The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution

Baldi, Pierre

ISBN 10: 0262025027 / ISBN 13: 9780262025027

Published by A Bradford Book /The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2001

About this Item

245 pp., xii. NAP. Contents divided into 10 Chapters: (1) "Introduction"; (2) "Science Today"; (3) "Molecular Biology", (4) "In Vito Babies"; (5) "Human Cloning"; (6) "Siamese Twins"; (7) "Manipulating DNA"; (8) "Computers"; (9) "The Last Frontier: The Brain"; (10) "Ethics and What Can Go Wrong"; (11) "The Information Space"; Appendix A: The Total Number of Humans; Appendix B: Historical and Technological Aspects of Cloning; Appendix C: Stem Cells; Appendix D: Historical and Technological Aspects of the Internet; Appendix E: Sizing the Internal Self Up and Other Brain Issues; Notes, pp. 191-220; Bibliography, pp. 221-236; Index, pp. 237-245. Dustwrapper not price-clipped (no price) with black and white photo-illustration of two nude males in tight, inseparable embrace, creating an oval appearance with two pairs of feet protruding, on lower 3/4 front cover; black band across top 1/4 front cover for Title and Subtitle in white letters; Author name lettering in white at lower right front cover corner: NOW in Brodart mylar for extra protection and aesthetic appeal. Black cloth with brilliant silver lettering on spine. Essentially, As New, UNREAD. Laid in New York Times article (4 21 2009; NO off-setting) by Nicholas Bakalar, "Sex Ratio Seen to Vary By Latitude" ("More boys are born, but that is less the case in the tropics").

Seller Inventory # 002717

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Shattered Self: The End of Natural Evolution
• Publisher: A Bradford Book /The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA and London
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262025027
• ISBN 13: 9780262025027
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New

About this title

Synopsis

Throughout history, we have selected and manipulated the genomes of plants, animals, and even ourselves. Until now, however, such control could be exerted only at the level of the entire organism. Scientific and technological advances now allow us to manipulate genomes directly at the level of single genes and their constituents, with a speed and precision that far exceed what natural evolution has been able to achieve over the past 3.5 billion years. These advances open new possibilities for medicine, biotechnology, and society as a whole. We already have in vitro fertilization and animal cloning; in the future human cloning and the exploitation of embryonic stem cells, among other capabilities, may be routine. At the same time, we are developing machines that will surpass the human brain in raw computing power and building an interconnected world of information-processing devices that makes science fiction pale in comparison. In this book Baldi explores what it is about these phenomena that makes us so uneasythe shattering of the human self as we know it.

Through evolution our brains have been wired to provide us with an inner sense of self, a feeling that each of us is a unique individual delimited by precise boundaries. We have also been wired to reproduce ourselves in a certain way. Baldi argues that this self-centered view of the world is scientifically wrong. Its past success lies in its being an adequate model during our evolutionary bootstrapping: a world without molecular biotechnology, human cloning, and the Internet. Eventually we must come to terms with the fact that genomes, computations, and mind are fluid, continuous entities, in both space and time. The boundary between the self and the world has begun to blur and ultimately may evaporate entirely. Baldi offers not predictions but an open-eyed exploration of our current state of knowledge and the possibilities that lie ahead.

About the Author

Pierre Baldi is Professor of Information and Computer Science and of Biological Chemistry (College of Medicine) and Director of the Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics at the University of California, Irvine.