Re: [ejlist] Genetics?

[e-ensign <e-ensign@thing.net>]

-- [ From: e-ensign * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

>I was re-reading Der Weltstaat and a question raises into my  mind, >its
about genes and sci-fi ...
>Do you know in  which years were to appear, in the sci-fi literarian 
>world, the first relates about genes manipulation - its to said: the 
>psibility of create new species?

I'd say, Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932). The concept of "genetic
engineering" is a fairly recent one - Watson & Crick discovered the double
helix in 1953 ... Before that it was just "eugenics," which goes back at
least to Plato's "Republic." Adam Parfrey has published an interesting,
though strangely affirmative essay on "Eugenics: The Orphaned Science" in
his anthology "Apocalypse Culture" (Amok Press, New York 1987) - you might
find that piece helpful. 

Apropos Science Fiction: At the same time Watson & Crick were discovering
the double helix, SF author Theodore Sturgeon was writing his book "The
Golden Helix" ...

Regards,
Richard Brem

-------------------------------------

>>Even where the forces of nature square up to one another, hierarchies are
in evidence. Herculean, Centaurian and Promethean figures begin to emerge -
the first such figure is that of the Worker. Technology is his uniform. As a
universal language, technology will liberate the Triarians from the rote-
learning of numbers and alphabets, and perhaps even free them from
compulsory schooling altogether. People will learn existentially - by
playing and looking. 
   
  One should also remember the giants and the chimeras, which make their
appearance at the point where science - nuclear physics and genetic
engineering, for example - reaches its own limits and begins to overstep
them.<< 

                          Ernst Juenger  "Prognoses" (1993)