CLONES: THE CLOWNS OF TECHNOLOGY?
By Gareth Jones
Paternoster. 192 pages
ISBN 1 8 227 086 9
If you are looking for a careful, unemotional review of some of the new developments in biotechnology here is the book for you. As the title suggests, its major focus is cloning, but the range is much wider with sections reviewing the human genome project and its potential applications.
Gareth Jones is an evangelical Christian professor of neuro-anatomy and so an expert on the biological aspects of brain growth but he explains the basic technology of cloning in a readily understandable manner. He has written several other books which explore early human development and the knotty question of when the person begins. He puts aside the 'yuk' factor that so often comes into play when the issue of cloning is raised, and looks at the matter in a logical and biblical way. There are no specific biblical texts on the conundrums raised by modern technology but Scripture gives us ample teaching on the principles we should apply to our relationships with one another and with our children. It is these Gareth Jones applies to the new developments. Following Jesus's example in the Sermon on the Mount he encourages us to look to the motives behind the use of bio-technolgy. Overcoming serious medical problems is one thing, and part of our mandate to care for our neighbour; use for self-aggrandisement, or for bringing children into being as specified commodities is clearly wrong. The difficulties arise in knowing into which category some scenarios fall.
