Jeremy Rifkin notes that after more than forty years of running on parallel tracks, the information and life sciences are fusing into a single powerful technological and economic force that is laying the foundation for the Biotech Century. Our way of life, says Rifkin, is likely to be transformed more fundamentally in the next few decades than in the previous thousand years. Food and fiber may be grown indoors in giant bacteria baths, partially eliminating the farmer and the soil for the first time in history. Animal and human cloning could be commonplace, with "replication" increasingly replacing "reproduction." Millions of people could obtain a detailed genetic readout of themselves, allowing them to gaze into their own biological futures and predict and plan their lives in ways never before possible. Parents may choose to have their children gestated in artificial wombs outside the human body. Genetic changes could be made in human fetuses to correct deadly diseases and disorders and enhance mood, behavior, intelligence, and physical traits. The new genetic commerce raises more troubling questions than any other economic revolution in history. Rifkin explores these and many other critical issues in this book about the coming era.

Reviews

We are poised on the brink of a revolution of unparalleled real-life impact, argues Rifkin in this impassioned, erudite and well-reasoned study. Already, recombinant DNA techniques, computer gene-mapping and the globalization of commerce have begun to reshape life: the cloning of mammals for inexpensive pharmaceuticals is but one example. Though he does not dispute the promised benefits of biotechnology, Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and author of The End of Work and many other trend-tracking books, warns that we must closely consider its possible (and often little-publicized) negative consequences. A technology that can find genetic sources of disease, for example, can also lead to widespread acceptance of eugenic practices; techniques for genetically altering crops and animals to improve food sources could just as easily be used to create customized biological weapons. ("Scientists say they may be able to clone selective toxins to eliminate specific racial or ethnic groups whose genotypical makeup predispose them to certain disease patterns," Rifkin warns.) Biotechnology has the capacity to deplete, rather than enhance, Earth's gene pool and irreparably damage ecological balance, according to Rifkin, and it may transform our conceptions of nature and of life itself. Just as the Industrial Revolution caused unexpected problems such as depletion of natural resources, overpopulation, economic injustice and pollution, so the Biotech Revolution will inevitably cause problems we cannot yet imagine, Rifkin contends, especially if we fail to educate ourselves about the nature of biotechnology and neglect to make careful decisions about how it should best be used. This wide-ranging and deeply intelligent analysis is an excellent first step. 50,000 first printing; author tour. (Mar.)