The descent of man
In On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin described for the first time how the process of our evolution takes place – that is, how we got to be who and what we are. The principles outlined by Darwin are so disarmingly simple and self evident, that it is hard for a modern mind to see why it causes such a fuss.
Within any species, natural variations will occur across the population. Some of these will be better adapted to the environment and/or more likely to produce offspring. Over many generations, the genes of the better adapted variants will tend to predominate, and thus the characteristics of the species as a whole will change very slightly. The offspring of these new variants will also vary and so the species will continue to change over millions of years. The ultimate driving force for this change is chance – chance variations in both the environment and the DNA code.
A cornerstone of modern molecular biology is that this natural selection is essentially a ‘blind’ process. There is a one-way flow of information from genome (DNA code) to phenome (proteins, cells, etc.) which the environment then ‘selects’ as more or less probable to produce offspring. Information cannot flow back the other way from the environment, through the body to alter the genetic code carried within the cells. In short, the programming of our genes can’t learn from our individual successes and failures and pass this on to future generations. Note: This does not take into account epigenetic processes. [1]
An earlier theory of evolution, based on just such a reverse flow of information, was proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck – natural historian and forerunner of Darwin. Lamarck thought that animals evolved by inheriting a learned modification of their forebears. To Lamarck, the giraffe had a long neck because its great grandfather stretched his a lot. Today, ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics’, or Lamarckism is generally seen as a thoroughly discredited explanation for evolution.
But what about genetically modified crops? Here we have a company like Monsanto directly altering the genome of a species of, say, wheat to produce a whole new species variant within a single generation – and patenting the results. Information is now flowing backwards, from the environment of the lab to the genome of the experimental species. More correctly, I should say that information is now flowing backwards from the marketing department, through the lab, to the genome. Welcome to neo-Lamarckism: inheritance of acquired – as in purchased – characteristics.
The obvious question is whether we might start doing this to humans – genetically modifying ourselves. In 2015, Chinese scientists at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou announced that they had genetically modified human embryos. Head of the team, Junjiu Huang tried to allay concerns by saying they had used ‘non-viable’ embryos, which cannot result in a live birth. [2]
There was the predictable flurry of ethical debate, but the genie was already out of the test tube. Crucially, the researchers were attempting to modify a gene responsible for β-thalassaemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder. Looks good in the press, that. These trials were not successful, but that is hardly the point. A cynic would say the Chinese took one for the team, so to speak, that this was an industry flag flying exercise to soften the public up for the inevitable.
And so the editing process begins. At first, the procedures will be what you’d call humanitarian (‘think of the children’) but, of course, it won’t stop at that. Those surgeons who saved lives when they started using anaesthetic in the mid 19th century couldn’t possibly have imagined (or condoned) the idea of plastic surgery creating a Michael Jackson or a Joan Rivers. But perceptions of what is ‘acceptable’ gradually change.… from blood diseases, to male pattern baldness, to dialing up Kim Kardashian’s derriere, to a youth sub-culture that ‘identifies as goat’.
Now let’s add one more spice to the dystopian mix. Robots.
A separate, but related development has also been taking place. Around the time that Frank and Bernadette are paying to ensure that their future little Jason is free from potential medical maladies, robots will have advanced to a stage where they generate all the complex effects of an ‘introduced species’. Interaction between human and robot will be complex in ways we can’t possibly imagine today, but one thing is certain: the interaction will be intimate – not only ‘sexually’, but technologically and medically. We’ll exchange a lot more than bodily fluids – skin, tissue, organs, neural network programming, biomechanical components and, of course, editable DNA will be shared.
The first problem with all this is merely amusingly grotesque. It’s simply the danger that human evolution will degenerate into ‘design by a committee’ and we might all wind up looking like the proverbial bunch of camels. Because the wonderful thing about natural selection is that it’s the real ‘intelligent design’. It selects designs (individual variants within populations of reproducing species) purely on their merits. Either you produce offspring or you don’t. End of story. It’s not politically correct, or fair, or stylistically consistent, or cool, or anything else that conforms to society’s shifting desires, fashions, morality, politics or value judgements. It’s certainly not democratic. It just is. It’s how we got here.
The second problem is somewhat more sinister. When the information flows backwards from the world to our DNA code, the crucial issues become: which particular information, who gets to decide and, most importantly, who owns the information.
In the post-evolutionary world, the direction of human development will be limited only by what’s technically feasible – or to be more blunt, what’s for sale. Because, it’s vital to understand that almost all of this will only be possible in a world where new genetic code is considered to be intellectual property.
Imagine a world where stakeholders determine which direction our ‘evolution’ proceeds. Imagine a world where the act of procreation becomes a leasing agreement. Imagine a world where individual humans cease to be life-forms as such and come to resemble manufactured products. Products that sell themselves back to themselves. Oh, but they’ll be such exquisitely beautiful products! Products with all the latest features, interconnected, free from fear, uncertainty, pain and suffering.
But products, nevertheless.
[1] The ‘one way’ dogma is made slightly more complex by various epigenetic phenomena, which is beyond the scope of this article.