Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre
Review: "Redesigning Humans" is an attempt to deal with the growing debate about whether or not science and genetic manipulation should be used to try to "improve" on our species. As several other reviewers pointed out, this book can be summarized as "Genetic manipulation of the human race will happen, it's a good thing, we'll all be better off, and although there are moral considerations, we won't bother mentioning any of them here". The book is essentially this arguement, repeated over and over. There is very little concerning the science behind genetic manipulation and absolutely nothing on the ethics of undertaking the redesigning our species. This book could easily be compressed into a three page article without significant loss of content. As one who has spent the last twelve years in medical research (including gene therapy), I found the book to contain almost no science, nothing pertaining to the ethics of what is propossed, and to really have almost no content. I do not recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Preparing for the Next Addition to the Culture Wars!
Review: As E.O Wilson notes in his blurb for the back cover of this book, it is amazing how few philosophers are really willing to pay attention to and write about genetic engineering. Especially in light of Stock's thesis: Genetic engineering, like it or not, is comming, ready or not. Honestly, I thought that Stock's book would be one of the few to really provide moral arguments for genetic engineering, particularly 'extratherapeutic' engineering. While there is a little of that, the book devotes much more time to exploring the inefficacy (in a utilitarian sense) of government regulations and bans on therapy. In that sense, his book is not quite a moral response to ethical luddites like Kass and McKibben, but governmental luddites like Fukuyama. Without spoiling the book for you, I will summarize some of his reasons (so you get the flavor: 1.) like abortion, there is simply too much demand for such therapies (and those that don't believe this should look at how much we spend on 'anti-aging' pills and surgeries). Thus, there is too much incentive for consumers to form black markets should bans be in place. 2.) Due to the plurality of world politics, such bans are, at best, regional. While Germany might ban research, China surely will not. 3.) Like abortion and drugs, black markets will be more dangerous that publically visible and monitorible legal ones. 4.) Bans or strict controls are going to cost astronomical amounts of money (and privacy) to prevent and catch law-breakers. There. I've only given you a taste, and if any of those arguments sound frail, read the book. The elaborations are first rate! This brings me to two small complaints. First, Stock tends to get ahead of himself in that the first half of the book is filled with sweeping proclomations like, "In the future we might be able to do x. Even though most scientists don't believe me on the feasibility on x, I really do think it could happen." In other words, he makes strangely radical predictions, reminds you that they are stragely radical predictions and simply defends them by saing that anything is possible. Second, Stock will occasionally come off as a will-o-the-wisp cheerleader. Particularly when he addresses concerns about the efficacy of unregulated markets, Stock simply tells us that we need not worry and that markets have taken care of themselves in the past, therefore they will work in the present. While I believe him (being the libertarian that I am), too many people i know share a scepticism of the market for Stock to dismiss the argument so curtly (assuming he wants to convince anyone). Other examples of this will-o-the-wisp style are in the book (though not enough to get annoying). To conclude, as this book has much more to do with cost/benefit analysis of regulation (that more or less winds up in favor of free markets) rather than ethical philosophy, the book will be much more interesting to political thinkers than bioethicists or philosophers. In fact, I would suggest reading this book and Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future" together as they take the same questions (where to regulate biotech) and come to different conclusions.
Rating:
Summary: Not a book, a bad essay...
