Bioethics and the New Embryology: Springboards for Debate

by Scott F. Gilbert, Anna L. Tyler, Emily Zackin

Our ability to alter the course of human development ranks among the most significant changes in modern science. But even if we can do such things, should we? Under what conditions should certain procedures be permitted or forbidden? Do we want to support the research that might make such procedures possible? This book presents enough science so readers can make an informed analysis of the issues consistent with their ethical views. This book is available on its own and packaged with other W.H. Freeman titles. If you are interested in packaging it, please contact your local W.H. Freeman Representative.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy

608 pages, Paperback

First published June 24, 2005

About the author

Scott Frederick Gilbert is an American evolutionary developmental biologist and historian of biology. Scott Gilbert is the Howard A. Schneiderman Professor of Biology at Swarthmore College and a Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki.

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My reason for obtaining this textbook traces back to an essay I read concerning ensoulment, which adapted material from this book and offered an opportunity for further exploration of the topic. A tour of religious and scientific input on the factors probing where human life may be demarcated from pure biological processes is explored in depth as Chapter 2 of the book, while the rest of the text builds out further context and background with a general public readership in mind (the subtitle is “Springboards for Debate”). As an ethics book, it doesn’t offer much in the vein of opinion or trench a foundation for any of the wide-ranging tenets under review. Rather, it seeks to contextualize a sweeping history of many established social and emerging scientific views on topics of genetics, human exceptionalism, the sanctity of life, and other ethical battlegrounds where traditional assumptions and laboratory results may collide.

For me, the essentials of the textbook can be distilled into chapters 2 and 14, the former containing the ensoulment discussion previously mentioned and the latter providing a conversation on genetic essentialism. Other chapters provide interesting context on such areas as cloning, genetic engineering, and animal research. These may be of use to other readers of bioethics and this textbook does well to bring such a broad extended family between two covers. Perhaps a singular detracting feature is the advancing age of the material, which at 20 years old may be falling too far behind the latest in the fast-paced realm of genetics research. Perhaps some passages of speculation could now be rewritten in more definitive terms, but thanks to the trend of increasing knowledge revealing increasing ignorance, it is certain that the same book published today would have even more questions and ethical frontlines, not fewer.

[Shahrzad13]

i is fantastic

[Krystle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough explanation of the historical, political and religious beliefs behind many ethical aspects of science and research. Well written and explained chapters on the processes. The diagrams and pictures were also excellent in explaining the different processes of cloning and stem cell development.