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 The title says it all, really. This is a non-technical look at the abuse, present and
future, of genetic technology and how we the public
are often taken in by the hype. Wald is the writer, Hubbard the scientist; and her stance on the issues is very clear. Hubbard comes off more as a cautious
conservative than a rabid Luddite, but to her credit she lays the facts out as well as her own opinions. It's sobering stuff, though, because it shows the public's perception of biotechnology is
orders of magnitude ahead of reality. The chapter on the dubious science behind so-called 'genetic fingerprinting' is particularly disturbing.
This is a slender book (167 pages plus references), but it brings the
media evangelists down a peg or two. Hubbard dismisses the popular notions of biotechnologists as demigods and reveals the state of the art for what it is - basically we have no idea whatsoever what we're
doing, which makes experiments with germ-line surgery (sorry, 'therapy') all the more chilling. Hubbard's own hobby horse is the Human Genome Project, and the alleged futility thereof. It isn't clear,
she submits, what use this ultimate gene map will be when we eventually get there - and we could be spending the money on...etc, etc. |
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