Review: Hacking Darwin

 I checked out Hacking Darwin because the Amazon reviews were good. I'm lucky I didn't spend money on it and just checked it out from the library. The book is shallow technically, and reads like an Engadget article about the glories of genetic engineering of embryos and future ability to select for traits. There's no caveats, just an assurance that this is coming and we should have an ethical debate about what should be allowed and what's not.

I think that's unlikely --- in general, humans are no good at predicting the future, and even when the future is predictable (e.g., the climate crisis), humans tend to avoid making decisions and put it off for as long as possible. And seriously? Given how competitive parents are about kids, there's no question that we will push the boundaries as far and as quickly as we can.

Interestingly enough, the best discussion of the ethical issues and parental competitive isn't in non-fiction books like these, but rather in science fiction. Read Nancy Kress's Beggars In Spain instead. That book was published 11 years ago, and explores these issues in a deeper fashion than Hacking Darwin's author could.