Clone: The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead - Paperback

by Gina Kolata (Author)

The birth of Dolly -- the world's first clone -- placed in our hands the secret of creation. Few discoveries have so altered our notion of what it means to be human, or presented such a Gordian knot of ethical, spiritual, and scientific questions. Noted science journalist Gina Kolata broke the news nationally in The New York Times and was the first reporter to speak with Dr. Ian Wilmut, the embryologist who cloned Dolly. Now Kolata reveals the story behind Dolly, interweaving the social and cultural tales of our fear and fascination with cloning, reaching back nearly a century, with the riveting scientific accountof how a clone came to be and the mind-boggling questions Dolly presents for our future.Clone is a compelling blend of scientific suspense, dreams dashed, and frauds exposed, with provocative philosophical questions and an astute assessment of why Dolly's birth was only possible now. Like The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Lucy, and Chaos, this book gives us a window on history in the making, and an understanding of its profound effect on our lives.

Back Jacket

The birth of Dolly - the world's first clone - literally placed in our hands the secret of creation. Few discoveries have so challenged our sense of identity or presented such a complex knot of pressing ethical, spiritual, and scientific dilemmas. Science journalist Gina Kolata, the first reporter to speak with Dr. Ian Wilmut, the embryologist who cloned Dolly, has had unprecedented access to key scientists, ethicists, and experts at the center of the event. In this book, she reveals the story behind Dolly - reaching back to our earliest attempts to clone, uncovering the startling, largely unreported events that led to Dolly's birth, and exploring the mind-boggling questions that Dolly presents for our future.