by Eduardo Galeano

About the author: Eduardo Galeano is an Uruguayan journalist. His books include Memory of Fire and Open Veins of Latin America.

In his novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley predicted the assembly-line production of human beings. Embryos would be developed in test tubes according to their future social functions, from those created to command to those made for servitude.

Now, seventy years later, biogenetics promises us, as a sort of millennium gift, a new human race. Altering the genetic code for generations to come, science will produce beings that are intelligent, beautiful, healthy, and perhaps immortal, depending on how much money the parents have to spend.

Nobel laureate James Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA and formerly headed the Human Genome Project, preaches a despotism of science. He refuses to accept...