398 pages. 850 grams. Book is in very good unmarked condition. Dust jacket is in good condition with only light wear at extremities. Dust jacket condition preserved within new clear plastic non-adhesive protective covering. 'Now in the 1990s we have the Human Genome Project to map and analyse all the genes that underpin human life. Within 100 years scientists could be at work on the Project to Create Life. Even now, Jurassic Park is only just a fantasy. But can we control our awesome power? Can we ensuer that we use it to do good, and thread our way past the obvious and not-so-obvious pitfalls? In 'The Engineer In The Garden' Colin Tudge leads the reader gently through the deepest intricacies of the gene and of genetics, beginning with the puzzlement of the ancients (why does 'like beget like' but so erratically?), guiding us through classical genetics and animal and plant breeding into the modern age of molecular biology and the biotechnologies that are emerging from it, and on to the future, in which everything seems possible that 'does not break the bedrock laws of physics' including, perhaps, at least in cobbled form, the re-creation of forms long dead. The stopping points are marvellously intriguing. In a chapter that takes its title from Tennyson, 'And After Many a Summer', Tudge explains how it is that embryos turn in to people and than age and die. He asks, as Tennyson did - and later Aldous Huxley - what would happen if death were denied. In another chapter, 'The Games Animals Play' he traces the ramifications of sociobiology, and concludes that in every rutting stag must lie a gene that encapsulates the plot of Hamlet. In the chapters that deal with the present, he explores the full power of genetic engineering: from feats that are comparativley straightforward - though of enormous potential significance - such as the creation of novel vaccines or antibiotics, to pleasant fantasies of tropical fruit in northern winters, and to nightmarish visions of cows reduced to bags of milk, or pigs to globes of flesh. But it is the future that excites or terrifies. It will become possible to prolong human life indefinitely. It will become possible to create new kingdoms of living things - plants, for instance, that feed like bacteria on noxious chemicals and survive soaring temperatures. We will be able, in the fulness of time, to create life. Tudge then asks - can we control this power? Can we even define what it is we want to achieve and why? The answer is 'perhaps'. But one of the conditions is that everyone in societies that affect to be democratic must strive for scientific literacy.' 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Non-fiction, Science; Non-fiction, Philosophy. ISBN: 0224038265. ISBN/EAN: 9780224038263. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 002510. Jonathan Cape, London, 1993. Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. First Edition.