Review: As one who is broadly wary of and disturbed by many of the radically new biological technologies emerging today, and by those who are gung-ho to implement them as soon as possible, I bought Stock's book to read the "Pro" viewpoint and try to give it an honest listen. I was very disappointed. I give Stock 2 stars instead of 1 because the book is a reasonably good overview of the various "germinal choice technologies - GCT's" in his words, that are out there today. In this sense the book was informative, but no more so than a well-written NewsWeek article of 1/100th the length. I would second the reviewers who fault this book's redundancy. Although it's divided into 9 chapters, the topic and the argument never changes, in this case you CAN judge the book by it's cover. The title tells you all you need to know without ever opening it and could be summed up in a few thoughts: The Redesigning of Humans is Inevitable; Here's A Few of the Ways It Will Happen and Reasons Why; Resistence Is Futile, and Why Bother - You'll Benefit From It Anyway; Sure There're Moral Problems, But We've Conveniently Overcome Moral Dilemmas Surrounding Abortion, etc., etc. Oh By the Way - Worried About the Have's and the Have-Not's? Just Think of These People Like Dogs: Future Saint Bernard's vs. Dachshunds, Basically the Same But with Slightly Different Traits! In other words, all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others... While giving very brief reference to a few prominent opponents of unlimited genetic cloning and research, Stock proceeds to dismiss them more or less out of hand, and provides no serious coverage of the arguments against the technology he is so enamored of. The truly disturbing part of the book in his incredible conclusion in the final chapter that "Widespread use of GCT would almost certainly raise average performance levels...as well as narrow the spread between those with higher and lower potentials...Eventually the mass of humanity will seize the power to enrich its children's natural endowments." Stock claims foolishly that the well-endowed elites will be the ones with the most to lose. Like a French revolutionary railing against the monarchy, or Marx railing against the bourgeoisie, Stock naively assumes, with no basis for doing so, that genetic technologies will make the rich poorer and the poor richer. When has this ever happened??!! The further development of GCT will only concentrate greater power in the hands of the already powerful, not only economic and intellectual power, but potentially genetic power as well that would guarantee a kind of biological nepotism by passing unnaturally enhanced traits to the children of only those who can afford to buy "designer genes" and the like. Stock blindly whistles his way down this path with barely so much as a second thought for the consequences.
Rating: 
Summary: Begins well but Ends badly...
Review: Certain parts of the book are very interesting and enlightening, but most of it is a semi-rant which does not go anywhere and neither does it provide enough info for the reader to come to his/her own conclusion.
The author re-iterates that germ-lime manipulation will take place sooner rather than later and most probably before we fully realize the implications. The book covers a lot of space with passages on new discoveries and achievements as well as political and religious undercurrents. Not a buy rating but I recommend you borrow and read this from your local library.
Rating:
Summary: Gene therapy on the horizon
Review: Germline gene therapy is the manipulation of the genome at the germinal stage (i.e. at conception) as distinct from somatic gene therapy, which involves the manipulation of living cells. What I got out of this book was a clear understanding of how germline engineering (the author's area of expertise) will be easier to achieve, arrive sooner and be more ethically provocative than genetic manipulation that alters our bodies directly. Early on in the book, Stock addresses some of the Kurzwellian predictions for our future biology and finds areas of disagreement with previous authors. This debate centres on Cyborgism, Fyborgism and the extent to which humans and machines will fuse. I didn't agree with him, but this is not to say he lacks structure or clarity in his arguments. Be aware that Stock is an expert in germline engineering, a particularly controversial biotechnology. Perhaps understandably, he devotes much of the latter part of the book to addressing ethical dilemmas and social responsibility (something to note if this type of hand wringing doesn't exactly set you alight). This is a timely book, generally well written. I particularly liked Stock's fascinating thesis on the potential of artificial chromosomes. This is worth the book's price alone.
Rating:
Summary: Gene therapy on the horizon
Review: Germline gene therapy is the manipulation of the genome at the germinal stage (i.e. at conception) as distinct from somatic gene therapy, which involves the manipulation of living cells. What I got out of this book was a clear understanding of how germline engineering (the author's area of expertise) will be easier to achieve, arrive sooner and be more ethically provocative than genetic manipulation that alters our bodies directly. Early on in the book, Stock addresses some of the Kurzwellian predictions for our future biology and finds areas of disagreement with previous authors. This debate centres on Cyborgism, Fyborgism and the extent to which humans and machines will fuse. I didn't agree with him, but this is not to say he lacks structure or clarity in his arguments. Be aware that Stock is an expert in germline engineering, a particularly controversial biotechnology. Perhaps understandably, he devotes much of the latter part of the book to addressing ethical dilemmas and social responsibility (something to note if this type of hand wringing doesn't exactly set you alight). This is a timely book, generally well written. I particularly liked Stock's fascinating thesis on the potential of artificial chromosomes. This is worth the book's price alone.
