<P> The biological techniques used to control the populace in Brave New World do not include genetic engineering; Huxley wrote the book before the structure of DNA was known . However, Gregor Mendel's work with inheritance patterns in peas had been rediscovered in 1900 and the eugenics movement, based on artificial selection, was well established . Huxley's family included a number of prominent biologists including Thomas Huxley, half - brother and Nobel Laureate Andrew Huxley, and his brother Julian Huxley who was a biologist and involved in the eugenics movement . Nonetheless, Huxley emphasises conditioning over breeding (nurture versus nature); human embryos and fetuses are conditioned through a carefully designed regimen of chemical (such as exposure to hormones and toxins), thermal (exposure to intense heat or cold, as one's future career would dictate), and other environmental stimuli, although there is an element of selective breeding as well . </P> <P> Social critic Neil Postman contrasted the worlds of Nineteen Eighty - Four and Brave New World in the foreword of his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death . He writes: </P> <P> What Orwell feared were those who would ban books . What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one . Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information . Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism . Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us . Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance . Orwell feared we would become a captive culture . Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy . As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions ." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain . In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure . In short, Orwell feared that our fear will ruin us . Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us . </P> <P> Journalist Christopher Hitchens, who himself published several articles on Huxley and a book on Orwell, noted the difference between the two texts in the introduction to his 1999 article "Why Americans Are Not Taught History": </P>

Who are the characters in brave new world named after