Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World

On February 27, 1997, a stunning announcement appeared in the British journal Nature: for the first time ever, a mammal--a lamb named Dolly--had been successfully cloned from an adult cell. Less than a week later, scientists reported the successful cloning of a rhesus monkey, a primate whose reproduction and development is almost identical to our own. With two bold and hitherto unthinkable strokes, science fiction was transformed into science fact, preparing the way for a miraculous event that is, in all probability, inevitable: the cloning of a human being.

A distinguished scientist and professor at Princeton University, Lee M. Silver reveals what awaits us in the brilliant light of the new day that is now dawning. REMAKING EDEN is a fascinating exploration of the future of reprogenetic technologies--a cautiously optimistic look at the scientific advances that will allow us to engineer life in ways that were unimaginable just a few short years ago. Indeed, in ways that go far beyond cloning, and that are at once more thrilling and more frightening.

This is a brilliant, provocative, and necessary book. For better or worse, it describes the likely future of humankind--beyond fears both reasoned and unreasonable, beyond unrealistic utopian visions--an extra ordinary journey into a rapidly evolving tomorrow that no man or woman can forestall, but that we must all recognize and understand. REMAKING EDEN is an essential primer for that tomorrow.