The Promise and Peril of Genetic Engineering: Transhumanist Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares

by by Maxwell J. Mehlman

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421406691

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Book Description

Transhumanists advocate for the development and distribution of technologies that will enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities, even eliminate aging. What if the dystopian futures and transhumanist utopias found in the pages of science journals, Margaret Atwood novels, films like Gattaca, and television shows like Dark Angel are realized? What kind of world would humans have created?

Maxwell J. Mehlman considers the promises and perils of using genetic engineering in an effort to direct the future course of human evolution. He addresses scientific and ethical issues without choosing sides in the dispute between transhumanists and their challengers. However, Transhumanist Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares reveals that radical forms of genetic engineering could become a reality much sooner than many people think, and that we need to encourage risk-management efforts.

Whether scientists are dubious or optimistic about the prospects for directed evolution, they tend to agree on two things. First, however long it takes to perfect the necessary technology, it is inevitable that humans will attempt to control their evolutionary future, and second, in the process of learning how to direct evolution, we are bound to make mistakes. Our responsibility is to learn how to balance innovation with caution.

Book Reviews

Bioethicist Maxwell Mehlman thinks that we will inevitably reengineer the human species, and he writes about that and the mistakes we might make in the process... A deep and wide-ranging catalog of the implications of transhumanism as a philosophical doctrine and a careful analysis of potential pitfalls and concerns... Accessible while having enough scientific substance to be taken seriously, Transhumanist Dreams provides a thought-provoking read for genetics professionals, ethicists, interested scientists, and concerned citizens. - Michael A. Goldman Science

A well-balanced and well-documented look at how we now are positioned (at least in the United States) to control this process, and what some of the pros and cons of enlarging control, or alternatively loosening it, might be. - International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics

In his highly readable and especially timely new book, The Price of Perfection, Mehlman makes it clear that he is not at all persuaded that the ethical response to the availability of performance-enhancing drugs in sports—or elsewhere in society, for that matter—is to ban them and then spend a lot of effort testing for those who use them anyway. - Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

Customer Reviews

In Transhumanist Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares, Maxwell J. Mehlman takes us into a future that, often enough, is already here, or just around the corner. I am fascinated by genetic engineering because in it lies a cure for my son's Gaucher disease - genetic replacement therapies that would not only grant him life, but freedom from expensive medications that all too recently came from one pharmaceutical plant in the entire world. When your little boy's lifeline is so precarious, you tend to have transhumanist dreams of a sort. It can't be helped.

Every human being has defective genes. We, or our children, or their children, face the possibility of disaster when these defective genes are matched up through mating, or activated through some mechanism not yet fully understood. Most people are probably unaware of these threats but those of us who have been exposed to their reality have nightmares of our own.

The potential for abuse of new technologies are obvious. The old line from Jurassic Park comes to mind: just because we can do something does not mean we should do it. And all too often we do things simply because we can. Most of the time, the potential for damage is minimal, but when you're messing about with genetics, who knows what the outcome might be?

Mehlman looks at some of these possible outcomes. Writing in a style very friendly to the non-specialist, he looks at transhumanism's goals for humanity, including the quest for immortality, using examples as he goes from popular fiction, like the X-Men, Bladerunner, and Star Trek. He looks at hopeful scenarios and nightmares as well, drawing upon examples from Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood. He moves from there to a look at previous threats to human existence, like the atom bomb and the super collider.

This book is best summarized by a quote from the intro: "First, however long it will take to perfect the necessary technology it is inevitable that humans will attempt to control their evolutionary future, and second, in the process of learning how to direct human evolution, we are bound to make mistakes. This book is about those mistakes." Mehlman looks at the many ways possible to alter the human genome, both positive and negative, and then theorizes about the ensuing political, social, and moral effects of such changes. He draws upon examples from news stories, books, and movies, and also in turn provides thought-experiment fodder for future dystopian novels.