If you are curious about the fuss surrounding Genetically Engineered (GE) foods, this book can get you up to speed. BEYOND EVOLUTION briefly recounts the history of recombinant DNA and transgenic research and goes on to carefully evaluate the current state of the art and implications for the future. While many agribiotechnologists have signed off on GE crops, other scientists are worried - some even warning that the potential danger to life on earth is considerably greater than that posed by nuclear weapons. By developing microbes which can deliver genetic material into cell nuclei, and then releasing the newly created organism into the environment, we are throwing open the doors to new forms of mutation, new diseases, new insect pests, and extinctions. Genetically altered species have already crossed out into wild populations, and new mutants are being developed and released at a breathtaking pace. At the same time, transgenic research is stirring a genetic soup concocted of a wild diversity of creatures to manufacture pharmeceuticals. (A "transgenic" organism contains DNA from non-related species: such as human genes inserted in mice, pigs, or cows; flounder genes in strawberries; spider genes in beans; and on, and on, and on, and on.) The problem with such pharmeceutical uses - which researchers are trying to overcome - is that organisms tend to resist material from other species. Our immune systems reject foreign biochemicals. Overcoming the resistance, however, looks like another Pandora's box. Resisting foreign invaders is essential to staying healthy. On top of the rejection problem, and perhaps worse, is the potential for cross-over diseases like Mad Cow syndrome (Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) which is just one of the zoonotic illnesses that such genetic mucking around might enhance. (Note that HIV seems to be a hominid disease to which wild creatures have adapted - the reason imprisoned chimps in labs refuse to get AIDS - but to which humans are susceptible. AIDS is only one painful example of the danger of zoonotic infection. Humans who have had pig-part transplants exhibit infection with porcine retrovirus - again, the practice is only permitted in the U.S. Retroviruses, you might recall, are involved in fun diseases like Ebola.) Meaningful testing of GE material would be slow and expensive - our understanding of genetic function is very incomplete. Proving saftey of a slight modification of even one plant or animal gene and its subsequent effect on a human consumer would require painstaking inquiry - not to mention the effect on the whole natural world. The U.S. government's solution has been to decide that it is simply unnecessary. Author Fox, who visited his subject a decade earlier in SUPERPIGS AND WONDERCORN, is well versed in his topic, more balanced in his views than this reviewer, and very adept at explaining a sometimes complicated and often bewildering subject. His discussion of the the ethical and technical issues involved in humanity's meddling with evolution are clear and as simple as his very complex subject will permit. A very, very frightening book.