Two Cheers for Ronald Bailey's Liberation Biology
Tech Central Station gives Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey's Liberation Biology a thumbs up. A snippet:
Bailey argues, rightly, that it is crucial to keep government out of decisions as to who gets enhanced and how. But individual decisions empowered by technology can also have troublesome wider consequences, as evidenced by some current-day biomedical methods. In China and India, ultrasound and other techniques have facilitated selecting infants on the basis of sex, such that far more boys are born than girls. Bailey notes that this particular problem has not arisen in the United States. But it is the principle of such unintended effects, rather than the specifics in this case, that should concern us….
Liberation Biology makes a strong case for the likelihood of better living through biotechnology in the coming decades. The book adds some balance to a debate that has been dominated in recent times by exaggerated risks and overblown fears.
Whole thing here.
To read excerpts, get a full table of contents, and buy Liberation Biology, go here.