquent cousin of the simile, the metaphor is a rhetorical device that has been used and reused for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The core concept of a metaphor is the comparison of two ideas, objects, experiences, etc. without the use of "like" or "and".

Examples of this device are everywhere in reading from the most casual of books, to the heaviest of literature. Perhaps one of the most famous metaphors, and one of the most phrases, "All the word's a stage, and all the men and women merely players", from Shakespeare's As You Like It compares the world we live in and the lives we live to a play happening, "And one man in his time plays many parts". It is obviously a brilliant metaphor, which is why is has stood the test of time.

Another, and almost as famous Shakespearean metaphor is the famous line from Sonnet 18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day". Here, he compares the fairness/beauty of the subject (probably a woman) to the splendor of a sunny summer day. This one is particularly effective because the love of summer and sunny days is cross-cultural idea, and is almost a social norm. As such, it makes it a very effective metaphor that has remained for hundreds of years.

As somewhat less well-known, but still famous example would be from Emily Dickinson's poem Hope where she writes "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.". Here she compares the idea of hope to a bird that perches in ones soul and sings the song of hope. This is a very interesting metaphor, as she says "thing with feathers that perches" instead of bird. I imagine the purpose of this would be to avoid any sort of preconceived notions of birds. It instead allows the reader to create their own mental image of a "hope bird" perching in the soul. Overall, this is what makes is such an effective metaphor.

These three examples illustrate some of the most famous metaphors in literature, and also show why the metaphor is one of the classic tried and true rhetorical devices.  

Not quite fair and balanced.

The situation with the civil war in Syria is a mess. That is stating the obvious however, as any casual observer could see that. What is equally a mess is the reporting of certain media outlets on these events, namely, Fox News. I, however, cannot say that I am really all that surprised to find this little gem nestled in the sea of irrational, pharisaical, religiously biased reporting, subverted and twisted language, and of course, the ever-present fervent hatred of Barrack Obama. The article is titled "GOP Leaders should let Allah Syria's Islamic civil war". Let us notice a few things here. Firstly, even with the absence of inflection that comes with the spoken word, one can see the mocking tone that "Allah" is said with, the writer scoffing at the idea of a god different than his. Secondly, the writer very specifically that it is an Islamic civil war, exemplifying the classic American bias against anything middle-eastern. Moving into the article, the writer cannot help but once again point out just how much of a demon Obama is. "While America continues to become an economic and moral wasteland under this regime..." (Horowitz). The author has chosen to use the word "regime" instead of administration or presidency to obviate once again his hatred of Obama. The article goes on to provide various fallacious and biased reasons why intervening in Syria would spell doom for the United States, this idea personified in the statement "Our only interest in Syria is ensuring that as many Islamists on both sides are killed and keep each other busy so they can't affect our national interests or threaten Israel .". Indeed, the writer suggests that simply letting the "Islamists" kill each other is a very good option. It simply does not matter to him if thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire. Not only is this statement morally rotten, but the writers, puffed up, pompous, ignorant blindly chauvinistic figuratively turns his nose up at the idea of lesser beings getting in the way of his grand plans, in this case, the repeal of the so-called "Obamacare". "Republicans should vote with a unified voice against this ridiculous escapade, and summarily reconvene the fight against Obamacare.". It's truly sobering to see that in the authors mind, the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children are nothing in the face of his dislike of a healthcare bill. This kind of deceitful, biased reporting proves that one must be truly careful when choosing what to believe.   

 Link to article - http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/03/gop-leaders-should-let-allah-sort-out-syria-islamic-civil-war/

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"

The book I read,  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, has one main focus that is seen throughout the entire work. That is, telling the story of Henrietta Lacks. In short, the speaker is the author, Rebecca Skloot, the audience is the general population, anyone interested in science/ethics, and people who don't know the story of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who lived from 1920-1951. Her life was cut short by an incredibly virulent from of cervical cancer, which quickly killed her, but also just happened to launch a medical revolution. A sample of her tumor was taken against the wishes of her family, and it just happened to end up in the hands of George Gey, a tissue researcher that was attempting to grow immortal human cells, ones that replicated forever - and so he did. The HeLa cell line was born, transforming into a multi-million dollar industry, not which one single dime went to the Lack's family. More than that, the cells also caused the medical revolution, leading to the momentous creation of the polio vaccine. Does the cells usefulness justify the fact they were taken without permission, should the Lack's family receive a cut of the profits made off her cells, and who was Henrietta Lacks? These questions provide the general basis of the purpose of this book.    

Skloot establishes her ethos heavily in the first few pages. She establishes herself as an average high school student, and then an average biology student in college, but one who had a particular interest in the HeLa cell line, and more importantly, where they came from. She continues to make herself sound very average, simply a person with a great curiosity in a particular story. She also paints a very specific image of herself, "I grew up in a safe, quiet, middle-class neighborhood...." (Skloot 7), further expounding on her average-ness. Despite this, towards the second half and end, she herself enters the story, and begins narrating her actions as a character, developing herself along with the story and other characters.        

Logos is employed in this work mainly in a sort of section were the author digresses from the current narrative and goes on to explain scientific or statistical back story, such as explaining the basic function of cells, or giving statistical information such as "One scientist estimates that if you could pile all HeLa ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons" (Skloot 2). The book remains story and character driven, though, and the employment of these sections wane as the book progresses, and the story goes more into the modern day, and the authors experience essentially finding out this story.    

