The immediate response to the birth of Dolly the sheep was a revulsion against the idea of using the same technique to clone human beings. But the news had just the opposite effect on an eccentric scientist named Richard Seed, who declared with an eerie bravado that he was going to produce "half-a-dozen bouncing-baby, happy, smiling clones" before the end of the decade.
Most scientists dismissed his plan as kooky; several U.S. states and 19 European countries outlawed it. But a year later, Seed insists that he is undeterred. He claims to have a partner, an obstetrician-gynecologist, but he won't name...