Cloning: For and Against: 3 - Hardcover

Book jacket/back: "Will we soon be faced with a million Michael Jordans, a million Bill Gateses, or a million Saddam Husseins? Will wealthy individuals be able to create genetic copies of themselves which could give them a kind of immortality? Or will the copies (perhaps produced without heads) be kept in storage to provide replacement organs?"--BOOK JACKET. "These dizzying and, to some, nightmarish scenarios have suddenly become very real possibilities within our lifetime, following the successful cloning of a sheep by Scottish scientists in 1997."--BOOK JACKET. "Cloning: For and Against includes readings on all sides of the issues: by scientists, journalists, ethicists, religious leaders, and legal experts. These readings have been carefully selected to give a fair representation of the opposing points of view, enabling readers to test the strengths and weaknesses of divergent arguments, the better to make up their own minds on these controversial issues."

The announcement last spring that a lab in Scotland had successfully cloned a mammal captured the attention of the media and the imagination of the public. This culmination of decades of research has profound scientific and ethical implications. If applied to other species, cloning could further genetic engineering and greatly improve animal husbandry. Now that a sheep has been cloned, are humans next? Governments reacted swiftly with bans on funding for human cloning research. Churches united in calling for a complete ban on the cloning of higher animals. Critics immediately alluded to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and the myth of Icarus. Has scientific sophistication outpaced our social and moral development? Can we "save" our society from this possible evil by banning any attempts to expand the knowledge? Does cloning really differ in spirit from the selective breeding that humankind has performed for centuries? "Cloning: For and Against" comprises 30 articles by scientists, ethicists, religious leaders and legal experts who explore the benefits and costs of cloning. Topics include: playing God: is cloning against human nature?; is cloning the salvation for endangered species?; no need for marriage: the separation of reproduction from human relationships; can you xerox a soul? and other theological issues; Brave New World: what's possible and what isn't; clones in medicine; and a million Michael Jacksons: eugenic/dysgenic and cultural consequences of human cloning.