Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, March 19, 2005
Once again this author has given the reading public a book that cuts through the media hype, superstition, and emotionalism that has polluted debate on human cloning and genetic engineering. He discusses the science of cloning in a manner that will be understandable to readers who are not specialists in biotechnology, and counters successfully the moral and ethical arguments against cloning, particularly human reproductive cloning. But the book is not only about finding counterarguments against human cloning. The author understands that in addition to these, one needs to make a positive, constructive case for human cloning. He does so in this book, in fact devotes an entire chapter to it. Most importantly, the author refrains from the vituperation that can frequently accompany discussion on genetic engineering, and has given the reader a book that is both detailed and broad in scope.
Those of us who strongly support research into biotechnology have known for some time that there would be a backlash against it. What we did not know is that this backlash would occur so soon, believing that it would take place maybe a few decades from now. Nevertheless it is upon us, and every effort should be made to fight against the ignorance, disinformation, and false platitudes that are now dominating discussion on cloning and biotechnology, as well as other areas of technology. The inspiration and common sense needed for this fight can be found in this book, and in great abundance.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truth Stands On Its Own!, January 24, 2005
"Cloning After Dolly: Who's Still Afraid?" is a brilliant and original work. Pence's book may be a mixture of fact, opinions and predictions. However, he has a great ability to think outside of the box, to ask questions, which once they are asked, are obvious extensions of the issue being discussed.
Pence brings a broad background to this discussion. That is reflected in his publishing resume. He is a Professor at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. His books include such titles as: "Classic Cases in Medical Ethics: Accounts of the Cases That Have Shaped Medical Ethics, With Philosophical, Legal, and Historical Backgrounds.";"Designer Food"; "Brave New Bioethics"; and "Re-Creating Medicine".
He uses cloning as a lens and as a tool to examine people's attitudes toward everything from genetically engineered foods and artificial wombs to animal rights and the treatment of transgenic animals including a chimpanzee believed to be half-human (Oliver, the humanzee).
Pence extrapolates the inconsistencies of moralists more obsessed with human cloning while ignoring real social problems like alcohol consumption and drug use by pregnant women and/or collaboration between anti-abortion counseling services and adoption agencies that charge up to $50,000 for the unaborted child.
This book may be a mixture of fact, opinion and prediction. However, no one can deny that Pence has a great gift for asking questions and framing old issues in a new context.
The reader is unlikely to agree with many of Pence's opinions and projections. (I certainly didn't!) However, the nearly twenty pages of numbered resources, indexed in each chapter via numbers, provide a rich resource for anyone to further research ideas attacked or embraced by Pence.
For that reason , this is certainly an irreplaceable resource for academics and students who are seriously researching cloning and the social/political/ethical debates surrounding it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Unlikely Coalition, July 24, 2005
Since Dolly's cloning, successful clonings have been done on multiple calves, lambs, mice, pigs, rats, Holstein cows, bulls, horses, cats, racing mules and more. The research teams have been from Texas, Kansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Scotland, Japan, Taiwan, France and elsewhere. The vast majority of clones have been normal. Dolly's early death was caused by lifestyle factors which led to an early viral infection, obesity, hip dysplasia and arthritis.
Living up to his reputation as a relentless advocate of cloning, Pence sorts out pseudoscience and nonsense from fact. The antagonistic fight over embryonic stem cells is an unfortunate distraction, considering that human cloning's main use is merely the next step in the treatment of infertility. This outstanding book elegantly summarizes the science (lay readers no problem) and the issues opposed to cloning. They are: Cloning is an evil practice in itself, inherently destroys the dignity of the child created, is incompatible with the sanctity of life, is against the will of God, inherently dehumanizes children and treats them as commodities, evil because one kind of being is being used as a resource for another, psychologically bad in some way to the child, genes of the cloned child may have some hidden abnormality, and finally, cloning carries with it long term implications for society.
For the Christian Right, all the above arguments are extrapolations of the idea that God makes babies, that God should decide how and when they come, not humans - plus the assumption that God wouldn't want humans cloning babies. God, himself, has remained characteristically silent on the matter.
Their overwhelming objections to therapeutic cloning are moralistic, theoretical, theological and philosophical, rife with unsubstantiated psychological speculation. This is not the first time scientists have had to tread their way through the debris of this type of armchair speculation en route to the lab. The problem with falling back on moral arguments is that instead of being based on empiric evidence, they are grounded on little more than a cultural belief system - anything can be asserted, with the expectations that others will agree.
To me, the immorality of ignoring possible definitive treatments for relentless disease processes is immense compared to that potential immorality due to speculative ethical objections.
Pence very thoroughly debates each of these arguments, and briefly mentions the soul. He simply says that the growth continuum of an embryo as it progresses to birth does not exhibit any sudden changes in momentum - signs of a "quickening" of any sort - before moving on.
Three groups form an unlikely coalition against cloning, led by the Christian Right. Egalitarians (the democratic left) form the second part of the coalition. They fear that genes determine variations in abilities and regard any new biological inequality as especially pernicious. The third group is represented by environmentalism. As the biotech industry tries to help in feeding an increasing world population, environmentalists call engineered products "Frankenfood" and throw up roadblocks every step of the way. Similarly, these Bio-Luddites are against all aspects of stem cell manipulation.
This book continues to build interest as it progresses to the politics of cloning. Although only 2% of the population of Germany, France, Belgium, and Holland regularly attend church, many of them fit into the egalitarian and environmentalist groups. This tiny issue (relative to real world problems) has captured a disproportionate share of attention throughout the world, to the extent that a resolution was brought up before the UN to ban human cloning (not passed).
In summary, this author is a strong advocate of all aspects of advanced biotechnological engineering who writes about WHEN these things are going to come about, not IF. Even though the reader may disagree with many of his conclusions, he/she will gain a new concept of the ignorance that pervades the public view and a realization that this is truly a battleground of worldviews in conflict. He describes the opposition as a jihad launched by the Bush administration, together with the Christian Right, the egalitarian group, and environmentalists.
Brilliant, provocative and completely engrossing, "Cloning After Dolly" presents with penetrating insight the full picture of human cloning today. Highly recommended.
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