Cold Utopia

I EXPECTED to disagree with most of what Ronald Bailey advocates in his new book, but I didn’t expect to be disappointed by the book itself. Bailey, the science correspondent for the libertarian magazine Reason, has long supported granting scientists a virtually anything-goes license to engage in human cloning and other biotechnologies. But even though the subjects he tackles are almost unfathomably deep, Bailey barely manages to get his feet wet.

Part of the problem is that he eagerly swallows the propaganda that if we would just untie scientists’ hands and lard on the public funding, we would achieve an earthly Nirvana. Bailey predicts that bioscience will permit us to become “forever young”: “By the end of the 21st Century, the typical American may attend a family reunion in which five generations are playing together. And great-great-great grandma, at 150 years old, will be as vital, with muscle tone as firm and supple, skin as elastic and glowing, as her thirty-year-old great-great grandson with whom she’s playing touch football.”

About the Author

Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism.

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Stem Cells

I EXPECTED to disagree with most of what Ronald Bailey advocates in his new book, but I didn’t expect to be disappointed by the book itself. Bailey, the science correspondent for the libertarian magazine Reason, has long supported granting scientists a virtually anything-goes license to engage in human cloning and other biotechnologies. But even though the subjects he tackles are almost unfathomably deep, Bailey barely manages to get his feet wet.

Part of the problem is that he eagerly swallows the propaganda that if we would just untie scientists’ hands and lard on the public funding, we would achieve an earthly Nirvana. Bailey predicts that bioscience will permit us to become “forever young”: “By the end of the 21st Century, the typical American may attend a family reunion in which five generations are playing together. And great-great-great grandma, at 150 years old, will be as vital, with muscle tone as firm and supple, skin as elastic and glowing, as her thirty-year-old great-great grandson with whom she’s playing touch football.”