The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts, the Fiction, And the Fear Driving the Greatest Scientific, Political And Religious Debate of Our Time

by Michael Bellomo

Looks at the stem cell controversy, covering the attempts of researchers to develop new treatments for a host of diseases and the arguments of stem cell opponents who contend that such research is against the laws of nature and religion.

Genres: Science

262 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2006

Reviews

[dopplereffectzebra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly don’t bother. This book held promise for the first twenty pages then it was all downhill. If I could rate it lower than 1 star I would. There is a debate around this topic but it wasn’t explored properly here.

[Books Ring Mah Bell · Rating 1 out of 5]

Do yourself a favor and pass it up for a more recent read.

There's a lot of these:
"a small mound of the beads looks like an impossibly fine pile of lumpfish caviar." (re: a cell separation system)

"this procedure, which is not too unlike shelling extremely delicate peas from a microscopic pod, must puncture and destroy the embryo. This allows the precious cargo of stem cells to spill out for collection on the petri dish medium like a handful of jewels strewn on a blood red carpet."

and so on. really.

Lots of interesting bits about the history of stem cell research, and the political and religious battles taking place, but none of these interesting bits were developed into more. And there is soooo much more.

[Grant Davis]

This book showed great promise at first by being engaging and relevant. However, as the book passed it's half-way point, it became obvious what the author's beliefs were and one could not help but read it in every paragraph. It is obvious that the author does not believe in any type of ethical restraint on stem cell research, but he fails to provide any tangible evidence that unrestricted embryonic stem cell research has ever been beneficial. This is a book comprised of "possibles" and "maybes" that shouldn't have been half of the length that it is.