The elicitation of pathos is something that happens often in this book, and with good reason. Henrietta grew up in the 1920-1930's, where a combination of poverty and racism made life very difficult for the Lack's family. Most reasonable people would agree that racism is unacceptable, and in fact a bane upon society, and as such the massive inequality between black and white people in those days is sure to stir some sympathy. Later on in her life, in the 1940's and 50's, she gets a super-aggressive cancer of the cervix, which metastasizes throughout her entire body, choking her from the inside, and eventually causing her painful death due to uremic poisoning, after her kidneys failed. Skloot's very vivid medic terminology, as well as her acute, and frankly at some points disgusting imagery truly captures her conditions horror, not to mention the emotional pain felt by her family and friends as they watch her die. Henrietta's personal story is not the only way the book elicits pathos, however. Later in the book, as Skloot actually gets close to the surviving members of the Lack's family, and their struggles with Henrietta's cells, it becomes more and more apparent that they are all caught in the middle of something that they wanted no part of in the first place. "It's not only the story of HeLa cells and Henrietta Lacks, but of Henrietta"s family-particularly Deborah- and their lifelong struggle to make peace with the existence of those cells, and the science that made them possible." (Skloot 7).          

Would I read another?

I absolutely would read another book by this author. This book was a pleasure to read, and though it may have been dry in some of the heavily historical/scientific areas, I still wanted to read it through to the end. After I had finished it, stood back, looked at the notes, thought about the amount of time it took the write, I realized it was an absolutely prodigious work of journalism. "The source materials I relied on to write this book filled multiple file cabinets, and the hundreds of hours of interviews I conducted ...fill several shelves worth of notebooks." (Skloot 338). I would go as far as to say that it's one of a kind, and needs to be read. In a way, though, I feel almost like we will not be getting another book from her like this. By profession, she's not a novelist, she writes for publications like Popular Science and is a journalist for PBS's Nova. I feel that it's perfectly possible for her to continue journalism, and not write another book. If she ever writes another book however, I will be first in line to get it.     

Effect on thoughts and theories

This book did not directly effect my thoughts theories, views of the world, etc. That being said, it certainly taught me an important lesson. That is, humanity and empathy must be at the center of science and medicine, always. It is imperative that scientists especially must keep in mind that when dealing with people that they are people and not just cells or numbers or enzymes. The book also brings up a related problem that is not easily solved with empathy and understanding. That being, the borderline nefarious world of tissue banking and research. All throughout the book and especially in the afterword Skloot exposes the reader to the fact that when doctors remove things from your body, they don't have to tell you where it's going for what its going to be used for. Everything from tonsils to blood samples are kept, stored and possibly experimented on. On the plus side, experimentation on tissues like these has led to modern medicine as we know it. On the down side, not knowing where your tissues are going and the fact that you have no ownership over something when it's removed from your body means they can be used for things you do not want them to be, and also means you do not get any money made off of them, such as in Henrietta Lacks' case. Companies made millions selling vials of her cells to researchers, and yet her family did see a cent of it. Overall, it opens the reader's eyes to a world usually hidden from public view, and also teaches the lesson that ignorance can be bliss.   

Patterns

Throughout the book I am reading, I have noticed one main pattern. Saying that, that pattern is not particularly subtle, nor do I believe it was meant to be. The pattern is simply that every few chapters or so the perspective changes from the narration of historical events to the author's, Rebecca Skloot's, experience tracking this story down, as well as her experience leading up to her investigation into it. This dual narrative works quite well, as her search for the story is almost as important as the history aspect. I have seen dual narratives like this before in books, and in some ways it is a personal detriment to my experience of the book. What happens is I very quickly start to enjoy one narrative over the other, so the time I spend reading the narrative I less prefer, I am waiting to start reading the other one. My personal preferences aside, in reality it is an excellent technique for telling this story.        

Distractions

What mainly distracts from the book's overall effectiveness is the anecdotal side plots often explored. Many of them don't have a whole lot to do with the what the book is actually about. Though they are often very interesting, and a few do supplement the text well a lot of them just distract from what the passage/chapter is about. The other main distraction is the number of people talked about throughout the book, and the way they are introduced. Rather than giving them a strong introduction, many of them are just thrown out, often in one of the aforementioned anecdotes. This can result in confusion when characters that were poorly introduced earlier in the book are brought up, and one does not have a very clear idea of who they are. It's not a huge problem, and certainly does not significantly detract from the overall quality of the book.      

Reaction to the text

My visceral reaction to the text was surprise, and immediate interest. Before this book, I had, like most people, never heard of HeLa cells, or Henrietta Lacks' story. Finding this book was like finding a hidden little pocket of history, one that I had been totally oblivious to before. That, combined with the fact I have always been very interested in science, especially in biology, and this book is certainly a journey down the murky annals of scientific ethics, especially considering the racism of the time that Henrietta Lacks lived in. More than just piquing my interest with science and it's related morals, the story of Lacks' life, as well as the anecdotes about her relatives and the places they lived instantly drew me in. It is a book that not only has enough surprise and mystery to make me want to pick it up, it is deep and fascinating, certainly enough to make me want to read it though to the end.          

Significance of the title

The significance of the title, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks", is that despite the fact that Henrietta Lacks has been dead for over 60 years, her cells are still alive today. More than just being still alive, they have been cultured and spread to an unimaginable degree. "One scientist estimates that if you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons." (Skloot 2). There is also a wordplay in how instead of her immortal life being that she is immortalized for her contributions to science, her immortal life is in how her cells are grown and spread all over the world. We can not conclude much from the title, or at least the layman can not. Most people do not even know what a HeLa cell is, much less the history of where they came from. Perhaps some people with a higher education in biology or medicine would notice how "HeLa" is stylized out of Lacks' name in the title, but the large majority of people will not conclude much from the title. As we read, we learn the aforementioned significance of the title, along with some details about Henrietta Lacks, her life, and the circumstances which the cells where discovered.