This stimulating read is about problems more than solutions. Biological research is proceeding apace, and we – in general – are uncertain about the looming implications. The 15 contributors to this volume, again in general, find it easier to state what they are against than what they are for. Several even think it necessary to say that Hitler’s ideas (and practices) were wrong, but then find it much harder to say what is right. Perhaps it requires less courage to point up past error than advocate current or future approval.

There is much talk of the ‘yuck factor’ but less of the ‘feel-good factor’. It is therefore easy to believe that society is essentially conservative, not wanting change unless blatantly beneficial, and even resenting a greater awareness of some undoubted facts. As Richard Dawkins states in his Foreword there are people who, with the best of motives, want it not to be true that some individuals are genetically cleverer than others. We do shy away from words like superior and inferior, and like to deny genetic inequality.

We tend, particularly these days, to be in favour of rights, and then discover ourselves in knots because embryos have rights, along with foetuses, and babies, and mothers, and fathers, and whole communities. Whose rights are the top rights, and will children really be able to sue their parents for passing on unwelcome genes or for being raised in harmful environments?

All slopes, it would seem, are deemed slippery. No sooner has some biological advance been publicised than its implications are taken to the nth degree. Within hours of Dolly hitting the headlines there were images displayed of identical military in serried ranks. There was much less mention that this single sheep was the result of 277 attempts to fuse an adult nucleus with an egg. Of those 277 a total of 27 developed normally for one week, but only one proceeded to term. Even now the mention of cloning can lead to immediate and outspoken revulsion, even though the technique will assuredly have some thoroughly beneficial applications.

Scientific research, by its very nature, is bound to be ahead of general knowledge. Implications of the work are therefore bound to be novel. The progress of any novelty is unpredictable, and there may be bad along with the good. One trouble, as New Scientist has wisely stated, is that the future keeps on arriving much too soon. It is certainly doing so with human genetics and human rights. In short, welcome to this book. It may not alter any of your prejudices/opinions/beliefs, but it will put them on a sounder footing. And it will certainly make you wiser about the future which has already come to pass.

Anthony Smith