The Religious Dimension in the Thought of Giambattista Vico: 1668-1744 : Language, Law and History (Studies in the History of Philosophy)

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Kidd, reviled as a bloodthirsty pirate, was a Scottish-born minister's son who may actually have been innocent of piracy but was certainly hanged for it. Based on official admiralty records, this volume offers an astonishing glimpse into the world of 17th-century piracy, the English judicial system, and the dialogue from the actual trial.

The Tryal of Capt. William Kidd for Murther & Piracy

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The Tryal of Capt. William Kidd for Murther & Piracy
Don C. (Editor): Seitz
Manufacturer: Rufus Rockwell Wilson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LZML88

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A brave, moral argument for cloning and its power to fight disease.

A timely investigation into the ethics, history, and potential of human cloning from Professor Ian Wilmut, who shocked scientists, ethicists, and the public in 1997 when his team unveiled Dolly—that very special sheep who was cloned from a mammary cell. With award-winning science journalist Roger Highfield, Wilmut explains how Dolly launched a medical revolution in which cloning is now used to make stem cells that promise effective treatments for many major illnesses. Dolly's birth also unleashed an avalanche of speculation about the eventuality of cloning babies, which Wilmut strongly opposes. However, he does believe that scientists should one day be allowed to combine the cloning of human embryos with genetic modification to free families from serious hereditary disease. In effect, he is proposing the creation of genetically altered humans. 20 illustrations.

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Human Cloning - Not The Issue.......2006-11-04

Ian Wilmut - with the help of science journalist Roger Highfield - tells the exciting story of how he and his group cloned Dolly, whose donor cell came from the udder of an adult sheep. Much of the book describes the science surrounding the multistage procedures of cloning. The challenges are enormous because of the immense complexity of the reproductive process and for technical reasons. The nuclear transfers themselves were done under a microscope on cells much smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.

Cloning has been successful in many species of mammals but according to Wilmut, attempts to clone humans are not ethical, feasible, or even desirable. The success rate is extremely low, abnormalities of pregnancy are the norm, the newborn mammals that survive are frequently not entirely normal, and identical genotypes ignore the environmental factors that influence individuality. This can be tolerated in cattle, but certainly not in humans. Using stem cells to cure disease is an entirely different story. Scientists are learning how to manipulate these cells to become replacements for diseased tissue in humans.

In 50 years, scientists may be using stem cells to cure Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, heart disease, and perhaps scores of other diseases. They might learn how to grow customized organs in the lab, rendering transplant waiting lists and immune suppressive therapy unnecessary. In 10 years, they should have somewhat of a handle on a few of these diseases and stem cell treatments or cures for a couple of them. Unfortunately, this valuable research has been slowed by political and ethical controversy.

Wilmut takes a respectful and humble view of these valid ethical issues and the religious objections surrounding experimentation on a human embryo. His bottom line, however, is that the real immoral act would be to withhold definitive treatment of disease from that group of us who are already born.

"After Dolly" is written for a wide variety of readers, requiring knowledge of high school biology and a little genetics. Wilmut modestly gives away virtually all the credit to his team and other researchers, while thoroughly examining the science and history of this dynamic field. Amid the hysteria and media frenzy surrounding Dolly's birth and life, and the tons of newsprint generated about the possibility of cloning humans, Wilmut was perplexed by the lack of details written about how and why they cloned her. He is now excited to finally tell this story.

The View of Cloning, from a Cloner.......2006-09-06

The most famous sheep in the world, and the most famous lab animal, was Dolly, born in 1996. She was the first mammal cloned from an adult differentiated cell, but she was not at all the first clone. Ian Wilmut was a scientist within the Scottish research team that cloned her, and ten years on he has written a useful book, with science author Roger Highfield, _After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning_ (Norton) which not only gives the history of producing Dolly, and Dolly's life story, but also describes the developments in cloning since then. Wilmut has necessarily become an advisor on the ethics of cloning and embryo research, and while there will be many who disagree with his utilitarian views set down in his book, they do represent a thoughtful scientific opinion of where cloning and embryo procedures ought and ought not to be used.

