Title

Unnatural: The Heretical Idea of Making People

Philip Ball

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Published by Vintage Digital, part of Vintage Publishing

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Format: ebook

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EAN: 9781407085777
Published: 10 Feb 2011

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About the book

Synopsis

Can we make a human being?

The question has been asked for many centuries, and has produced recipes ranging from the clay golem of Jewish legend to the mass-produced test-tube babies in Brave New World. Unnatural delves beneath the surface of the cultural history of 'anthropoeia' - the artificial creation of people - to explore what it tells us about our views on life, humanity, creativity and technology, and the soul.

Philip Ball traces the threads that link the legendary inventor Daedalus, Goethe's tragic Faust, the automata-making magicians of E.T.A. Hoffman and Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein. He argues that these old tales and myths are alive and well, subtly manipulating the current debates about assisted conception, embryo research and human cloning, which have at last made the idea of 'making people' into flesh and blood reality.

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What the critics say

Unnatural is a beautifully written, deeply intelligent book that will force every reader to rethink at least some of their preconceptions
- Sunday Telegraph

The two cultures of science and art are not antagonists, divergent in their aims and mutually unintelligible: they happily cohabit inside Ball's compendious, eclectic head.
- Observer

A brave, sane and intellectually nimble account of a topic which only gets more ambiguous with each scientific advance. Unnatural is fascinating and engaging, and a polemic only for cool heads and open hearts when dealing with issues of such serious and profound complexity
- Scotland on Sunday

Meticulous, witty and sometimes provocative
- Sunday Times

Labelling Ball a science writer sells his writing short, for its value lies above all in a range that dissolves the awkward silences between science and the larger culture of which it is part.
- Independent

Philip Ball presents the ethical dilemmas, ancient and modern, with intelligence and assurance
- The Times

Fascinating book
- Evening Standard

Ball's thoughtful book is a reminder that as we try and deal with how to enable and assist people into being, we need to understand and then conquer our fears surrounding the very idea of making people.
- Guardian

Ball's assiduously science-literature approach is very welcome
- The Word

Fascinating
- Scotsman

If Ball's book is an entertaining romp across centuries and genres, it also has a target...What Ball does so effectively...is to show why language and stories matter- in effect, why humanities matter
- Times Literary Supplement

The most polymathic science writer of our time
- Independent, Books of the Year

By this author

About the Author

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and a consultant editor for Nature, where he previously worked as an editor for physical sciences. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media, and his many books on scientific subjects include Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another, which won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. His latest books include The Music Instinct, Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind, and, most recently, Curiosity. Philip obtained a PhD in physics from the University of Bristol.