[.ca] Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future (ISBN 061806026X)

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

Preparing for the Next Addition to the Culture Wars!:
As E.O Wilson notes in his blurb for the back cover of this book, it is amazing how few philosophers are really willing to pay attention to and write about genetic engineering. Especially in light of Stock's thesis: Genetic engineering, like it or not, is comming, ready or not. Honestly, I thought that Stock's book would be one of the few to really provide moral arguments for genetic engineering, particularly 'extratherapeutic' engineering. While there is a little of that, the book devotes much more time to exploring the inefficacy (in a utilitarian sense) of government regulations and bans on therapy. In that sense, his book is not quite a moral response to ethical luddites like Kass and McKibben, but governmental luddites like Fukuyama. Without spoiling the book for you, I will summarize some of his reasons (so you get the flavor: 1.) like abortion, there is simply too much demand for such therapies (and those that don't believe this should look at how much we spend on 'anti-aging' pills and surgeries). Thus, there is too much incentive for consumers to form black markets should bans be in place. 2.) Due to the plurality of world politics, such bans are, at best, regional. While Germany might ban research, China surely will not. 3.) Like abortion and drugs, black markets will be more dangerous that publically visible and monitorible legal ones. 4.) Bans or strict controls are going to cost astronomical amounts of money (and privacy) to prevent and catch law-breakers. There. I've only given you a taste, and if any of those arguments sound frail, read the book. The elaborations are first rate! This brings me to two small complaints. First, Stock tends to get ahead of himself in that the first half of the book is filled with sweeping proclomations like, "In the future we might be able to do x. Even though most scientists don't believe me on the feasibility on x, I really do think it could happen." In other words, he makes strangely radical predictions, reminds you that they are stragely radical predictions and simply defends them by saing that anything is possible. Second, Stock will occasionally come off as a will-o-the-wisp cheerleader. Particularly when he addresses concerns about the efficacy of unregulated markets, Stock simply tells us that we need not worry and that markets have taken care of themselves in the past, therefore they will work in the present. While I believe him (being the libertarian that I am), too many people i know share a scepticism of the market for Stock to dismiss the argument so curtly (assuming he wants to convince anyone). Other examples of this will-o-the-wisp style are in the book (though not enough to get annoying). To conclude, as this book has much more to do with cost/benefit analysis of regulation (that more or less winds up in favor of free markets) rather than ethical philosophy, the book will be much more interesting to political thinkers than bioethicists or philosophers. In fact, I would suggest reading this book and Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future" together as they take the same questions (where to regulate biotech) and come to different conclusions.

If we could make better humans ... why shouldn't we?:
James Watson, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, asked, "If we could make better humans ... why shouldn't we?" That question is at the core of this book, and Gregory Stock responds in the affirmative. Not that we have a choice, he asserts; genetic engineering is coming whether we like it or not. And he makes a damn good case. Rather than getting right to it, however, he begins with an anti-Kurzweil chapter. Ray Kurzweil is the author of the Age of Spiritual Machines, which projects the rapid development of artificial intelligence during the next few decades and the integration of human and machine intelligence (see my review). Stock argues that the interface between the human nervous system and silicon would be incredibly complex, making it highly unlikely we will be physically integrated with our computers within this timeframe. He believes that we will communicate much more effectively with the machines through our senses, becoming fyborgs (functional cyborgs). Then he moves on to the main course, beginning with preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Physicians have been performing genetic testing of embryos since 1989, with screening now available for a handful of genetic diseases. This technology will continue to expand, allowing parents to select specific embryos for implantation in the uterus, effectively enabling us to have children with certain genetic tendencies. The next advance, germinal choice technologies (GCT), will arrive within the next decade or two, allowing us to enhance our children's naturally occurring genetic inheritance. Artificial chromosomes, loaded with selected genes, might be the foundation. Stock understands how divisive this issue will be, but argues that it can't be halted (not that he wants to stop it). He argues effectively for a reasonable degree of regulation, although he believes that the ultimate decision must remain in the hands of parents. This is a book focused more on ethics and issues rather than technology. If you're interested more in the nuts and bolts of genetic engineering, look elsewhere. Whether you agree with him or not, Stock lays out the issues and his answers in a clear and compelling manner. It's an excellent exposition of the subject, one worth studying.

