Product Description

Forget worries about cloning people. In the future, technological advances will bring far more meaningful and controversial changes to our offspring, says Gregory Stock. As scientists rapidly improve their ability to identify and manipulate genes, people will want to protect their future children from diseases, help them live longer, and even influence their looks and their abilities. Stock, an expert on the implications of recent advances in reproductive biology, clearly shows that neither governments nor religious groups will be able to stop the coming trend of choosing an embryo's genes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #466517 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Amazon.com
Will the genetic research that gave us the Flavr Savr tomato also give us the power to customize our children? Medical thinker Gregory Stock believes that this is precisely what's happening and that we'd better get used to it fast. Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future explores gender selection, gene therapy, germinal choice, and many more options available now or in the near future, but lays aside the hysteria common to such discussions.

Stock sees the cloning controversy as a distraction from issues of real importance, such as balancing offspring trait selection against eugenics. Writing with the clarity and precision of a philosopher, Stock engages his readers with thought exercises and real-life examples. While not a brainless cheerleader for big science, he believes that we can, and certainly will, use any means necessary to give our children an edge, even if it means profound changes for our species. Redesigning Humans offers the hope that these changes need not be catastrophic if we pay attention now. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly
Rather than worry about the ethics of human cloning, Stock (Metaman; The Book of Questions), director of the UCLA School of Medicine's Program of Medicine, Technology and Society, believes we should focus our attention on the idea that we'll soon be able to genetically manipulate embryos to develop desired traits a more immediate and enticing possibility for most parents than cloning. He gives a lucid overview of the new biotechnology that will allow scientists to delay aging and to insert genes that enhance physical and cognitive performance, combat disease or improve looks into embryos. Stock thoughtfully weighs the ethical dilemmas such advances present, arguing that the real threat is not frivolous abuse of technology but the fact that we don't know the long-term effects of these genetic changes. In any case, Stock insists, there's no turning back, and government bans "will determine not whether the technologies will be available, but where, who profits from them, who shapes their development, and which parents have early access to them." Stock demonstrates that much of the current criticism of human genetic engineering sounds remarkably similar to what was being said about in vitro fertilization when it first appeared. He believes that we will come to accept laboratory conception of all offspring and the addition of artificial chromosomes stocked with designer genes as readily as we have come to accept in vitro fertilization. Along the way we are sure to have many ethical issues to confront, issues that Stock does an impressive job of outlining.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A breath of fresh air to fuel the debate now raging in Congress and the White House..." (Kirkus Reviews )

"Stock...explains the technologies of cloning, embryo selection and genetic modification, making clear what seems possible in the near future..." --Rebecca Skloot (The Chicago Tribune )

"Stock...writes with a clear, lucid style..." --Robert Winston (Nature )

"...compelling reading, fascinating and frightening at the same time." --Fred Bortz (Dallas Morning News )

"Stock...gives a lucid overview of the new biotechnology...[and] thoughtfully weighs the ethical dilemmas such advances present...impressive." (Publishers Weekly )

"REDESIGNING HUMANS's advocacy of DNA-improved human destinies reveals the compassionate side of science." --James D. Watson

"Gregory Stock's intellectual brilliance has brought us a wonderful book that is fascinating to read and that everyone needs. And his style is fluent and attractive. Whether or not you share his vision of the future, this book will enthrall you." --Sherwin B. Nuland, author of LEONARDO DA VINCI and HOW WE DIE

"Even though the prospect of altering human heredity is a subject of enormous scientific and ethical importance, and looms as a near-horizon prospect, it has been under-emphasized in research and largely neglected by public philosophers. Stock provides us with a clearly written and balanced briefing that deserves special attention." --Edward O. Wilson

"Gregory Stock has the imagination, courage, and scientific vision to look our future square in the face. This is the most important book ever written about what we could do to make better people. I could not put this book down because it challenged everything I thought I knew about human nature." --Glenn McGee, author of THE PERFECT BABY

"Whether or not you agree with Stock's provocative vision of the human future, you will come away with a deepened understanding of the immense challenges ahead." --Alvin Toffler