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Sep
01

WonderOutpost Science Forum: Future Human Evolution

“The advance of genetic engineering makes it quite conceivable that we will begin to design our own evolutionary progress.”

– Issac Asimov

Been there; done that. With agriculture and the directed breeding of numerous species of animals and plants, we’ve had a long history of genetic engineering, giving us distinct survival advantage. Science came to our consciousness giving us understanding of the physical and microbial world, allowing us to cure many of the great diseases in human history. Life spans were extended and so to our ability to circumvent hereditary ailments as well as improve our resistances to disease. All along, our social orders have exercised war, eugenics, slavery, and poverty upon various races and populations.

And now, with technologies on the horizon including man-machine “wet-wire” interfaces, bio-computers, nanotechnology, advancement of stem cell therapies, and artificial tissue generation, among others, being employed to fight disease or enhance human abilities. With the growth of genetic understanding and the ability to sequence genes, would we somehow integrate such technologies into the human genome as a delivery mechanism for some cure?  A genetic cure might be introduced at an embryonic level with the ability to be passed to your children. Or, we may engineer people to work more effectively in space or on Mars.

I would like to have the genetic modification to grow dark chocolate finger nails with candy coating.  YES!  Then my kids will have finger nails to harvest.

We invite you to weigh in on this subject as well as any of the following questions. Please leave your comments below.

  • What can be said about the future of human evolution with these in mind?
  • How can we distinguish natural selection from human directed selection?
  • Has evolution fundamentally changed given human applied technologies and manipulations?
  • What are the moral implications of life-saving genetic alteration that would impact heredity?

Don’t miss Wonderfest 2009 in November, where panel of scientist will debate “Is Evolution Still Darwinian?”

“A disquieting era of genetic manipulation is coming, one that may revolutionize human capacities…”

~ George F. Will


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