Begins well but Ends badly...:
Certain parts of the book are very interesting and enlightening, but most of it is a semi-rant which does not go anywhere and neither does it provide enough info for the reader to come to his/her own conclusion. The author re-iterates that germ-lime manipulation will take place sooner rather than later and most probably before we fully realize the implications. The book covers a lot of space with passages on new discoveries and achievements as well as political and religious undercurrents. Not a buy rating but I recommend you borrow and read this from your local library.

An interesting but narrow view of extraordinary new science.:
I picked up this book just based on its title (a highly inadvisable practice), which was the first of many dissapointments I had with this book. First off, "Redesigning Humans, Our Inevitable Genetic Future" would be more appropriately named "Redesigning Our Children, Humanities Inevitable Genetic Future". You see, this book isn't really about redesigning "us", it's about a technological process called "germline engineering". This technology intervenes with "germ cells" (like sperm and egg) to alter their blueprint (from which our biology originates). Granted, germline engineering is interesting, and I think the author makes a good case for its "inevitability", but in my humble opinion if you're broadly interested in how science will one day alter mankind's basic physical makeup, or specifically interested in how science will alter our biology, there far more interesting reads than this one. Which brings me to the meat of my point...I'm not arguing Gregory Stocks credentials, and clearly he's a very well educated, well researched scientist (Director of the Medicine, Technology, and Society program at UCLA), but from the outset of this book, he seemed way too biased towards germline engineering, and almost arrogant about germlines superiority as an agent of future change vs. other interesting technology vectors. On page 20 he summarily dismisses an entire scientific school of thought centered around machine augmentation of biology and capability (headed by such credentialed scientists as R. Kurzweil) with the following statement: "People may dream of enhancing their minds by embedding chips in their brains, but a sophisticated interface between our nervous systems and silicon would be incredibly complex" ...Duh! Augmenting mankind's basic physical essence (that we've had for hundreds of thousands of years) isn't childs play for any scientific approach. But that was pretty much his "that's that on that" basis. VERY FRUSTRATING inadequacy to someone who believes the contrary (I'd at least like someone to offer better basis in approach than that). And in considering the benefits of machine or biological augmentation of capability (sensory or performance related) he writes: "Indeed, I cannot imagine any apparatus that would serve us better than our own healthy heart, which responds so perfectly to our changing activity and emotions and is so well matched to the capacities of the rest of our circulatory system. A healthy human heart represents the ideal to which any replacement must aspire..." What about 10X durability, what about real-time diagnostic feedback, or predictive capability? That's just off the top of my head! It's a bit ironic that this kind of narrow mindedness is coming from such a proponent of change... Ok, so setting aside my problems with the book, I did find a number of interesting new understandings. In particular, this book gave me a firmer grasp of the extraordinary and near-term potential to modify our offspring, it solidified my position on human cloning (as a benign diversion from the real important decisions we as a species will need to face), and reinvigorated my interest in "somatic therapy" (the altering of existent biology with gene-loaded viral pathogens). If you're a physco for this kind of stuff, read the first 80 pages of this book, and skim through the rest. If you're passively interested in this kind of science, consider reading Ray Kurzweil "Age of Spiritual Machines", Hans Moravecs' "Robot", or "The Spike" by Damien Broderick. I hope this was helpful.

Scary, insightful and well written by someone who knows:
Greg Stock, is an excellent writer. This is quite a departure from his Book of Questions. Greg knows all the players in the legitimate life extension game. He heads a Biomedical company and was on faculty of UCLA Med SChool. He knows what he's talking about when he says we will have germinal choice technology soon that will allow parents to customize their children. It's not just the amazing ideas that are here, but the way Greg discusses the impact of such technologies on every aspect of our children's future. It's both an exciting and terrifying vision. Everyone should read this book -P-