Download A Guideline for the Critique Assignment F16

ANTH 230
WOMEN’S REPRODUCTIVE EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Fall 2016
Guidelines for the critiques
DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 27 at 5 PM (Late assignments will receive a 10%
discount per day past deadline)
The goals of the assignment are:
1- To exercise your critical thinking skills by evaluating the information provided in
a popular media article against scientific information found in primary sources
(for example, research articles in peer reviewed journals).
2- To learn how to do bibliographic searches.
3- To put your argumentative skills at work by writing a convincing paper on how
the article reflects (or not) sound scientific findings.
Step-by-step instructions
1- Browse the web, popular magazines, newspapers looking for articles that
focus on some aspect of women’s reproductive (or sexual) biology
2- Choose an article that sparks your interest
 Your life will be a lot easier if you use an article that makes an explicit
reference to published primary sources. If you choose not to use an article
that makes explicit reference to a published study, then choose one that
makes a specific scientific claim (can be one you might have not known or
are suspicious of). It is much more difficult to develop an argument about
a media article that makes generic, yet generally accurate, statements
about biology.
 Try to stick to an article that makes claims about reproductive or sexual
biology. If you want to make an argument that is biosocial that is great.
However, avoid trying to evaluate claims explicitly about public or global
health.
3- Read the article in detail looking for the main claims in the article.
4- Identify 2-3 claims you want to focus on and highlight them in yellow.
a. At the end of this document, you will find an article by Matt Ridley for
TIME magazine. I have highlighted a couple of statements that are not
referenced, but can be traced down to the primary source relatively easily.
5- Do a bibliographic search on the sources mentioned in the article that
supposedly support the statements presented there.
6- Do a bibliographic search on the sources not mentioned in the article: It may
happen that the article you have chosen does not have a lot of statements
supported by references to published work. You will still need to examine the
validity of statements in the article even if they are not referenced.
7- Read the primary sources that support or contradict the main claims of the
article. We do not expect you to read more than 5-7 articles total for this
critique.
8- Write a critique expressing your opinion on whether the article does a good
job at translating what the primary sources say. Make sure you reference your
own statements by citing the primary source you are to back them up.
9- Turn in the following documents via Canvas site. Please go to “Discussion”
and click on the critiques assignment. Hit “Reply” and attach the following
documents:
a. A pdf copy of the article you chose with the main claims highlighted in
yellow
b. A Word document with your critique followed by a bibliographic list of
primary source articles you read.
Evaluation items:
These are items that we will explicitly consider when grading your work.
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Overall writing quality: We will look at punctuation, paragraph structure,
spelling, sentences, and flow of ideas. If you are not sure about the quality of
your paper, do not hesitate to drop by the Writing Center.
Development of a convincing argument. We want to see your own opinion
about the disagreement (or lack of it) between the way the information is
presented in the popular media article and the information in the primary sources
you read. Let’s say the article states that 90% of girls get circumcised in Sudan,
but when you look at the primary data, it says that it is 5%. You may think it was
a typo, or sloppy work. Or it may be that you think the author is deliberately
choosing to present the information in some particular way because it fits a
certain agenda.
Formatting: Follow these instructions PRECISELY. The critique needs to be
between 1.5 and 2 pages, single-spaced, Times New Roman 12 pts., 1 inch
margins or less all around.
o Use in-text parenthetical citations with author and year. For example, if
the primary source authors are Jane Smith and Richard Doe and the article
was published in 2013, the in-text citation should read (Smith & Doe
2013). Please do not use footnotes. I know this will upset some of you but
overall, the use of footnotes can be inconsistent and often incorrect.
o Include your bibliography and critique in the same document.
 Use the formatting style of the American Journal of Human
Biology
Example: Albers EM, Riksen-Walraven J, Sweep FCGJ, Weerth
C. 2008. Maternal behavior predicts infant cortisol recovery from a
mild everyday stressor. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 49:97–103.
 Providing only URLs is not sufficient.
 No DOIs are necessary
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Do not divide your bibliography into media article, cited, not cited.
It should all be in one list.
o If you do not want to format your bibliography yourself, there are
many resources available to you, i.e. RefWorks, Endnote, Zotero, etc,
that are available for free through the Yale software library or on the
web.
