“Your manuscript is both good and original,” wrote Samuel Johnson (it is said) to a writer seeking his blessing, “but the part which is good is not original and the part which is original is not good.”

We can rest easy. Bernard Rollin's ideas, analyses, and syntheses are both good and original, simultaneously. Readers seeking the author's point of view will find it to be that of the well-informed nonscientist, the late-twentieth-century “everyman” who embraces technology only after it is understood in an ethical and social context. We began to understand the genetic code only in the 1950s, and genetic engineering became possible only in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus there has not been time for much “ethical aging” of the issues such engineering raises.

It is in this context that Rollin uses the Frankenstein metaphor as a starting point for his discussion of genetic engineering of animals. No other book on this subject (there aren't many anyway) is as wide-ranging as this one, and none risks putting forth conclusions – in some cases, tentative ones – as this one does. As a result, some scientists will find fault with Rollin's views. But so too will some ethicists and “animal advocates” who will find some of the author's proposals for future genetic engineering surprising.

The more scientists learn about animal sentience, behavior, and self-awareness, the more important are thoughtful analyses of how the application of technology to animals can affect these properties.