Laboratory constructed humans, animals, plants and trans-species are proliferating in our environment often without our knowledge. These are fleshed organic entities beyond any previously known category: Recombinant chimera, part plant, part animal, part human; intelligent viruses, smart bacteria, clones, lab grown organs and body parts, monstrous embryos, cryogenic ghost children, stem cell starter cultures. Entire new medical specialties and techniques are being created and deployed experimentally among selected populations. The speed with which this Second Genesis of new genetic creation is proceeding contributes to the lack of informed critical public debate engaged with the momentous issues being raised by the new biosciences. Because the genetically altered creatures and organisms introduce irrevocable changes to currently existing life forms and ecosystems, it is urgent that the discourse becomes far more public and informed. Each one of us is implicated because our environment, bodies, genetic heritage, and food supply are being radically altered; each of us is challenged in different ways by these new conditions to activate our creative, social, and political imaginations.

In the Biotech Century, Information Technology marries biotechnology through digital technology. The far-reaching implications of this have not even begun to be understood by the general public. Biotechnology and science are not monumental or all the same. There are beneficial aspects to biotechnological deployment that however must be considered in the light of economic, ecological, ethical, and power issues in ways that are rarely addressed. The overwhelmingly market driven interests of the biotech industry must be brought into clear focus. There must be ways of slowing down the rapid deployment of largely untested and uncontrolled dissemination of biotechnological, genetic, and transgenic experimentation in the global environment.

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