Michael J. Reiss

“Improving Nature ?”, at first glance, may appear to be a eugenics manual, until one notices the question mark, and the subtitle- “The Science and Ethics of Genetic Engineering”. This book provides an introduction to both ethics and genetic engineering, applying the latter to the scrutiny of the former. What surprised me was the well reasoned and fair conclusions arrived at in the discussions put forth in this book, as genetic engineering is something misunderstood on the whole by non-scientists, among whom one of the authors belong, and with the book being more than ten years old.
Perhaps major errors have been avoided by the way that many of the questions of ethicality have been left unresolved, with the predominant attitude taken, where situations are not clear-cut, that it is best not to answer the question, where perhaps it would have possible for them to make a decision one way or the other. Of course though, with the philosophy of ethics, we are not going to reach conclusions as easily as we can in many other disciplines, and the reading of a book on ethics is always going to be less satisfying than something relatively more concrete in its conclusions as other branches of philosophy such as metaphysics. But, all the same, questions of ethicality need to be addressed, even if we can't answer them, and this book does not do a bad job of this. Genetic engineering is something the public do not need to fully understand, but it is something that will effect them ever more in the future, as biotechnology advances, and by reading something books like this people can save themselves possible irrational distress on sighting modified tomatoes in the supermarket, or “gene technology cheese”, neither of which are necessarily differently constituted than those produced traditionally.… (altro)

'It is both useful and stimulating and merits greater accessibility.' Journal of Biological Education
' ... a generally very fine book.' Biologist
' ... Reiss achieves a rare balance in illuminating his subject without unnecessary complication.' Journal of Natural History

The technique of allometry investigates the effects of size on such variables as food intake, energy requirements, growth rates, and age at first reproduction. Reiss brings together much of what is known about the consequences of size and provides a new and mathematically rigorous framework within which many quantitative predictions are made and tested using published and unpublished data. The models presented afford a new synthesis of the effects of size and open up pathways for further theoretical investigation and experimental testing. Care has been taken to give verbal presentations of all the mathematical conclusions to ensure that the text is widely intelligible.

Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. The scaling of average daily metabolic rate and energy intake; 3. Why do larger species invest relatively less in their offspring?; 4. The intraspecific relationship of parental investment to female body weight; 5. Growth and probability; 6. Quantitative models of body size; 7. Sexual dimorphism in body size; 8. Are larger species more dimorphic in size?; 9. Surface area/volume arguments in biology; 10. Prospectus; Glossary of mathematical terms; References; Index.… (altro)