Description: The Human Genome Project, an international scientific enterprise aimed at attaining a complete sequence and locator map of the entire human genetic structure by the year 2005, constitutes the largest single project ever undertaken in the life sciences. When completed, it will help pinpoint the genetic causes of virtually any human genetic trait and will offer promising interventions for many diseases and abnormalities related to genetic processes. Now, in this timely collection, scholars from the fields of philosophy, history, ethics, theology, and the natural sciences explore the complex, far-reaching issues surrounding the Human Genome Project.

Contributors discuss the historical background of the project, the issues behind the concepts of "code" and "genes, " the implicit reductionism in contemporary human genetics, the nagging issues surrounding potential new forms of positive "eugenics, " and the challenge the project presents for theological perspectives on human life.

Because of its interdisciplinary approach and its efforts to engage the scientific community in an informed discussion with humanistic scholars, Controlling Our Destinies stands alone among the literature on the Human Genome Project. In addition to generating advanced scholarly inquiry, it will be useful for classroom discussions and is certain to stimulate further analyses by humanistic and scientific scholars of the wider issues surrounding the Human Genome Project as it develops into the next century.

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