My Genome, My Self By Steven Prinker (Summary and Rhetorical response)

My Genome, My Self By Steven Prinker

Summary By Fabian Gonzalez

‘My Genome, My Self’ is an argumentative opinion article that emphasizes the importance of genes in people’s lives and how do they influence our actions, thoughts and decisions.  

Prinker brings up different postures about the source (genes or environment context in people’s childhood) of our behavior, our susceptibility of suffering a specific disease and our way of choosing our likes and dislikes. He also makes a comparison between these postures in order to state that neither of them is the source despite they have certain influence in the mentioned aspects.

Rhetorical Response

In the article, the author appeals several times to ethos by being reliable and credible with the amount of information that he explores and studies. He also gives his own analysis on the behavioral gene-source and how people should understand that there are lots of aspects that influence, in some certain way, the traits and makeups of the human being. With this he is appealing to logos. 

In a specific part of the article's introduction, Prinker states that employment discrimination and advantageous inequalities coming from some companies could be the outcomes for our society depending on the people who could have access to the genetic information of any person. This is his appeal to Pathos.