Your popular media article should be included in your bibliography.
It is better to over-cite than under-cite.
Do not include references that you do not cite. It may have been part of a
background bibliographic search, but unless you use it to make an argument, it
doesn’t need to be there.
Fact sheets and other documents provided by organizations, such as WHO,
CDC, NIH, etc, are not primary sources. You will be docked points if you
use these without 5 or more primary sources.
Writing:
 Avoid the use of direct quotes. It is always better to paraphrase.
o We want to see evidence of you developing and supporting an argument.
o It is fine to take quotes from the media article, but try to avoid lengthy
ones.
o Paraphrase primary sources whenever possible.
 You don’t need to use a direct quote to argue that the author of the
media article came to the wrong conclusion or misrepresented the
data.
 Avoid using long and complicated sentences. Short and punchy sentences have a
much bigger impact on your reader.
 Avoid vague and nondescript adjectives.
 Make your argument as clear and as quickly as possible.
o Many of you wrote paragraphs by quoting the author, quoting the
literature, and then would state your argument. A much more effective
style states the argument as soon as possible and uses the literature to
support it.
 Effective arguments are supported by primary sources.
o Do not make claims that you cannot support with primary sources.
o Do not state that the literature supports either your, or the author’s (of the
media article) claims without providing something to support it.
 Focus on critiquing the media article’s representation of biology/science.
o While it is fine to spend time critiquing the sources cited by the author,
especially if you are arguing that it is a tool to advance a political position,
but try to focus on the media article.
 If you are unsatisfied with the representation of the biology or of primary source
material, then make an argument about why the author may have done this.
Example of the statements that can be chosen to be contrasted against primary sources:
Will we still need to have sex?
Matt Ridley. Time. New York: Nov 8, 1999.Vol. 154, Iss. 19; pg. 66, 3 pgs
Full Text (1109 words)
FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS: PEOPLE WILL STILL BE trying to get each other into bed in 2025,
though one can only hope the pickup lines will be different by then. Now here's the revolutionary (or
should I say evolutionary) news: sex will seem a lot less necessary than it does today. Having sex is too
much fun for us to stop, but religious convictions aside, it will be more for recreation than procreation.
Many human beings, especially those who are rich, vain and ambitious, will be using test tubes-not just
to get around infertility and the lack of suitable partners, but to clone themselves and tinker with their
genes.
Lots of creatures already reproduce without sex: whiptail lizards, aphids, dandelions, microscopic
rotifers. And, of course, human beings. Since the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, in
1978, hundreds of thousands of human beings have been conceived in laboratory glassware rather than
in bed. THIS IS A FACTUAL STATEMENT THAT IS NOT REFERENCED. STILL, YOU MAY
BE INTERESTED IN READING THE LITERATURE TO SEE IF THE NUMBERS ARE
APPROPRIATE. ARE WE REALLY TALKING HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS? OR IS IT
HUNDREDS? OR MILLIONS?
If human cloning becomes possible-and since the birth of a sheep called Dolly, few doubt that it will be
feasible to clone a person by 2025-even the link between sex organs and reproduction will be broken.
You will then be able to take a cutting from your body and grow a new person, as if you were a willow
tree. And if it becomes possible to screen or genetically engineer embryos to "improve" them, then invitro fertilization and cloning may become the rule rather than the exception among those who can
afford it.
In a sense, we have already divorced sex from reproduction. In the 1960s, the contraceptive pill freed
women to enjoy sex for its own sake. At the same time, greater tolerance of homosexuality signaled
society's acceptance of nonreproductive sex of another sort. These changes are only continuations of a
trend that started perhaps a million years ago. As Richard Wrangham, professor of anthropology at
Harvard, points out, "Most mammals lose interest in sex outside a restricted mating period. For a
female chimpanzee, copulation is confined to the times when she has a pink swelling on her rump.
Outside those lusty periods, she would never think of trying to seduce a male, and he'd be horrified at
the thought. But humans have taken a much more persistent view of sexual possibilities, probably since
they first evolved as a species." THERE IS NO REFERENCE FOR THIS. IT MAY BE POSSIBLE
TO READ ABOUT WRANGHAM TO EITHER FIND THE REFERENCE OR SEE IF IN ONE
WAY OR THE OTHER IS SUPPORTED BY WRANGHAM’S THINKING.
