The topic of this book — how boundaries are drawn between the natural and the synthetic — has received too little serious attention, both in science and in society. Chemists are justifiably touchy about descriptions of commercial products as 'chemical-free', but the usual response, which is to lament media or public ignorance, fails to recognize the complex history and sociology that lies behind preconceptions about chemical artefacts. The issue is much broader, however, touching on areas ranging from stem-cell therapy and assisted conception to biomi-metic engineering, synthetic biology, machine intelligence and ecosystem management.
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