Wilmut makes clear that Dolly was not the first clone, but the first mammalian clone produced from DNA derived from a differentiated adult cell; he gives a history of pre-Dolly cloning. While the ideas behind cloning are simple, carrying out the procedure is extremely difficult, requiring precise manipulation of unimaginably small cell parts. The manipulation machine, for instance, by which a technician looks into a microscope and carefully removes or replaces cell nuclei, sat on a desk that sat on a heavy metal plate that in turn sat on squash balls to absorb any vibrations from a door slamming or even a radio playing. Wilmut favors human embryo research because of its potential outcomes. The earliest embryo (even sometimes called a pre-embryo) is a blastocyst, a microscopic ball of around a hundred cells in a hollow sphere. There is not enough differentiation within the blastocyst into even primitive nerves, and so we may definitely say that the blastocyst has no awareness and no capacity to feel pain. Wilmut for this, and many other reasons given here, feels that there is no possibility of cruelty to a blastocyst, and that they can be subjected to experiment. He does feel that embryos deserve elemental respect; they should be used in research when there is no other means of doing the research, and any embryo thus used should be used with the consent of the adults whose DNA was joined to make it.

Wilmut is firmly against what he sees as the folly of cloning humans, and that the production of "designer babies" even if feasible (they are not even close) ought to be rejected. Again, this is a judgement based on practicality: he asks us to imagine rich parents who hire a staff to engineer an intellectually gifted child, only to wind up eventually with "a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them." Also he points out that cloning has huge risks and costs in making a clone; for Dolly, for instance, 277 donor udder cells were transformed into only 29 embryos, only one of which prospered in the surrogate mother. And no one really knows how good a clone Dolly was; she had a good life and seemed to enjoy being sociable due to her fame, but she lived less than eight years, not a good outcome for a pampered sheep. Dolly was a remarkable experiment that helped us better understand the biochemical mechanics of reproduction; Wilmut is strongly against any such experimentation on humans. His book gives up-to-date reporting on where scientists are and are heading, including the catastrophic mistakes by the once admired, now disgraced Woo Suk Hwang of Korea. Wilmut's passionate arguments about using the current technologies sensibly and ethically to benefit future generations ought to help in understanding the ethics of the most controversial area in biology.

A pick for both general-interest collections and any who would understand the nature of human cloning issues today.......2006-08-17

Ten years ago author Ian Wilmut shocked science and the general public when he revealed his team of researchers had cloned the first sheep from an adult cell. His revelation was to spark a controversy not just in science, but among consumers and the general public. AFTER DOLLY: THE USES AND MISUSES OF HUMAN CLONING continues the discussion, surveying the current state of the field of cloning, discussing the science behind Dolly's creation and its refinement since, and posing a strong statement on the moral necessity of cloning to cure disease. A pick for both general-interest collections and any who would understand the nature of human cloning issues today.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Superb.......2006-07-06

Ten years ago today, on July 5, 1996, the famous sheep called Dolly was born. There were no press announcements, for her "creators" had yet to submit the paper on the experimental methods and results to a professional scientific journal. It was not until February of the following year that most of press and the world got to hear of this extraordinary accomplishment with mammalian cloning. There is probably no single scientific experiment that has caused such controversy as this one, with most of this controversy coming from a misguided and publicity seeking press.

The authors present in this book an overview of the experiment from standpoint of Ian Wilmut, as one who was directly involved in bringing about the birth of Dolly. Written with the assistance of a professional writer, Wilmut gives the reader a fascinating look into the science behind Dolly, and also make commentary on the biological and genetic science that came after her birth. All of these developments are very exciting, and are ample proof that we are living in extraordinary times. Genetic engineering is a fascinating technology, and hopefully it will continue to play a large role in optimizing the health of all organisms, human and otherwise.

