August 30, 1973

Dr. Joseph Fletcher
52 Van Nese Road
Belmont, Massachusetts 02178

Dear Joe,

I received your letter of August 27th juet while I was putting
the final touches on my introduction. I am enclosing a copy, and will
also send one with a copy of this letter directly to Doubleday.

I really hope I con piSeuade you from putting the word engineering
in your title. It has ugly connotations and is one of those loaded
words thet you deplore in your own writing. I would think that a
title like "Ethical Parenthood’ Weathering the Biological Revolution"
would be just as catchy and yet not have such built-in prejudice.

The idea of engineering humans is a just suppose story at this point,
but there are many other very important issues that can be called
engineering only by stretching the metaphor for purposes that have
to be called marketing rather than enlightenment.

Your letter mentions computerized searches 66rbibliography. I was
not aware that these exist for books and I would be interested in any
informetion that you have about that. I have been trying to get Gene
Garfield of the Institute for Scientific Information to extend hia
services from journal articles to books but it has not been a very
plausible proposition so far. This is of course nbtargument against
using a clear descriptive title,

I have not seen Enight's book and I am not sure it will be easy to
get in the next few weeks, so {f you can send me a xerocopy of what you
refer to I would be grateful.

You ask about the book I am supposed to do for Doubleday. I had
contracted with them some years ago to make a book out of the sets of
columns that I had written for The Washington Post. However, the project
was rather long delayed in their offices and during that interval a lot
of time passed and I also had some second thoughts myself. So, I have been
trying to tell them that that deal is off, that I think the time has paseed
for using those particular texts. They seem to have some trouble about
getting my message, eo perhaps my repeating it by copy of this letter may
help clarify the realities on that one.
I am sorry to have raised so much trouble about a fee for this
writing. I certainly did not want to put any of it on you. I was
simply inquiring about what the usual practices were and their offéeris
entirely fair. So, I hope there are no more problems from that end.

I am holding on to your manuscript for a few weeks longer because
I think I can offer you some additional detailed criticisms but I
will have to wait until I get some more time for it. But as you did

express some urgency about the introduction, I am sending that along
immediately.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr
Enclosure