Genetic
Maps and Human Imaginations: The Limits
of
Science in Understanding Who We Are
by Barbara Katz Rothman
Reviews
From Booklist, October 15, 1998
Millions are excited by what scientists
promise as they crack the genetic code: the secrets of human evolution,
new treatments of terrible diseases, a generation of superbabies. But for
Rothman, these promises stir less excitement than fear. Fear that a twisted
genetics will kindle a new and respectable racism. Fear that biological
technospeak will displace ethical dialogue. Fear that genetic engineering
will turn beauty and intelligence into market commodities. Fear that the
mystery of human identity will dwindle into memorized formulas. These fears
spring not from ignorance but from an anxious wrestling with the latest
genetic research and from a deeply personal engagement with the people
at risk of losing their dignity at the hands of DNA specialists. To protect
a dignified future for the not-so-ordinary people we know as children,
parents, siblings, and spouses, Rothman sounds an urgent warning about
how genetic maps can be used to build dangerous cultural highways. Lucid
arguments informed by honest emotions make this a critically important
book for those debating the construction of these highways. Bryce Christensen
- Copyright© 1998, American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1998
An outspoken and well-spoken sociologist
(City University of New York Graduate School) takes on the biomedical establishment
in this collection of essays on genes, race, disease, eugenics, procreation,
and the future. Rothman, whose earlier books probed the medicalization
of motherhood, prenatal testing and surrogacy/adoption/parenthood, here
attacks the Human Genome Project. This multibillion-dollar federal initiative
to map and sequence all 100,000 human genes is fraught with dangers, she
says not the least of which is a new eugenics of designer babies. Rothman
reviews the old eugenics movement, declaring it to be frankly racist, and
she skillfully disposes of latter-day Bell
Curve arguments. Her central point is that science is promulgating
an all-in-the-genes model of biological determinism, and as an example
she points to current medical thinking that all cancer is genetic. She
claims that we live "in an era of looking downtelling individuals to eat
more wisely, slather on the skin protectors," and she sees the search for
susceptibility genes as just another focus on what is wrong with the individual
and not with society or the environment. When it comes to the future, Rothman
trots out the slippery-slope scenarios but seems less concerned about cloning.
Instead, she simply says we could spend money a lot more wisely than on
the genome project while ignoring what the genetic enterprise has yielded
in terms of understanding evolution, developmental biology, aging, and
the human brain. Rothman's empathy, warmth, and intelligence are everywhere
apparent, but in painting biology with a reductionist brush that dismisses
selfhood or "soul," she confuses scientific practice with what scientists
think and overlooks the fact that there are many geneticists who know that
genes are not causal and there is more to life than molecular biology.
- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
The new genetics and race, illness, and
procreation. Scientists are racing to unravel the code of life in our DNA
sequences. But once we know the code, will we know what life means? Will
we know what to do with the powerful-healing, destructive, and marketable-information
we will have? Barbara Katz Rothman's warm, learned, passionate, and humorous
voice is just the one we need to guide us through some of the most loaded
issues and technologies of our time - ones that bear on the most intimate
aspects of our lives. Her astute observations about the new genetics are
combined with personal reflections: about raising a black child; the risks
of cancer; midwives and pregnancy; the social web into which we are born;
motherhood; time, growth, chance, and all the indefinable things that make
us human. She helps us to think about the place of genetic science in our
own lives, its role in our social world, and how we choose to think about
human life itself. A genetic map will take us places, but we need an imagination
to see the relationship between DNA and public policy, between genes and
the society we live in, and to understand why human life can't be reduced
to genetics. Rothman inspires that imagination, in a book that is essential
reading.
Synopsis
Scientists are racing to unravel the code
of life in our DNA sequences. But once people know the code, will they
know what life means? Barbara Katz Rothman's warm, learned, passionate,
and humorous voice guides readers through some of the most loaded issues
and technologies of the time.
Customer Comments
judy@bwhbc.org Judy Norsigian
(co-author, Our Bodies, Ourselves) from Boston, MA, January 30, 1999
powerful critique of science of genetics
This book helps us better understand the
limits of genetic research and testing, and the dangers of believing that
this magic new bullet will solve a host of social and medical "problems".
For women especially, this book is must reading.
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