As expected from his public discussion, Wilmut is against reproductive cloning. However, his warnings against its practice he backs up with scientific argument, detailing the many problems that arise in attempts to clone mammals. The authors do touch on the ethical arguments against human cloning, but their arguments on this account are faulty, and have been successfully countered by other individuals, and will not be repeated here.

Wilmut comes across in the book as being a very practical, patient, and humble man, and one who is definitely fed up with the public outcries and misrepresentations of biological science in today's newspapers and magazines. The reader is left with the impression that Wilmut felt honored to be involved in the Dolly experiment, and even might have been slightly surprised at its success, comparing for instance his laboratories with other more equipped laboratories across the ocean.

Cloning from adults at the time was "proved" to be "impossible" by some molecular biologists of the time, as the authors point out. One can only imagine then the excitement when Wilmut and his team verified through ultrasound that the Dolly fetus was healthy. And their determination to proceed with the experiment, in spite of the "impossibility" proofs, is another strong argument for ignoring the opinions of experts when doing scientific research. Frequently the experts are correct, but their words are not sacrosanct, as laboratory experimentation in this case proved all too well. One hates to think of the research that has not been done because of discouragement from "experts."

Since the book is about genetic engineering as it progressed after the birth of Dolly, one expects to find discussion on transgenesis and pharming, and this is indeed the case. The authors give an encapsulated but effective overview of the developments in genetic engineering primarily from the viewpoint on how they will affect human health.

The authors are optimistic about the future of genetic engineering, but are hesitant to engage in utopianism. They want to leave the impression that genetic engineering will have a minimal impact as compared with what has been done via natural evolution. But as the technologies of genetic engineering become more perfected, and as mammalian cloning becomes better understood, it is fair to say that genetic engineering will have a major impact in the twenty-first century. If it enhances human intelligence and health, if it makes couples happy with children born through human cloning, if it creates thousands of new transgenic animals and plants, in short if it radically changes the biosphere as we know it in a way that makes life on Earth more harmonious, then Wilmut and his team, along with all the other genetic engineers, deserve not only our utmost respect and praise, but also our envy: for taking the first steps into a fascinating new frontier.

Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy

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Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy

Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Taking Biology Seriously: What Biology Can and Cannot Tell Us About Moral and Public Policy Issues

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Scientific limits of Policy formation

Taking Biology Seriously: What Biology Can and Cannot Tell Us About Moral and Public Policy Issues
Inmaculada de Melo-Mart'n
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Ethics & Morality | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Discussions of human biology and its consequences for ethics and public policy are often misguided. Both proponents and critics of behavioral genetics, reproductive cloning, and genetic testing have mistaken beliefs about the role of genes in human life. Taking Biology Seriously calls attention to the social context in which both the science and our ethical precepts and public policies play a role.

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Scientific limits of Policy formation.......2005-12-13