Rating: 
Summary: Scary, insightful and well written by someone who knows
Review: Greg Stock, is an excellent writer. This is quite a departure from his Book of Questions. Greg knows all the players in the legitimate life extension game. He heads a Biomedical company and was on faculty of UCLA Med SChool. He knows what he's talking about when he says we will have germinal choice technology soon that will allow parents to customize their children. It's not just the amazing ideas that are here, but the way Greg discusses the impact of such technologies on every aspect of our children's future. It's both an exciting and terrifying vision. Everyone should read this book
-P-
Rating:
Summary: ?We are not about to turn away from this.?
Review: Gregory Stock, director of the Program of Medicine, Technology and Society at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, believes that the possibility of altering the genes of our prospective children is not some isolated spin-off of molecular biology but an integral part of the advancing technologies that culminate a century of progress in the biological sciences. "We have spent billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity, but in hope of bettering our lives," he writes in the first chapter of his new book Redesigning Humans. "We are not about to turn away from this." Early in the book he summarily dismisses the theories of Kurzweil and Moravec et al about the merging of humans and machines as "techno-exuberance" and "far fetched". While his arguments in the main seem rigorous, I was bothered by statements such as "a healthy human heart represents the ideal to which any replacement must aspire, and except for a little more durability, no improvement is possible so long as we remain otherwise unchanged." A little more durability?! Personally I would prefer a heart that was rock solid, bullet-proof, self-repairing, 24x7x365x1000 - but perhaps that's just me. Swiftly, however, the book leaves the domain of the potential cyborg and leads us squarely into Stock's preferred futuristic scenario, that of genetically-engineered, embryo-screened, humans. He provides methodical and lucid explanations of the difference between somatic and germline manipulations but the majority of the book is dedicated to possible scenarios, and the related ethics and issues, of germline choice technology (GCT). He provides a conservative look at the possible futures of GCT, staying clear of "radical" ideas such as enhancing humans with the abilities of animals (such as ultraviolet and infrared vision, detection of magnetism, sonar, acute smell, etcetera) and concentrating on therapeutic benefits, such as eliminating the genetic causes for certain diseases from future humans. According to Stock, it may be fruitless for Governments in the Western world to attempt to ban these technologies, as the combination of public demand and scientists willing to provide the services will merely push the GCT activities either underground or to a country more willing to support the emerging technologies. The real questions he addresses are not whether these technologies will appear, but when they will, who will have access to them, and how we will use them. The final vision Stock projects is of a human race which eventually diversifies into the Enhanced and the Unenhanced; not different sub-species perhaps but different breeds. In the closing analysis, he believes that the opportunities far outweigh the risks and that the human race should embrace the new germline choice technologies in a free-market environment with real individual choice, modest oversight, and robust mechanisms to learn quickly from mistakes. I suspect many in the transhumanist community might find Stock's book slightly conservative and timid, but for those like myself who are not well-versed on germline choice technology, it serves as a substantial and welcoming prologue to a subject matter which invites much deeper analysis.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting but narrow view of extraordinary new science.
Review: I picked up this book just based on its title (a highly inadvisable practice), which was the first of many dissapointments I had with this book. First off, "Redesigning Humans, Our Inevitable Genetic Future" would be more appropriately named "Redesigning Our Children, Humanities Inevitable Genetic Future". You see, this book isn't really about redesigning "us", it's about a technological process called "germline engineering". This technology intervenes with "germ cells" (like sperm and egg) to alter their blueprint (from which our biology originates). Granted, germline engineering is interesting, and I think the author makes a good case for its "inevitability", but in my humble opinion if you're broadly interested in how science will one day alter mankind's basic physical makeup, or specifically interested in how science will alter our biology, there far more interesting reads than this one. Which brings me to the meat of my point...I'm not arguing Gregory Stocks credentials, and clearly he's a very well educated, well researched scientist (Director of the Medicine, Technology, and Society program at UCLA), but from the outset of this book, he seemed way too biased towards germline engineering, and almost arrogant about germlines superiority as an agent of future change vs. other interesting technology vectors. On page 20 he summarily dismisses an entire scientific school of thought centered around machine augmentation of biology and capability (headed by such credentialed scientists as R. Kurzweil) with the following statement: "People may dream of enhancing