Sites of Interest: Fall 2005
Remaking Eden by Lee M. Silver
 Each year a group of junior and senior honors students working under the direction of Commonwealth College Dean Linda Slakey select the Dean's Book Course texts for the coming year. As part of this Capstone Experience course, known as the Dean's Readers Seminar, the students research various aspects of the selected texts. Their research produces original papers of the students' own, along with annotated bibliographies of print and on-line resources. We in turn make those papers and bibliographies available to current Dean's Book Course instructors and students who are conducting similar research.
Some documents presented by the Dean's Readers are in PDF format. If you don't have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you may download it for free here.
Genre and Background Information
Lee Silver is a geneticist who applies his knowledge to make predictions about the future. His work can be considered that of a futurist; someone who makes educated guesses about where technology will take us. This section also contains useful author information and vocabulary.
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Also available: A glossary of terms from Remaking Eden
Perceptions of Life and Human Origins
This section provides material dealing with concepts of human life, in terms of when society believes it to begin and where it originated from. The controversies surrounding abortion and stem cell research are discussed to shed light on the question of when life begins, while such theories of evolution, intelligent design, and panspermia are covered to discuss the origin of the human species.
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Creating Life
This section presents material on the ways to cure infertility through the use of assisted reproductive technologies focusing mostly on the reproductive technology of in vitro fertilzation (IVF). The material presented here on IVF includes a summary of the new embryo transfer guidelines, the ethics of money-back guarantees, the uncertain legal status of and disposal choices for frozen embryos leftover from in vitro fertilization, and the new technology that allows one to test which embryos are most likely to be successfully implanted. A detailed history of reproductive techniques is presented along with the potential risk of birth defects that can arise through the use of these techniques.
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Cloning
This section presents material about reproductive and therapeutic cloning. There is a focus on stem cell research, because that is the first step in making these technologies possible and it is a topic that is frequently in the news. This section also includes definitions related to cloning from Remaking Eden, and background information about cloning technologies.
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Surrogacy
This section presents material on approaches to infertility, including surrogacy and some information on adoption and egg donation. In a time when single motherhood is acceptable and less children are put up for adoption, infertile couples need to find another route to have children of their own. Surrogacy is looked at from historical, legal, social, and ethical points of view.
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Tomorrow's Children
This section contains material about reprogenetic techniques used to perform genetic testing. This includes Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis and the basic science needed to understand how the technology works. Also, arguments both for and against PGD and postnatal testing are included, along with the costs of these procedures and speculation about what types of impact it may have on future generations.
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Media Perspectives
This section presents material on the ways the media has portrayed cloning, genetic engineering, and genetic testing. Special attention is paid to the standards of journalism, ethical considerations, and what kinds of responsibilities the media has when presenting scientific information.
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