United States
£ GBP
The Edge of Evolution presents a re-reading of H. G. Wells' novel The Island of Doctor Moreau as a key to addressing the controversies of our own humanity. Ron Edwards is a broadly-experienced researcher and teacher specializing in evolutionary theory, as well as a long-time participant in animal care oversight at a leading research institution.
His careful examination in The Edge of Evolution looks strictly at the novel's actual story to rehabilitate it from the widespread distorted version, and argues that the real story provides an outstanding means to confront human exceptionalism, a prevailing stopping-point for science and ethics. It integrates literature, history, and science; it bluntly criticizes, discloses, and advocates; and it combines accuracy with clarity, directed toward a lay audience.
Finally, The Edge of Evolution also raises a genuinely new and relevant issue: with human exceptionalism abolished, where do ethics come from?
PART ONE: NOT MEANT TO KNOW
Chapter 1: The Paw
Taking exception / Science and fiction / Science fiction
Chapter 2: The Ism that Wasn't
It does not please you / Darwin in the middle / Two windows
Chapter 3: Don't Meddle
Movies and Moreau / Sorcery / Life science
PART TWO: THE THING IS AN ABOMINATION
Chapter 4: The House of Pain
No pain, no gain / Moreau 1, Prendick 0 / Pain is real
Chapter 5: Into the Lab and Onto the Slab
In the book / How / But why
PART THREE: POOR BEASTS
Chapter 6: All the Difference
Moreau's Man / Prendick's gaze / "No!" / The virago
Chapter 7: To the Beasts You May Go
No threshold / Selection and its discontents / The Valley
PART FOUR: NO ESCAPE
Chapter 8: That is the Law
Whose Law? / Hell is real / The Jesus moment / The rebel
Chapter 9: Beast Monsters
The taste of blood / The stubborn beast flesh / The horror
Chapter 10: Big Thinks
Suffering and philosophy / Science and humanity
Ronald Edwards is an author and most recently served as an Assistant Professor, DePaul University
