The Biotech Century: The Coming Age of Genetic Commerce
By Jeremy Rifkin
Victor Gollancz. 271 pages. £16.99 (hardback)
ISBN 0 575 06658 X
This book is a dark and disturbing wake-up call to the world. The technologies and developments it covers will be the decisive and shaping influences on the structure and nature of humanity as we know it for many decades to come.
Their potential for good, and for harm, is almost unimaginably vast and reaches far deeper into our world, even into our very selves, than anything that has gone before. How extraordinary then, that there is almost no serious debate at all about how we will use this burgeoning power. This book has been written with the express intention of opening that debate by making known to the layman the magnitude of the issues involved, the real prospects for the future of biotechnology, and the possible consequences of its application.
Rifkin begins by limiting himself to genetic technologies, but this in itself is an immense subject. Immediately after the introduction, the author gives us a whistle-stop tour of the revolution that has already begun, and the dizzying multiplicity of changes we have seen and have yet to see. A few are already news: cloning of plants, animals and humans, genetically-modified food, genetic screening of as-yet-unborn life and the use of genetic information to assess risk of certain diseases by insurers and employers are examples.
Cusp of revolution
It is the author's contention that we are now at the cusp of a momentous and unparalleled revolution. The development of information technology is not an end in itself, but will find its ultimate purpose in the acquisition, storage and manipulation of genetic information. Just as the existence of the printing press quickly became inextricably linked with the industrial revolution, the development of capitalism, and the modern worldview, so the twin strands of computational and genetic technology will inevitably intertwine to take us into an entirely new era with a fresh philosophy, ideals and a profoundly different relationship with nature.
The first chapter, 'The Bio-Tech Century', serves as an introduction to the breadth and depth of possibilities that gene control offers us. Rifkin writes accessibly and breaks in the reader gradually so that anyone with even a modest grasp of biology can follow the substance of his thought. (Having said that, some of the detail will inevitably be more accessible to those with knowledge of related subjects.) He runs through - both as backdrop and as parallel - the industrial era, and then proceeds to explain the end of this era, and the beginning of the new, citing numerous examples of biotech already in use. This is the history.
Chapter two moves us on to the commercial issues - the patenting of life, and the claiming of all of nature's bounty as a commodity. This is frightening stuff: can you imagine your genes, your own blueprint, all of your biological inheritance as intellectual property owned by someone else - as the design of a television set might be? In fact, this has already happened to one man. The entailments are almost unthinkable, echoing - for me - the words of Revelation 18.13. For a Christian, the astonishing disregard for the sanctity and sacredness of life already manifest by many is breathtaking.
Then we have a chapter reflecting on the threat to the environment. Genetically-modified food is discussed, and transgenic animals, engineered bacteria and viruses, designer gene warfare and much besides, all richly illustrated. It is startling to read just how much has already occurred under our noses that is of great consequence. As with the nuclear revolution, the pitfalls, hazards and dangers are great, but are routinely overlooked in the quest for short-term profit.
Chapter four is devoted to eugenics. Rifkin traces much of the human history of eugenics - all of it extremely ugly - and points out that any time we tamper with genes, we are doing eugenics. We could see custom babies; we could see a hereditary underclass of those who cannot afford them; we could see increasing power in the superhuman hands of a genetically perfected few. The next chapter expands on the implications for sociology and politics, discrimination and human relationships: dark shadows of Huxley's Brave New World abound.
IT and DNA
The argument is picking up pace now. Chapter six develops the connections between IT and DNA and the way they will be used together to re-invent nature, which is the title of chapter seven. We are treated here to a potted deconstruction of Darwinism, and classic evolutionism, and the author sets out the kind of cosmology/ideology that looks set to supplant it in the biotech century. He argues convincingly that prevailing worldviews are always constructed as justification for contemporaneous abuse of man's power.
The concluding chapter eight is a personal note in which Rifkin sums up and makes his plea. There is so much that offers wonderful potential for good that we cannot dismiss the whole field: in any case, this is no longer a realistic choice open to us. What we must do, therefore, is start talking. In particular, we need to evaluate the benefits, evaluate the dangers, and chart a course ahead with careful consideration, in contrast to the path of impersonal, unreasoning myopic commercial advantage that we unwittingly stumble along at present. This can only happen when we know the facts, and decide that we will not mortgage our own and our children's future to ignorance, naive optimism or short-term greed. That's why you need to read this book.
