The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project - Couverture rigide

Kevles, Daniel J.; Hood, Leroy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0674136454 ISBN 13 : 9780674136458

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 1992

Synopsis

The human genome is the key to what makes us human. Composed of the many different genes found in our cells, it designs our possibilities and limitations as members of the species. The ultimate goal of the pioneering project outlined in this book is to map our genome in detail - an achievement that will revolutionize our understanding of human development and the expression of both our normal traits and our abnormal characteristics, such as disease. "The Code of Codes" is a collective exploration of the substance and possible consequences of this project in relation to ethics, law and society as well as to science technology, and medicine. The many debates on the human genome project are prompted in part by its extraordinary cost, which has raised questions about whether it represents the invasion of biology by the kind of Big Science symbolized by high-energy accelerators. While addressing these matters, this book recognizes that far more than money is at stake. Its intent is not to advance naive paeans for the project but to stimulate thought about the serious issues - scientific, social, and ethical - that it provokes. "The Code of Codes" comprises essays by figures in a variety of fields, including James D. Watson and Walter Gilbert and the social analysts of science Dorothy Nelkin and Evelyn Fox Keller. A review of the scientific underpinnings of the project is provided by Horace Freeland Judson, author of the bestselling "Eighth Day of Creation".

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Now and then" writes Lionel Triling "it is possible to observe the moral life in process of revising itself" In this new book he is concerned with such a mutation: the process by which the arduous enterprise of sincerity, of being true to one's self, came to occupy a place of supreme importance in the moral life-and the further shift which finds that place now usurped by the darker and still more strenuous modern ideal of authenticity. Instances range over the whole of Western literature and thought, from Shakespeare to Hegel to Sartre, from Robespierre to R.D. Laing, suggesting the contradictions and ironies to which the ideals of sincerity and authenticity give rise, most especially in contemporary life. Lucid, and brilliantly framed, its view of cultural history will give Sincerity and Authenticity an important place among the works of this distinguished critic.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 1992
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0674136454
• ISBN 13: 9780674136458
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 384
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Amazon EU Sarl; 0; www.amazon.com; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; 0; L-1855; Luxembourg