We share this interest in infertile, social sex with a few other species: dolphins, bonobo apes and some
birds. IS THIS TRUE? CAN YOU FIND REFERENCES TO NON-REPRODUCTIVE SEX IN
DOLPHINS, BONOBOS (WHICH, BY THE WAY ARE APES) AND BIRDS? But even if sex is too
good for human beings to give up, more and more people will abandon it as a means of reproduction.
Many people born from in-vitro techniques are themselves infertile-they inherit the infertility from
their genetic parents. IS THIS TRUE? CAN YOU FIND REFERENCES TO SUPPORT OR REJECT
THE VALIDITY OF THIS STATEMENT? So infertility is bound to increase, and with it the demand
for rvF. Add to this the demand from gay men and women and from those with private eugenic
motives-ranging from not wanting to pass on inherited disease to wanting taller or smarter or prettier
children-and sexless reproduction is bound to spread.
In the modern world, you can even have sex and parenthood without suffering the bit in between. Some
Hollywood actresses may have satisfied the urge for mothering by electing to adopt children rather
than spoil their figures (as they see it) by childbearing. For people as beautiful as this, the temptation to
adopt a clone (reared in a surrogate womb) could one day be irresistible.
Once cloning loses its stigma, the urge to tinker with the genes of offspring may not be far behind. As
Cambridge molecular biologist Graeme Mitchison says, "We can all be beautiful-no baldness, no
wimps with glasses, no knobby knees." Olivia Judson, author of a forthcoming book called Dr.
Tatiana's Sex Advice forAll Creation, begs to differ: "If there is such hostility to genetically modified
soya, it doesn't bode well for genetically modified people."
Human cloning and designer babies are probably not imminent. Even assuming that the procedures are
judged safe and efficient in farm animals, still a long way off, they will be heavily discouraged, if not
banned, by many governments for human beings.
It is worth noting, however, that in much of the biological world, cloning is old hat. There are some
species, such as those dandelions and whiptail lizards, that reproduce no other way, and there are many,
such as aphids and strawberries, that switch effortlessly between sex and cloning. There are fierce
arguments in biological circles about why such species have not taken over the world: since they
reproduce so efficiently and do not waste energy producing futile creatures called males.
Two possible answers have been suggested. One is that males are necessary to combat disease: without
sexual reproduction, a clonal species is vulnerable to increasing parasitic attack. The other theory holds
that sex helps purge the species of genetic mutations by shuffling the genes in each generation. CAN
YOU FIND REFERENCES TO BACK UP THESE TWO STATEMENTS ON THE BENEFITS OF
SEXUAL REPRODUCTION? WE MEAN PRIMARY RESEARCH, NOT JUST TEXTBOOK
REFERENCES.
Neither of these explanations need trouble us. We are not going to use cloning to make the whole of the
next generation from one individual (though in the 1930s several eminent geneticists thought that when
IVF became available, lots of people would rush out to choose prominent men such as Lenin as a
father-which just goes to show how wrong geneticists can be about the future). Also, genetic mutations
accumulate much too slowly to worry us.
And even if sex proved to be genetically unnecessary, it still wouldn't be a total waste of energy. It is to
sex, after all, that we owe most of the things we consider aesthetically appealing in nature. If it were
not for sex, there would be no blossoms and no birdsong. A flower-filled meadow resounding with the
dawn chorus of songbirds is actually a scene of frenzied sexual competition. Geoffrey Miller, an
evolutionary psychologist at University College London, has pointed out that everything extravagant
about human life, from poetry to fast cars, is rooted in sexual one-upmanship. WERE THESE
REALLY MILLER’S WORDS?
"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning," said Aristotle Onassis,
who should know. Or, as Henry Kissinger put it, "power is the great aphrodisiac." So where would
humans-and human civilization-be without sex? Probably back with the aphids and dandelions, I
suspect, procreating effortlessly but building neither empires nor cathedrals.
[Author Affiliation]
Matt Ridley is the author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature.