Princeton Weekly Bulletin May 25, 1998
Right place, right time for Remaking Eden
By Caroline Moseley
I was in the right place at the right time," says Professor of Molecular Biology Lee Silver, author of the provocative and highly readable Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World (1997).
The book updates readers on the current state of reproductive technology and genetic technology and peers into the future of what Silver terms "reprogenetics" -- the "very powerful" combination of reproductive and genetic technologies. In a world where in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood and genetic testing for diseases are daily occurrences, where a mother becomes pregnant to provide a bone marrow donor for her leukemic daughter -- the future is here, says Silver. His book makes the point that the technology already exists to do many things that once seemed impossible and, to many, unnatural and even immoral.
Silver began work on the book in June 1996 and expected it would be published two years later. "I had written the entire book when Dolly the sheep was born in February 1997," he says. "So I stayed up for six weeks and wrote an entire new section about cloning."
Suddenly, says Silver, "The publisher wanted to publish the book immediately. With the news of Dolly, they said, 'Let's go!'" Remaking Eden, says Silver, was the first book published in the United States that took note of Dolly.
Informing educated laymen
Silver's intention in Remaking Eden is "to inform the educated layman about current developments in genetic technology and reproductive technology.
"People need to understand the scientific basis of these technologies, and understand what's real and what's not real," he says. "Some of the things I talk about sound totally outrageous, and yet they are things we do every day with mice. Other things that people worry about are very unlikely -- like growing ranks of headless fetuses in incubators."
Silver says it is important for scientists as well as nonscientists to appreciate "the driving force behind these technologies. It's not governments or states -- it's people who want biological children and who, like all of us, want to give those children every advantage in life."
Silver reports that he asked students in one of his classes whether they would allow any sort of genetic enhancement -- genetic engineering -- on their children. Most of the students said they would not. Then, Silver suggested a hypothetical gene enhancement that would prevent AIDS, and most of the students changed their minds.
"We all need to realize how powerful the individual impulse to have children is, and also, how powerful money is. That's what's going to drive this evolution of humankind: money."
People with sufficient money already give their children enormous advantages, he points out -- "like the computer I put on my children's desk. Whether it's education, ballet lessons or trips to Europe, people do everything they can for their children. Genetic enhancement is just an extension of that impulse."
Technology, politics
Indeed, what worries Silver is not the prospect of engineered embryos, but rather, he says, "the issue of fairness." When a society combines "powerful technology, individuals with a drive to reproduce, and a political system that says individuals can do whatever they can afford so long as they don't hurt anyone -- that's really going to increase the distance between the haves and the have-nots."
Silver hopes his book has perhaps "liberated scientists to talk about genetically engineering human embryos. For a long time that topic has been off limits. I hope scientists will no longer feel shut down by the Religious Right, of which many are afraid."
Fundamentalists may not appreciate Silver's speculation about the possibility of men giving birth (a C-section into the abdominal cavity, in which an embryo was implanted) or "collaborative reproduction" (combining biological ingredients from one or both prospective social parents with ingredients "donated" by one or two biological parents).
They may, however, appreciate the frequent biblical quotations that head chapters. A section on "Mothers and Fathers: Variations on a Theme" begins, "And when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children ... she said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or I shall die!'" (Genesis 30:1)
"I love that quotation, Silver exclaims. "It shows that nothing changes. One of the primary themes of my book is that people want biological children so badly they will do just about anything to get them."
Reunions seminar: Human Mind
Remaking Eden has landed its author in a little hot water and a lot of radio and TV studios. Since the book was published, Silver has given about 100 radio interviews, including NPR and CBS. He has appeared on national television, interviewed by Tom Brokaw and others. An inch-thick dossier on his desk contains invitations to speak in this month alone. Among recent appearances: the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; Planned Parenthood; International House at Columbia University; and many schools, colleges and universities -- including Princeton, where (besides teaching his genetics seminar) he will participate in an Alumni Council program on Genetics and Behavior, and a Reunions seminar on The Human Mind.
Clearly, all this activity agrees with Silver. He thinks it's important for scientists to be "out in the world." Most molecular biological research is done in institutions and medical schools, he says, so "95 percent of molecular biologists work in an environment where they meet only other experimental scientists." Princeton is rare, he says, in having a strong research department in a liberal arts university. In order to write a book like Remaking Eden, he believes, "You have to talk to people outside the field, and listen to their understandings and misunderstandings, to know at what level to write and what language to use."
Born the old-fashioned way
Born "the old-fashioned way" in Philadelphia, Silver earned 1973 bachelor's and master's degrees in physics at the University of Pennsylvania. He "found out about biology at two o'clock one morning," he says, "sitting with a bunch of friends in a college dorm. One friend who was majoring in biology told me how exciting it was, learning about DNA and RNA."
Silver entered the graduate program in biophysics at Harvard and received his PhD in 1978. "No other biology program in the country would have taken me," he says. "I didn't have any of the prerequisites. Only Harvard had this wonderful program for physicists who wanted to learn biology." (He points out that Francis Crick -- who, with geneticist James Watson discovered the structure of DNA in 1952 -- was a physicist who entered biology.)
Silver prefers to be called a geneticist -- "not a biologist, and definitely not a bioethicist." His experimental focus is behavioral genetics, "the genetic approach to understanding the mind." He is interested in discovering and characterizing genes that predispose individuals toward various types of behaviors. Currently he is studying abusive use of alcohol and nicotine and the genetic basis for other behaviors such as anxiety and curiosity.
"I've wanted to be a professor at Princeton since I was eight years old," Silver declares. A science-loving child, he "knew about Einstein, knew he worked in Princeton and figured he was a teacher at Princeton University.
"It sounded good -- being paid to think and teach and do experiments. Even as a kid, I thought being a professor was the greatest job in the world. And it turns out I was right."