Get Ready for a New Human Species

Thanks to new genomics technologies, scientists have not only been able to read organisms' genomes faster than ever before, they can also write increasingly complex changes into those genomes, creating organisms with new capabilities.

Enriquez, who spoke at Technology Review's EmTech conference on Tuesday, says our newfound ability to write the code of life will profoundly change the world as we know it. Because we can engineer our environment and ourselves, humanity is moving beyond the constraints of Darwinian evolution. The result, he says, may be an entirely new species.

We knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when. The ability to physically affect our environment,and our selves connects us directly to evolution, and this in itself could be considered a new human. My mind leaps forward, beyond medical benefits, to when we may choose to modify ourselves in some way via genetic manipulation. Of course, longevity is probably at the top of the list for changes.

TR: Why do you think there is going to be a new human species?

Juan Enriquez: The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself. As we do that, Darwin's rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken. By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution, we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires.

Evolve at will? Will there be regulations and rules to this game?
This seems inevitable and I wonder about the frontier of genes in our world, perhaps the 'last' frontier that we have not yet tampered with. Will all these new genetic alterations have an effect in the entire geneosystem? Do we run the risk of losing our originality. Do we run the risk of creating a flawless dna code? Hmm, perfect dna, sound valuable huh? Wonder what kind of greed will surround and envelope this subject.

How is this impending revolution going to shape the world?

Ninety-eight percent of data transmitted today is in a language almost no one spoke 30 years ago. We're in a similar period now. But this revolution will be more widespread because this is software that writes its own hardware.

People think this technology will just change pharma or biotech, but it's much bigger than that. For example, it's already changing the chemical industry. Forty percent of Dupont's earnings today come from the life sciences. It's going to change everything; it will change countries, who's rich and who's poor. It's going to create new ethics.

Language, makes me think of some of McKenna's postulations.

Language is information is language I guess and one day maybe our language here will expand to the point of connecting with some type of language "out there' in the cosmos. How will this affect our reality?

New ethics?

It will change even basic questions like sex. There used to be one way to have a baby. Now there are at least 17. We have decoupled sex from time. You can have a baby in nine months, or you can freeze sperm or a fertilized egg and implant it in 10 years or 100 years. You can create an animal from one of its cells. You can begin to alter reproductive cells. By the time you put this together, you've fundamentally changed how you reproduce and the rules for reproduction.

Big can of worms here...

What does it take to make a new species?

We're beginning to see that it's an accumulation of small changes. Scientists have recently been able to compare the genomes of Neandertals and modern humans, which reveals just a .004 percent difference. Most of those changes lie in genes involved in sperm, testes, smell, and skin.

Engineering microbes alone might speciate us. When you apply sequencing technology to the microbes inhabiting the human body, it turns out to be fascinating. All of us are symbionts; we have 1,000 times more microbial cells in our bodies than human cells. You couldn't possible digest or live without the microbial cells inside your stomach. Some people have microbes that are better at absorbing calories. Diabetics have a slightly sweeter skin, which changes the microbial fauna and makes it harder for them to cauterize wounds.

.004 percent difference, not much huh? ENgineering microbes? Slippery slope maybe? Any volunteers for testing?

One concern about human enhancement is that only some people will have access, creating an even greater economic divide. Do you think this will be the case?

In the industrial revolution, it took a lifetime to build enough industry to double the wealth of a country. In the knowledge revolution, you can build billion-dollar companies with 20 people very quickly. The implication is that you can double the wealth of a country very quickly. In Korea in 1975, people had one-fifth of the income of Mexicans, and today they have five times more. Even the poorest places can generate wealth quickly. You see this in Bangalore, China. On the flip side, you can also become irrelevant very quickly.

Ahh, there is the money thing. Again another ethics issue comes up, and fairness too I guess.
Will these type of applications be considered 'cosmetic' and not pertinent to ones health? Oh the insurance co's are gonna love this stuff.

Scientists are on the verge of sequencing 10,000 human genomes. You point out this might highlight significant variation among our species, and that this requires some ethical consideration. Why?

The issue of [genetic variation] is a really uncomfortable question, one that for good reason, we have been avoiding since the 1930s and '40s. A lot of the research behind the eugenics movement came out of elite universities in the U.S. It was disastrously misapplied. But you do have to ask, if there are fundamental differences in species like dogs and horses and birds, is it true that there are no significant differences between humans? We are going to have an answer to that question very quickly. If we do, we need to think through an ethical, moral framework to think about questions that go way beyond science.

www.technologyreview.com...
Food for thought...
Are we even ready for this? I think not until a new paradigm, perhaps merging, arises within science and medicine and ethics.
Will we be more susceptible to outside influencing factors that are not in our best interests? Manipulation from the gov or from co's for marketing, or from enemies?

Juan Enriquez, this guy blows my mind!!!