Taking Biology Seriously : What Biology Can and Cannot Tell Us About Moral and Public Policy by Inmaculada de Melo-Martin (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) (Paperback) Discussions of human biology and its consequences for ethics and public policy are often misguided. Both proponents and critics of behavioral genetics, reproductive cloning, and genetic testing have mistaken beliefs about the role of genes in human life. Taking Biology Seriously calls attention to the social context in which both the science and our ethical precepts and public policies play a role.
Excerpt: Immanuel Kant once noted that the three most important questions for human beings are, "What can I know? What ought I to do? and What may I hope?" To these questions, some might add now, "What should I fear?" Kant argued that often our answers to these questions are confused, that we think we know things that we cannot, and based on these mistaken ideas we act in ways, and hope for things, that are unjustified or harmful to self or others.
Using modern science and technology has often been perceived as a way, if not the best way, to provide answers to these questions. In a world constantly shaped and reshaped by science and technology, many take great comfort in the notion that if we just can get the science right the answers are, or might be, clear and certain. These expectations are not foreign to modern biology. What could tell us more than a science of our very nature about what we can know, what we should do, or what we can reasonably hope or fear'? And, what might be more exciting, interesting, and possibly horrifying than to know who we are, to make brilliantly clear our essence? Hence, according to an all-too-common misunderstanding of what contemporary biology can tell us and allow us to do, we might be able to control not only our very nature, but also our future, and the future of our children, in a way that will re-move sources of suffering and fear.
Much of the excitement about the genetic revolution in biology in general, and the Human Genome Project in particular, can be understood in light of the questions Kant tried to answer. The promises of knowing who and what we are, of eliminating genetic diseases, of allowing infertile people to have genetically related children, of predicting and controlling dangerous or self-destructive behavior, and of giving our children the best possible future all inspire great hopes. Additionally, the knowledge we might gain about our capacities and limits might allow us to better allocate resources of time, money, and intellectual energy. As a result, we might improve not only our-selves as individuals, but also our societies. We could have less disease and crime; live longer, healthier lives; increase the number of people reaching their potential; and create more control over the course and content of our lives.
Conversely, many fear this knowledge and the future that this new world of genetic knowledge and control appears to promise. Cloning raises specters of fascist eugenics programs and fear of loss of human dignity. Genetic testing raises concerns about unfair discrimination. Others fear that if behavior is determined by unchangeable genetics, then notions of responsibility to others will be unsupportable, and resources will be further diverted from those most in need. All this leads to trepidation about an increasingly stratified and unjust society.
Given these hopes and fears, an evaluation of what biology can and can-not tell us about such issues seems not just important but necessary. In this book, I have argued that all too often these hopes and fears are ungrounded and that the presumed implications of genetics for ethics and social policy are unsupported. This book has then been a call to take biology seriously. To do so, of course, is not to use biology as a trump card. On the contrary, by carefully evaluating the role of biological and technological knowledge in ethical and public policy discussions, we can realize that biology cannot tell us many of the things we need to know about such issues. Taking biology seriously will prevent us from making claims about moral and public policy consequences that are grounded on epistemological, scientific, or ethical misunderstandings.
When we take biology seriously, we can realize that it is questionable to criticize genetic determinism by pointing out that if it is correct then individuals are not responsible for critically evaluating and maybe transforming in-adequate institutions. Such criticisms, as we saw in chapter 2, commit an epistemological mistake. They simply misunderstand the role of biology in human life. And they do so because they ignore the fact that biological traits such as intelligence, aggression, addictive behavior, or differences in reproductive strategies between men and women can only be understood in the social context in which they appear. Such traits, as they are often defined in these discussions, cannot be said to be good or bad because of some intrinsic property they might have. If this is correct, then, as we have seen, a fear that social responsibility might be diminished is misplaced. A critical evaluation and transformation of our values and social arrangements appears to be more, not less, required were it the case that particular human traits and behaviors are genetically determined. Such evaluation can set those traits into the appropriate context, human's social environment, in order to judge the desirability or undesirability of such traits. Independently of this social context, the presence of these biological traits and behaviors cannot say much about social responsibility.
