We stand on the brink of unprecedented growth in our ability to understand and change the human genome. New reproductive technologies now enable parents to select some genetic traits for their children, and soon it will be possible to begin to shape ourselves as a species. Despite the loud cries of alarm that such a prospect inspires, Ronald Green argues that we will, and we should, undertake the direction of our own evolution. A leader in the bioethics community, Green offers a scientifically and ethically informed view of human genetic self-modification and the possibilities it opens up for a better future. Fears of a terrible Brave New World or a new eugenics movement are overblown, he maintains, and in the more likely future, genetic modifications may improve parents' ability to enhance children's lives and may even promote social justice. The author outlines the new capabilities of genomic science, addresses urgent questions of safety that genetic interventions pose, and explores questions of parenting and justice. He also examines the religious implications of gene modification. Babies by design are assuredly in the future, Green concludes, and by making responsible choices as we enter that future, we can incorporate gene technology in a new age of human adventure.
Ronald M. Green is a leading scholar of theoretical and applied ethics who has taught since 1969 at Dartmouth College, where he has also served as Director of Dartmouth's Ethics Institute. A summa cum laude graduate of Brown, with a PHD in religious ethics from Harvard, Professor Green is the author of eight books, co-author or editor of four, and has published over one hundred fifty articles in theoretical and applied ethics. In 1998, he was elected president of the Society of Christian Ethics. In 2005, Prof. Green was named a Guggenheim Fellow.
Much of Green's work has been in the field of bioethics. He currently serves on the Bioethics Advisory Committee of the March of Dimes. In 1994 he was a member of the Human Embryo Research Panel of the NIH, a blue ribbon commission appointed to recommend policy for federal funding of research on the preimplantation human embryo. That panel was the first to recommend federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Following that in 1996-97, Professor Green served as founding Director of the Office of Genome Ethics at the NIH. He currently serves, pro bono, as the chair of the Ethics Advisory Board of Advanced Cell Technology, a company involved in embryonic stem cell research. He has twice served as Chair of Dartmouth's Religion Department.
From 1987-1992 Green taught business and organizational ethics at Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business. He has consulted on ethics for many organizations, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ogilvy & Mather, Philips Electronics, and the National Security Agency. His book, The Ethical Manager, is still in use in business schools around the world.