Peace,
spec

I was thinking of making a thread along these lines. There's no question there is a scary future ahead of us. Will it be possible to speed up our evolutionary process? How about breeding a gentler human race? The potential for abuse is massive and I don't trust humans to take the ethical route. An elite race of humans...

Click here for more information.

reply to post by Balkan

Yes, when we obtain these abilities, who will make the final decisions regarding their use? That is why I think we may not be ready for this stuff yet. This tech could wipe out a good portion of humans or living organisms. But with total control, we should be able to create/recreate anything that gets destroyed, maybe?

reply to post by ThirdMind

Shut the # up with this dumb hocus pocus.

Hee hee, C'mon man, you know it's coming
Although honestly it is a bit frightening to me.

I have no problem with it, if it is handled appropriately...

As far as it being ethical.... well how does one achieve happiness? We're surrounded by a material world, in which gives us tasks, and we pursue happiness through these tasks....

If ethics is primarily a principal based on the nature of human well-being, well an important aspect of it, is the health of said human. Well, if manipulating DNA to allow us to be void of many health concerns, well we only improve the likelyhood of achieving happiness. It's not to say that happiness isn't simply a state of mind, but sickness and poor health isn't very conducive to happiness, although it's still possible.

There will be sooo many road blocks, that this ability wont become main stream in practice for many a 10's of years.

I say, go for it....

so can we take out the mutant word now. The new teenage ninja turtles doesn't have the same ring to it.

i want gills

Language is information is language I guess and one day maybe our language here will expand to the point of connecting with some type of language "out there' in the cosmos. How will this affect our reality?

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


We are already connected.
"The Golden Ratio" anagrammed is: "Alien, Thor,God,E.T"

I'm ready!

There seems to be three major milestones to longevity.

First is slowing down the aging process.

Second is stopping it altogether.

Third is reversing it back to early adulthood.

I'm hoping to reach each one.

reply to post by unityemissions

Third is reversing it back to early adulthood.

I just watched some show, can't remember which one, where the entire population never physically aged beyond 25. Sounds okay, except that all mothers, daughters, grandmothers, GREAT grandmothers, all looked 25. So when a dude kissed his mother goodnight, and she looked 25 like him, it was a bit surreal!
The same would go for guys too, but it would be strange to live in a society where everyone looked 25.
I imagine propagation of the species, or at least the act of would not be a problem.

There was a series of episodes of Outer Limits that outlined this scenario. Mankind began changing itself and accidentally created a plague that wiped out everyone. Aliens set a ship into the past to collect a few humans without any genetic defects and repopulate Earth.

Some would tell you that this is the type of science that those ancient aliens/gods the Annunaki knew so well. What we scoff at and mock today will become fact given enough passage of time.

I, human or human clone thus a new type of slave is produced.

I would think WHO would greatly profit from the high mark up of prices they had introduced to aquire a perfectly vat grown heart or lung to replace failing organs.

Coming soon..Buy a COMPLETE body makeover, you will FEEL like a different person.

Yes read David Jacobs book, "The Threat".............they are here and ready.

A humankind with logic and no heart.

Welcome to the collective. Resistance is futile.

It was like taking candy from a baby.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

VERY interesting yet creepy as hell. I have a really hard time imagining this engineering WON'T cause trouble. Money and Power have the tendency to be in the hands of the non-ethical so :S

reply to post by Tindalos2013

Coming soon..Buy a COMPLETE body makeover, you will FEEL like a different person.

Is it 'feel' like or is it actually 'be' a different person. If one rids themselves of genetic deficiencies, perhaps they would have not only better physical health but cognitive as well, making them better than before.
It is a shame that with any hope regarding these technologies that send us leaping towards a better future, comes the simultaneous thought of how it can/will all go wrong too. It is too bad our dreams and visions are stained with such cynicism, but tis how it is these days.

spec

ETA: Digging your dark sciences thread by the way

reply to post by ofhumandescent


Have not heard of the book, I will give it a gander though, thanks.

spec

reply to post by ofhumandescent

Fear.

We must fear the future.

We must fear tampering. We must fear terrorists. We must fear criminals. We must fear the world. We must fear enemies. We must fear ourselves. We must fear change. We must fear.

I think your fear tells me more about you than it does your fear.

Ask yourself something: Do you think living without emotions would make us superior and thus justify your fears that genetic tampering will destroy our emotion genes?

You know that humans have always desired drugs. But this has not destroyed our species. We have always desired physical pleasure. But it has not destroyed us either.

Perhaps emotions make us better and genetic tampering will increase them, not decrease them.

And even if they don't make us better, humans will keep them for stimulation purposes.

Think it through. Don't leave closed doors unopened. You have to look under every rock.

I do not judge this yet. There're too many variables unknown to us right now.

reply to post by Lykantroph11

Yea it's true, whoever holds the secret to our genetic codes holds the power,kinda scary! Shouldn't we have rights to our own code? It will be an interesting unfolding for sure....

reply to post by jonnywhite

I like your attitude jonny, and I will reserve judgement too for now.
Thanks for the reply

spec