Alisa Kanganis
AP Biology
March 13, 2019
Current Event 19
Wallis, Claudia. “Are All Our Organs Vital? .” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-all-our-organs-vital/.\
There is a handful of organs that are regarded as vestigial, and consequently, are often removed during surgery without concern - the most well known being the appendix, gallbladder, and tonsils. However, recent studies show that these organs may have more of an impact than previously thought. For instance, a 2017 study led by Heather Smith, an evolutionary biologist at Midwestern University, observed the function of the appendix in 533 species of mammals. The results strongly suggest that the organ plays an immunological and gastrointestinal role. Essentially, the appendix harbors a layer of gut bacteria that aids the immune system in attacking microbiome illnesses. Without these bacteria, people are “two and half times more likely to suffer a recurrence of infection with Clostridium difficile”, a dangerous strain of gut bacteria that thrives in the absence of friendlier types. Therefore, it may be a good idea to take the effects of removing organs into account before doing so.
Removing vestigial (or thought to be vestigial) organs does not have a profound effect on society. I am sure a good amount of people contract gut infections due to the loss of their appendix, but I would also assume the number of people that fall ill with appendicitis is much greater. However, I think looking into the effects of losing an organ, even if it is thought to be useless, is very important. That way, if someone does have to remove one, they can at least know the risks and avoid them.
The greatest flaw with the article is that the author did not address the effect of keeping a vestigial organ that may be causing damage to its host. For example, someone with appendicitis cannot just leave their appendix in as it may rupture and cause sepsis, which is more fatal than an infection involving Clostridium difficile. It seems to me that the consequences of keeping an inflamed vestigial organ greatly outweigh the benefits.
Layla Brinster
ReplyDeleteAP Biology
3/15/19
Current Event #19 Comment
Citation:
Wallis, Claudia. “Are All Our Organs Vital? .” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-all-our-organs-vital/.
Alisa’s review of Claudia Wallis’ “Are All Our Organs Vital?” was very well written and comprehensible. Alisa did a nice job of summarizing the key details in a concise manner, providing context, and incorporating her opinion of the author's flaws. Alisa included all the necessary details for her summary and described vestigial organs very well. She also provided context, to help the reader understand what the article was about, and gave examples of a few vestigial organs (appendix, gallbladder, tonsils). Her summary took the most important information in the article and presented it simply and directly, which was easy to follow. Furthermore, Alisa pointed out how Wallis could have addressed the ‘effect of keeping a vestigial organ in the body’. I agree with Alisa, this concept is very important. Perhaps, taking out a vestigial organ vastly outweighs the possible consequences that could occur if the said organ was left inside someone’s body.
Although Alisa’s article was pleasantly written, she could have introduced the topic slightly more effectively. Instead of jumping straight into vestigial organs, she could have grabbed the reader’s attention and introduced specific medicinal practices that remove vestigial organs such as tonsil removal, wisdom teeth removal, appendix, gallbladder removals, etc. Since Alisa mentioned that she thinks “a good amount of people contract gut infections due to the loss of their appendix, but the number of people that fall ill with appendicitis is much greater, ” she could have validated her thought with facts and statistics- that would’ve added to the strength of her review.
Overall, this article is important to society. Many people, including me, have undergone the removal of vestigial organs: the most common for people of our age being the removal of wisdom teeth, tonsils, and the appendix. This article could raise concerns for some people, are they better off without these ‘thought to be vestigial’ organs? I thought this article was very interesting because I am passionate about surgery and enjoy learning about different types of surgeries and the potential repercussions.
One well-written aspect of Alisa Kanganis’s review is that her summary gets the main point of the article across while still being very concise: Kanganis states the author’s claim that supposedly “vestigial” organs may in fact be useful and then gives one compelling example - the appendix - and describes a crucial role it may play based on recent studies. This method gives the reader a primer into how the article is written so he/she can decide whether or not to read it without taking the whole point of reading the article away and making the summary too long by revealing too many of the article’s key ideas and examples. Secondly, Kanganis clearly reaches for a societal impact that is not explicitly stated in the article: she states firstly that she could not find an extremely profound societal impact from this issue (which is understandable because it affects relatively few people compared to something like cancer or Alzheimer’s), and she points out that even though the article itself glosses over the impacts of not removing organs, understanding that there are no truly vestigial organs in the human body with the exception of wisdom teeth allows people to make informed decisions before going through with such surgeries. These points were the best “societal impact” points in my view because it not only includes more people (those who are affected by not removing organs), but they give the reader something she/he can do with the information. Finally, Kanganis makes a strong point about the article’s main flaw, which is that despite the title making the article appear to be an objective report on both sides to the debate by asking the question, the most Wallis states in support of removing organs is that there are many “valid reasons” for getting the surgery. Kanganis is right that even if an organ is not vestigial as many would assume, there are still scenarios in which the consequences of not removing an organ are far worse than those of removing it, and those scenarios should at least be described so that the reader remembers the compelling examples in favor of removing organs and not just the many studies/examples listed against it.
