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Article: GENETICS, ETHICS AND THE STATE.
- Article from:
- Quadrant
- Article date:
- September 1, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Quadrant Magazine Company, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IN HIS MOST RECENT book, Brave New Worlds: Staying Human in the Genetic Future, Bryan Appleyard displays the moral panic about science and technology that typifies his work, yet he makes some points that are surely correct. In particular, he is right to challenge those who scoff at the prospects of human cloning and genetic engineering. Appleyard notes that scientists often "say either that we are a long way from being able to do anything like that, or that there is no reason to do it, so it will not be done". Of course, the announcement of Dolly the cloned sheep "undermined the credibility of the first position"; the day before, "it would have been easy to find a large ...