Brave New Worlds: Genetics and the Human Experience - Tapa dura

'After the unravelling of DNA in 1953, the most important discovery in human history, man could seriously claim to have found the secret of life. Now, nearly 50 years on, says the author, genetic engineering places us at a moment in history when we can chose not just how we are going to live, but who we are going to be. However, he is worried we are going to sleep through this crucial moment and wake to find ourselves already in a brave genetic world. Hence this admirably clear, simple and essential book. It may leave you uneasy about the future, but at least you won't be ignorant.' Philip Knightley Mail on Sunday

'A lucid and compellingly written plea...He may not like what he sees but he looks it straight in the eye.' John R. G. Turner Times Literary Supplement

'A clear, fascinating and frightening uncoiling of this complex subject...These questions should be debated...and in that necessary task there could hardly be a better guide than this intelligent, passionate and profound book.'
Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy Spectator

'Appleyard relentlessly sniffs out humbug...in this penetrating and well-written contribution.' Kurt Jacobsen, Guardian

'This is a brave book...this critique needed to be written. Appleyard helps the non-specialist to confront and to appreciate the disturbing significance of some of [science's] achievements.'
Karen Armstrong The Sunday Times

'One of the most beautifully lucid and stimulating books I have read in a long time.' Rosalie Osmond The Tablet

'A profound and thoughtful account of the way in which we may be sleepwalking into a deterministic nightmare of the future because we are being taught by science that we have no other choice.' Rosalie Osmond The Tablet

A leading commentator questions the ethical implications of contemporary science.

In this cogent, biting argument Bryan Appleyard, special feature-writer and columnist for the Sunday Times and author of Understanding the Present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man, takes the liberal humanist position against the advance of scientific ethics (or lack of them), in particular those of genetics. As the achievements of science threaten to engulf this century leaving us morally and philosophically floundering in their wake (what ARE we going to do about Dolly?), Appleyard’s remorseless and in its way enthralling engagement with the issues makes this a book that will take pole position in a debate which can only get hotter and more desperate.
In essence, he says that although it may be true that we live in Dawkins’ ‘cold and pitiless’ universe, if we live our lives according to such wisdom we will all simply end up killing each other (as this century, with its appalling history of eugenics, a first cousin of genetics, has shown rather well).
There is a real sale here to people who are not just interested in science for its own sake but who are interested in alternatives to the bleak reductionism that it seems to offer. I have compared it to Masson’s Against Therapy, in that both take up strong positions against a strong body of opinion which many find oppressive. This could be a key book in any discussion of science and the future.