Beyond Evolution: The Genetically Altered Future of Plants, Animals, the Earth...and Humans

by Michael W. Fox

Book Overview

Laboratories around the world are experiencing a "bioexplosion," as they busily sequence, identify, and switch genes among different species. In Beyond Evolution, Dr. Michael Fox addresses the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558219013
• ISBN13: 9781558219014
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

After Superpig

If you are curious about the fuss surrounding Genetically Engineered (GE) foods, this book can get you up to speed. BEYOND EVOLUTION briefly recounts the history of recombinant DNA and transgenic research and goes on to carefully evaluate the current state of the art and implications for the future. While many agribiotechnologists have signed off on GE crops, other scientists are worried - some even warning that the potential danger to life on earth is considerably greater than that posed by nuclear weapons. By developing microbes which can deliver genetic material into cell nuclei, and then releasing the newly created organism into the environment, we are throwing open the doors to new forms of mutation, new diseases, new insect pests, and extinctions. Genetically altered species have already crossed out into wild populations, and new mutants are being developed and released at a breathtaking pace. At the same time, transgenic research is stirring a genetic soup concocted of a wild diversity of creatures to manufacture pharmeceuticals. (A "transgenic" organism contains DNA from non-related species: such as human genes inserted in mice, pigs, or cows; flounder genes in strawberries; spider genes in beans; and on, and on, and on, and on.) The problem with such pharmeceutical uses - which researchers are trying to overcome - is that organisms tend to resist material from other species. Our immune systems reject foreign biochemicals. Overcoming the resistance, however, looks like another Pandora's box. Resisting foreign invaders is essential to staying healthy. On top of the rejection problem, and perhaps worse, is the potential for cross-over diseases like Mad Cow syndrome (Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) which is just one of the zoonotic illnesses that such genetic mucking around might enhance. (Note that HIV seems to be a hominid disease to which wild creatures have adapted - the reason imprisoned chimps in labs refuse to get AIDS - but to which humans are susceptible. AIDS is only one painful example of the danger of zoonotic infection. Humans who have had pig-part transplants exhibit infection with porcine retrovirus - again, the practice is only permitted in the U.S. Retroviruses, you might recall, are involved in fun diseases like Ebola.) Meaningful testing of GE material would be slow and expensive - our understanding of genetic function is very incomplete. Proving saftey of a slight modification of even one plant or animal gene and its subsequent effect on a human consumer would require painstaking inquiry - not to mention the effect on the whole natural world. The U.S. government's solution has been to decide that it is simply unnecessary. Author Fox, who visited his subject a decade earlier in SUPERPIGS AND WONDERCORN, is well versed in his topic, more balanced in his views than this reviewer, and very adept at explaining a sometimes complicated and often bewildering subject. His discussion of the the ethical and technical issue

Our genes are damaged by pollution, not by gene technology

Beyond Evolution is an OK book. However, thinking, reading, talking, and writing too much about bioengineering take our focus away from a problem that is 1000 times as dangerous as the dangers of gene technology. I'm talking about The Genetic Catastrophe. Don't you understand? I think you do not. Well, then, read the more than important book Genetic Catastrophe! Sneaking Doomsday? written by the discoverer of the GC. You have no alternative book to read. Read it, and be among the first to know how our genes are beeing damaged by today's pollution, including radiation.

A thoughtful look at a troubling subject.

Fox does an excellent job of tracking all of the unanswered questions that still plague the issue of genetically engineered lifeforms. Fox loses me, though, when he steers away from science and into a sort of mysticism about each species "anima". I also disagree with his assertion that a vegetarian lifestyle is all that is needed to do away with cancer and heart disease. Genetic research can help in many of these cases, but Fox's book serves a caution sign, warning us to be aware of all of the implications of this new technology.

Why isn't this on Ophrah's reading list?

Only one customer review other than mine? Oh well, I guess genetics isn't a very popular subject. But it should be. As the other reviewer stated, this book is indeed a "wake-up call." The amount of genetic manipulation being done on plants and animals, the numbers of unnatural transgenic organisms being cavalierly loosed into the environment is positively frightening, and it is something about which all of us should be aware and informed. Granted, the author does lapse into philosophy and religiousness, but I happen to agree with his world-view and so forgive him these lapses. Especially in consideration of the amount of information he imparts in a very objective manner. Genetic engineering can be for the greater good, as he states, but the paucity of bioethics and primary interest in profit has turned it into a boogyman, a monster. I deeply thank the author for this book, which has greatly raised my awareness of just how much damage we humans are inflicting on our environment. Everyone should read this book, should be aware of the invisible threats present in every bite of food and every breath of air. This year I only planted broccoli,lettuce, and tomatoes; next year, it will be everything else.