How to Build a Human: Adventures in How We Are Made and Who We Are. Philip Ball
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William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019
Copyright © Philip Ball 2018
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Philip Ball asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008331771
Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008331795
Version: 2019-05-27
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION My Brain in a Dish
CHAPTER 1 Pieces of Life Cells past and present
CHAPTER 2 Body Building Growing humans the old-fashioned way
FIRST INTERLUDE The Human Superorganism How cells became communities
CHAPTER 3 Immortal Flesh How tissues were grown outside the body
SECOND INTERLUDE Heroes and Villains Cancer, immunity and our cellular ecosystem
CHAPTER 4 Twists of Fate How to reprogramme a cell
CHAPTER 5 The Spare Parts Factory Making tissues and organs from reprogrammed cells
CHAPTER 6 Flesh of My Flesh Questioning the future of sex and reproduction
CHAPTER 7 Hideous Progeny? The futures of growing humans
THIRD INTERLUDE Philosophy of the Lonely Mind Can a brain exist in a dish?
CHAPTER 8 Return of the Meatware Coming to terms with our fleshy selves
This book arose from an astonishing experiment in which I was invited to take part, and which involved the transformation of a piece of me.
In the course of writing it, as I spoke to scientists about cell biology and fertility, embryology and medicine, philosophy and ethics, it dawned on me just how much science, in these fields especially, is driven by stories.
I don’t mean “human stories” – those tales about people that are said to be so central to keeping general audiences engaged. I mean that our perception of what science means is shaped by narratives about it. There are narratives that society imposes on new discoveries and advances, which are often cut from older cloth. In biology – particularly developmental, cell and reproductive biology – these stories tend to come from myth, science fiction and fantasy, and they are often alarming: they might, for example, draw on Frankenstein, Brave