Who is Smart Enough to Decide how to Improve the Human Species?
By Joel Achenbach,
The Washington Post
| 01. 05. 2016
Untitled Document
Which technology promises to most dramatically change our lives? A plausible answer is artificial intelligence -- see part 2 of our series "The Resistance." But a lot of smart people would say biotechnology. Or maybe both, in a glorious scientific tango.
Genetic engineering and molecular biology benefit from the processing power creating by the digital revolution. There's a convergence happening -- and this is arguably one of the biggest stories in the world right now.
Not long ago I walked around Kendall Square with Juan Enriquez. He’s an academic, investor and co-author of “Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life on Earth." The book's premise: We’re undergoing directed evolution. Darwinian natural selection is giving way to bio-engineering, both the conscious kind in the laboratory and as an unintended consequence of urbanization, changes in lifestyle, the domestication of animals and so on. There's a reason obesity, autism, asthma and other auto-immune diseases are on the rise; these are side-effects of how we are evolving in our modern environment.
As Enriquez and co-author Steve Gullans write...
Related Articles
By Rob Stein, NPR [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 08.06.2025
A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies.
His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new...
By Kristel Tjandra, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | 07.30.2025
CRISPR has taken the bioengineering world by storm since its first introduction. From treating sickle cell diseases to creating disease-resistant crops, the technology continues to boast success on various fronts. But getting CRISPR experiments right in the lab isn’t simple...
By Arthur Caplan and James Tabery, Scientific American | 07.28.2025
An understandable ethics outcry greeted the June announcement of a software platform that offers aspiring parents “genetic optimization” of their embryos. Touted by Nucleus Genomics’ CEO Kian Sadeghi, the $5,999 service, dubbed “Nucleus Embryo,” promised optimization of...
By Keith Casebonne and Jodi Beckstine [with CGS' Katie Hasson], Disability Deep Dive | 07.24.2025
In this episode of Disability Deep Dive, hosts Keith and Jodi explore the complex interplay between disability science, technology, and ethics with guest Katie Hasson, Associate Director at the Center for Genetics and Society. The conversation delves into...