Crossing the Borderlines
I'm not in the book's intended audience, and—no big surprise here—I wasn't impressed. As far as pop science books go, Shifting Borderlines is fairly pedestrian. The explanations of the science involved were cursory and, in the biology section, misleading.
For example, DNA repair is described as Terminator-like self-repair, as if single nucleotides in solution happily pair up with single strands with no mention of enzymes or energy expense. Longer strands pair better because of base-stacking, and single nucleotides have to overcome a significant entropy cost to stay attached to partners. DNA doesn't just pull nucleotides out of solution to repair itself.
Of course, the book isn't meant to be a primer on molecular biology—it's a book with a focus on futurism. The author employs four representatives: a skeptic, a Ray Kurzweil stand-in (seriously, it's the futurist with an alias), a popular science evangelist, and Dr. Azzam himself. They discuss the current state of science and the future of science and technology.
Despite his attempts, their discussions end up showing one real viewpoint: Dr. Azzam's. As an electrical engineer, Dr. Azzam proves his mettle in the computational aspects of his book, discussing topics such as the continuation of Moore's Law and the advancement of artificial intelligence. His treatment of physical theories is reasonably good.
Dr. Azzam, like most people, is understandably excited about advances in both computing and biotechnology. And, like most people, he can cite more innovations from computing that have produced tangible entities in his daily life—his iPod, phone, and so on all get a mention.
However, little omissions in biology are the foundation for an overly enthusiastic view of the future of biotechnology—cures for aging, cancer, and what-have-you are mentioned without much regard for the mechanism. One consistent assertion of futurists (and I am not the first to notice this) is that a cure for aging will arrive within their lifetimes. Hope springs eternal, I guess.
I also think it's interesting that both of the futurists he discusses, Aubrey de Grey and Ray Kurzweil, are trained in computer science and yet pick biotechnology as their path to immortality rather than some sort of Matrixy mind-copying deal. Perhaps they have more realistic expectations regarding the fields they are most familiar with?