their minds by embedding chips in their brains, but a sophisticated interface between our nervous systems and silicon would be incredibly complex" ...Duh! Augmenting mankind's basic physical essence (that we've had for hundreds of thousands of years) isn't childs play for any scientific approach. But that was pretty much his "that's that on that" basis. VERY FRUSTRATING inadequacy to someone who believes the contrary (I'd at least like someone to offer better basis in approach than that). And in considering the benefits of machine or biological augmentation of capability (sensory or performance related) he writes: "Indeed, I cannot imagine any apparatus that would serve us better than our own healthy heart, which responds so perfectly to our changing activity and emotions and is so well matched to the capacities of the rest of our circulatory system. A healthy human heart represents the ideal to which any replacement must aspire..." What about 10X durability, what about real-time diagnostic feedback, or predictive capability? That's just off the top of my head! It's a bit ironic that this kind of narrow mindedness is coming from such a proponent of change... Ok, so setting aside my problems with the book, I did find a number of interesting new understandings. In particular, this book gave me a firmer grasp of the extraordinary and near-term potential to modify our offspring, it solidified my position on human cloning (as a benign diversion from the real important decisions we as a species will need to face), and reinvigorated my interest in "somatic therapy" (the altering of existent biology with gene-loaded viral pathogens). If you're a physco for this kind of stuff, read the first 80 pages of this book, and skim through the rest. If you're passively interested in this kind of science, consider reading Ray Kurzweil "Age of Spiritual Machines", Hans Moravecs' "Robot", or "The Spike" by Damien Broderick. I hope this was helpful.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting but narrow view of extraordinary new science.
Review: I picked up this book just based on its title (a highly inadvisable practice), which was the first of many dissapointments I had with this book. First off, "Redesigning Humans, Our Inevitable Genetic Future" would be more appropriately named "Redesigning Our Children, Humanities Inevitable Genetic Future". You see, this book isn't really about redesigning "us", it's about a technological process called "germline engineering". This technology intervenes with "germ cells" (like sperm and egg) to alter their blueprint (from which our biology originates). Granted, germline engineering is interesting, and I think the author makes a good case for its "inevitability", but in my humble opinion if you're broadly interested in how science will one day alter mankind's basic physical makeup, or specifically interested in how science will alter our biology, there far more interesting reads than this one. Which brings me to the meat of my point...I'm not arguing Gregory Stocks credentials, and clearly he's a very well educated, well researched scientist (Director of the Medicine, Technology, and Society program at UCLA), but from the outset of this book, he seemed way too biased towards germline engineering, and almost arrogant about germlines superiority as an agent of future change vs. other interesting technology vectors. On page 20 he summarily dismisses an entire scientific school of thought centered around machine augmentation of biology and capability (headed by such credentialed scientists as R. Kurzweil) with the following statement: "People may dream of enhancing their minds by embedding chips in their brains, but a sophisticated interface between our nervous systems and silicon would be incredibly complex" ...Duh! Augmenting mankind's basic physical essence (that we've had for hundreds of thousands of years) isn't childs play for any scientific approach. But that was pretty much his "that's that on that" basis. VERY FRUSTRATING inadequacy to someone who believes the contrary (I'd at least like someone to offer better basis in approach than that). And in considering the benefits of machine or biological augmentation of capability (sensory or performance related) he writes: "Indeed, I cannot imagine any apparatus that would serve us better than our own healthy heart, which responds so perfectly to our changing activity and emotions and is so well matched to the capacities of the rest of our circulatory system. A healthy human heart represents the ideal to which any replacement must aspire..." What about 10X durability, what about real-time diagnostic feedback, or predictive capability? That's just off the top of my head! It's a bit ironic that this kind of narrow mindedness is coming from such a proponent of change... Ok, so setting aside my problems with the book, I did find a number of interesting new understandings. In particular, this book gave me a firmer grasp of the extraordinary and near-term potential to modify our offspring, it solidified my position on human cloning (as a benign diversion from the real important decisions we as a species will need to face), and reinvigorated my interest in "somatic therapy" (the altering of existent biology with gene-loaded viral pathogens). If you're a physco for this kind of stuff, read the first 80 pages of this book, and skim through the rest. If you're passively interested in this kind of science, consider reading Ray Kurzweil "Age of Spiritual Machines", Hans Moravecs' "Robot", or "The Spike" by Damien Broderick. I hope this was helpful.
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