Smart Mice, Not-So-Smart People: An Interesting and Amusing Guide to Bioethics

Art Caplan provides a practical, easily grasped guide to today's controversial high tech medical issues at a time when scientific discovery is outpacing existing policy and yesterday's paradigms. His provocative and amusing essays range from cloning to engineering ourselves. His essay on brain enhancement brings it home when he frames the morality in the context of sending his son, Zach, to private school concluding that people want to optimize their brains. Caplan is a visionary leader in the field of bioethics. This new academic discipline is as critical to biotechnology as is groundbreaking scientific research. If Americans are going to benefit from scientific breakthroughs of the new millennium such as the mapping of the human genome, gene therapy and stem cell research, we must have excellent communications between the scientific community and society. Smart Mice, Not So Smart People provides that critical communications bridge. Caplan has a unique ability to communicate to the academic community, the biotech industry, the decision-makers in Washington, the media, and the general public. Without the understanding and participation of each cluster of this mosaic, we will not be able to transform scientific advances to medical treatments in a timely manner. Nor will the necessary funding for cutting edge research be forthcoming if the societal issues are not integrated into the equation.