ReplyDeleteDespite the article being very well-written, there is a little room for improvement. For example, just describing the article’s main flaw would leave the reader with a false impression that the article was significantly more flawed than it was well written even if this was not what was intended. Since there were strong aspects to this article - namely the many compelling examples and studies of organ removal in support of Wallis’s argument - this should be stated in that paragraph so that the reader can make the most informed decision about whether or not to read the article. Additionally, her summary paragraph could have been made even stronger by just including the most shocking examples of the consequences of removing certain supposedly “vestigial” organs: for example, it might have been more compelling to remove the part about appendices being found in 533 unrelated species of mammals in favor of the study in which Danish children who had their tonsils and adenoids removed before nine years old had two to three times the rate of upper respiratory diseases. Doing this would be the most attention grabbing strategy while still not revealing that much information from the article.
What is interesting about this article is that it made me realize that there is still major debate as to whether key human organs are vestigial or not, which is something that I would assume would be already known by now considering how long evolution has been studied and that in theory, humans would want to know everything about the evolution of humans before going into in-depth study on the evolution of other species.
Jordan Hoang
ReplyDeleteMr.Ippolito
AP Biology C Even
3/16/19
Wallis, Claudia. “Are All Our Organs Vital? .” Scientific American,
www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-all-our-organs-vital/.
For this week’s current event, I read Alisa’s review regarding how vestigial organs such as “the appendix, gallbladder, and tonsils” might serve a greater purpose to us that we originally believed. One aspect of her work that I enjoyed was how she elaborated on research without being overly detailed or lacking in writing. Her words had a nice balance to it and flowed well overall. In addition, I enjoyed how she gave the statistic that “without these bacteria, people are two and half times more likely to suffer a recurrence of infection with Clostridium difficile”. Mentioning this not only pointed out the newfound importance of vestigial organs, but also gave credibility to her work. Finally, I liked how she gave a thoughtful opposing view on this manner, stating that “I am sure a good amount of people contract gut infections due to the loss of their appendix, but I would also assume the number of people that fall ill with appendicitis is much greater”. Stating her opinion this way shows how she was making personal, thoughtful inferences on this manner instead of just completely agreeing with the new found research.
While her review was well done, I wish Alisa could have elaborated more on some aspects of the article. For instance, she mentioned how there are various types of vestigial organs like the gallbladder or tonsils. It would have been interesting to learn about the importance of other vestigial organs as well, but she unfortunately only went into depth about the appendix. In addition, although most biology students are well informed about the meaning of vestigial organs, it might have been relevant to add the definition of it. This would make her work more comprehensive and informative to an audience that is not as educated in biology.
I found Alisa’s article to be very surprising, as I had no idea that our vestigial parts still served a purpose now. Although I knew that they played an important role in early periods, I was shocked to know that some may aid in gastrointestinal and immunological health. This opened my eyes to how much there is left to learn about our own biological history and human anatomy.
Clara DeMagalhaes Current Event #19
ReplyDeleteWallis, Claudia. “Are All Our Organs Vital? .” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-all-our-organs-vital/.\
Alisa’s review of the article she picked was very well thought out and written well. She summarized the article clearly and concisely, only incorporating the most important information into her writing and thus making the entire thing much easier to understand. Another positive was how she inputted quotes from the article. This gives the reader a better understanding of what the author’s writing was like and makes the summary seem more credible. Lastly, I like how we got to hear about Alisa’s personal thoughts on the matter because it’s intriguing to see alternate points of view.
One thing that could be added is what Alisa thought the article did well on. A more positive form of critique would help balance out the last paragraph and give a better sense of completion to the review. I also think that a better hook to the first paragraph would benefit it since I believe it jumps a bit too quickly into the topic. One thing that could be used as a topic sentence is defining what a vestigial organ is in case any readers are unfamiliar with the term.
With how crucial removing vestigial organs is to some people’s well beings depending on whether said organs have problems, it’s definitely a cause for concern if removing vestigial organs may have some unintended side effects. Ethical considerations could potentially come into play concerning whether or not it’s more beneficial to have or not have an infected or otherwise damaged vestigial organ. I feel like this is a topic that I would like to keep an eye on as it concerns a large portion of people and may have lasting consequences.
Charlotte Cagliostro
ReplyDeleteIppolito
AP Biology / Current Event #19
3/19/19
Wallis, Claudia. “Are All Our Organs Vital?.” Scientific American, www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-all-our-organs-vital/.\
Alisa Kanganis wrote a great review of Claudia Wallis’ Scientific American article, “Are All Our Organs Vital?” I liked three features of her piece in specific. First, I liked her first paragraph. She provided a comprehensive overview of the original article and I believe that she was able to synthesize the relevant information. Second, I enjoyed her writing style. Alisa was able to write in an engaging manner that made me want to continue reading. Lastly, I liked her critique of the original article. She was able to identify Wallis’ major failure in her piece, ignoring the potential consequences involving vestigial organs, which I appreciated as a reader.
Alisa’s review was quite interesting, but I think it could be improved in two ways. First, I think she should have included more data throughout her piece. It would have really taken her writing to the next level if she had included more statistics and information. Additionally, I think she could have improved her second paragraph. Alisa could have elaborated on her connection from the article to the real world. I felt like in that paragraph specifically, she could have added a few more sentences to strengthen it.
One thing I learned from reading Alisa’s review is that scientists are now discovering that vestigial organs may have a more important role in maintaining bodily functions that previously believed. It will definitely be interesting to see the new investigations and discoveries regarding this subject matter.