Silver’s Remaking Eden and the Silver Screen Essay -- Lee M. Silver

Silver’s Remaking Eden and the Silver Screen In Remaking Eden, Lee M. Silver asks three central questions: Who controls life? What counts as life? And what will human life look like in the future? The question Silver does not ask is whether or not human life as we now know and define it will change. Silver sees the advance of genetic engineering as inevitable, due to consumer demand for it as a technology and the unrelenting curiosity of scientists. Power resides in science, according to Silver, and that power is â€Å"enormous.† In the closing chapter to Remaking Eden, entitled â€Å"Tomorrow’s Children,† he recounts how â€Å"a single eccentric scientist named Kary Mullis† obliterated all â€Å"preconceived notions of scientific limitations† with his invention of the Polymerase Chain Reaction or â€Å"PCR† (240). As Silver describes it: More than any other technique invented during the twentieth century, PCR has changed the course of the biological and medical sciences. In addition to the enormous power that it added to gene discovery and analysis . . . PCR has made it possible to obtain rapid genetic profiles not only on humans but other animals and plants as well, with an enormous impact on both agriculture and environmental science. PCR has also had an enormous impact on forensics with its power to provide genetic profiles on even single hairs left behind at the scene of a crime. And PCR has provided us with the ability to look back into the past, to demonstrate that skeletons found buried in an isolated Siberian town really did belong to the last Russian Czar and his family, and much further back to derive genetic profiles on insects and plants that have been extinct for millions of years [emphases added]. (241) For all his sc... ...st 2005 . Kakmi, Dmetri. â€Å"The Mystery of Being in Gattaca.† Australian Screen Education 35 (2004): 88-90. Communications and Mass Media Complete. EBSCO Databases DuBois Library, UMass Amherst. 12 August 2005 . Lemonick, Michael D. â€Å"Cloning Classics.† Time 8 Nov. 1993: 70. Expanded Academic ASAP. InfoTrac. DuBois Library, UMass Amherst. 12 August 2005 . Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family. 1997. New York: Perennial-Harper, 2002. Vergano, Dan, and Susan Wloszczyna. â€Å"Genetics Take Starring Role on Silver Screen.† USA Today 17 June 2002. 12 August 2005 genetics-movies.htm>.