Similarly, when we take biology seriously, we can recognize that the debate over cloning human beings has often been framed in ways that misunderstand the biology behind this practice. As we saw in chapter 4, tying human dignity to the uniqueness of our genome is quite debatable because it is unclear how a biological entity such as our genome has anything to do with human dignity. Such a link is also dubious because of the difficulty of deciding what exactly it means to say that two genomes are identical or the same. In any case, even if we can agree on the fact that the genomes of a clone and its donor are relevantly similar, still it is difficult to see how this would interfere with human individuality. Identical twins have genomes that are more similar than the genomes of a clone and a nuclear donor need to be. Nevertheless, twins do have their own personalities, their own characters, and their own life choices. Paying attention to biology can remind us that human beings are very complex creatures influenced not just by our genes, but also by many other biological, environmental, and social factors. Likewise, carefully considering biological knowledge can inform us that cloning is not the tool to tackle genetic diseases. When we pay attention to biology, we can also appreciate that it cannot give us all the answers to moral and public policy issues related to human cloning. As we saw in chapter 5, even if it were the case that the scientific knowledge alleged to support the development and use of human cloning was correct, still this would not be a sufficient reason to support reproductive cloning. This would only be so if we presuppose not only that the biology is correct, but also that the social context in which cloning is developed and where claims about its moral adequacy are presented is irrelevant. We saw in that chapter that such an assumption is far from correct.
Finally, taking biology seriously can also tell us that many discussions about genetic technologies and genetic information are presented in ways that suggest that the predictive ability of genetic analysis is higher than actually is warranted. Examining this claim in chapter 7 brought to our attention that this mistake has made many proclaim that we have a moral obligation to obtain and share genetic information about ourselves. Nonetheless, although by paying careful attention to our current biological knowledge we can learn that a defense of duties related to our ability to obtain and share genetic information is grounded on a misunderstanding of human biology, biological knowledge by itself cannot tell us what our moral obligations regarding genetic information are. Thus, in chapter 8, I argued that even if it were the case that genetic testing was able to give us highly reliable information about future health status, this alone would not support claims about moral obligations to obtain and share genetic information. Attention to the social context in which these moral obligations would be binding to humans would also be necessary. Many of the debates on this issue pay, however, little attention to such context. Consequently, discussions on the subject of the alleged moral duties that follow from our ability to obtain genetic information about others and our-selves often ignore that access to these technologies is limited, that laypeople and professionals might not have adequate knowledge about genetics and genetic testing technologies, and that already disadvantaged groups might be unfairly burdened by these obligations.
This book has, then, been an attempt to call attention to the fact that good ethics requires good science, but it also calls for careful attention to the social context in which both the science and our ethical precepts and public policies play a role. It may well be that we are entering an era in which genetic science and technologies question our existing definitions of life and death, change our ideas about what a human being is, and transform the values we hold. And it is certainly the case that contemporary biology has much to con-tribute as we seek to know who we are, what we might know, how we ought to live, and what it is reasonable to hope and to fear. Taking biology seriously means paying careful attention to what it can, and what it cannot, tell us.
As noted throughout, epistemological, scientific, and ethical problems arise in much of our discussion of the implications of molecular genetics and genetic technologies because we fail to pay enough attention to the complexity of human biology and human life. There can be, of course, important heuristic reasons for this tendency. It is often easier to examine something in isolation. We do not, for instance, sequence genes while they are within cells. Still, the isolation is just that, a heuristic, and should not be taken to be the full story. Thus, whatever genetics might tell us about many human behaviors, we can only know the value and meanings of those behaviors when we place them in the actual social contexts within which human beings live. This includes recognizing that the social context might be malleable. We also can-not fully evaluate the possibilities of human cloning without examining in de-tail both the complexities of gene interactions and also our social institutions and social arrangements. Understanding the role of genes in disease and behavior further requires that we not think of genes in isolation, but within the larger biological and social processes of which they are a part. Finally, making sense of what duties we might have to obtain and share information about our genetic endowments will be an unsuccessful task if we fail to take ac-count of both the complexity of human biology and the social context in which people really live and make decisions.
As we have seen throughout these pages, to neglect any of these aspects will likely misguide our efforts to improve our communities and better ourselves. Let us, then, take biology seriously. That is, let us pay attention to both what biology can and cannot tell us in this undertaking. We might then have more plausible ideas, better understand ourselves, avoid needless fears, and entertain more credible hopes.

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Human Cloning: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy
Barbara Mackinnon
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPZVLO

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This unique resource offers an overview of wildlife conservation and environmental planning in the third world. Sponsored by the Bombay Natural History Society, the work draws together the work of leading experts who examine a wide range of issues in conservation and wildlife biology as they
affect developing countries where remedies and problem-solving are often vastly more difficult than in wealthier parts of the world. Topics addressed include the over-exploitation of natural resources, environmental degradation, animal preservation, national forestry and reserve policies, and many
other critical issues. Lavishly illustrated, and authoritative in its coverage, this volume offers a stimulating examination that will be of interest to both scientists and environmentally concerned general readers.

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