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Ethics. Medical. Science. Nonfiction. Is a baby whose personality has been chosen from a gene supermarket still a human? If we choose what we create what happens to morality? Is this the end of human nature? The dramatic advances in DNA technology over the last few years are the stuff of science fiction. It is now not only possible to clone human beings it is happening. For the first time since the creation of the earth four billion years ago, or the emergence of mankind 10 million years ago, people will be able to choose their children's' sex, height, colour, personality traits and intelligence. It will even be possible to create 'superhumans' by mixing human genes with those of other animals for extra strength or longevity. But is this desirable? What are the moral and political consequences? Will it mean anything to talk about 'human nature' any more? Is this the end of human beings? Our Posthuman Future is a passionate analysis of the greatest political and moral problem ever to face the human race.… (more)
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Thankfully
The book also sports a twelve page bibliography however, in this college textbook-like work there is no index, where surely one is needed.
Author Francis Fukuyama, who has more degrees than a thermometer, delves into the mechanics, the challenges and the deep moral questions facing a Mankind who is becoming able to manipulate his own progeny.
Who will decide what is 'too short' and when does a child deserve genetic manipulation to grow taller that he normally would? Who will decide what 'harmful' genes will be removed from what individuals, along with what determines something as harmful vs. inconvenient? Will gene-coding for attributes such as intelligence, height and aggressiveness become commonplace?
Do single genes or pairs of genes determine certain characteristics or are there unknowably complicated connections of genes that turn off and on like strings of choreographed Christmas tree lights? Will we splice animal DNA into human genes as we have spliced animal DNA into the genes of some food crops?
Can human gene experimentation be as strictly and thoroughly regulated as is The World's nuclear bomb technology?
When I began reading this book I thought to myself that everyone should also be reading it. But soon I arrived at the heavily philosophical chapters of "Human Rights", "Human Nature", and "Human Dignity" and was drug back into my too warm and too sleepy Glendale Community College Philosophy 101 classroom.
One thing I very much appreciated was that Mr. Fukuyama, although being pro-abortion, specifically listed both the Conservative's views and the Left's views on many of the challenges facing our nascent ability to design human beings.
If you want to ascend to the cutting edge of the coming human genetic modification surge in the areas of what we know, what is coming, and what questions must be answered, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution is an excellent but intricately worded, primer.