Philosophy Discussion Forums

Humanity descends from apes.


Genes are amazing! The amount of information they encode, processes and transmit is enormous.


There's a cell in the bone marrow that fractures itself and releases its parts into the blood flow and we call them platelets. Neurons can be as long as our extremities and deliver the materials from the core to the extremes using a very funny axoplasmic transportation at the incredible speed of a couple of centimeters/day, but the "electric system" runs at 100 mts/sec.
Going millions of years back in time we find that a primitive cell actually "ate" (phagocyte) a bacteria and made it "work" as the energy producer (the mitochondria), that has its own autonomous genome.


The process of evolution is really slow, the chances of error in the replication of the DNA is relatively low. But mutations do occur, and changes are visible (all forms of life follow the same basic rules, so far).


Eventually, homo sapiens appeared and with the ability to think and manipulate thing in an increasing complexity, stopped his own evolution (debateable). Through the discovery of diseases and treatments, humans are now able to continue living a relative "normal" life. Hypertension, cardiac diseases, diabetes, and many others, are "sustained" and passed down to the next generation. Actually, one of the most important questions a physician asks the patients is if they have a familiar history of one of the above.


The way I see it, humans have a couple of options:

1) Drugs: pharmacology (personally the most interesting thing in the universe) is advancing daily. Things that are coming and that we already have are pretty cool, the downside is the dependence that generates, and the power it gives to the pharmaceutic industry. I think this is the closest step, but there must be a way to assure that EVERYONE gets what he needs. Here I include the biological therapies, immunotherapy, and the use of monoclonal antibodies.

2) Stem cells: not approved yet, but they show potential. I don't think this would be a big problem.

3) Gene therapy: This is the one! In the near future, I'm pretty sure we're going to be able to change large portions of our own genome, targeting a specific group of cells (e.g. kidney, liver) or targeting germ cells (the whole organism). This opens the possibility to rearrange some physiological flaws, eradicate errors, incorporate functions and more. The cost might be the extinction of homo sapiens and the birth of multiple evolved species (e.g. tolerate changes in air, protection from radiation, infrared vision).

4) Deep Science-fiction.


So the questions are:
Should we do it?
And if the answer is yes, how could that achieve ethically?

In the future, I see myself studying mathematics to see if there is a way to put numbers to my physiologic concepts towards this end (suggestions, if any, are appreciated so I can start reading).

Humanity descends from apes

One minor correction: It seems to be more accurate to say that we have a common ancestor with our fellow apes. Not that we descended from them.

Steve3007 wrote:

Humanity descends from apes

One minor correction: It seems to be more accurate to say that we have a common ancestor with our fellow apes. Not that we descended from them.

Or rather, we are apes.

Re: the OP, yes, all of the above, and also biotech and nanomaterials.

About the OP:

I can certainly see the sense of gene therapy as a way to eliminate things that are clear-cut physiological genetic disorders. But more subtle things, and especially psychological as opposed to physiological, conditions seems more problematic because of the complex relationship between genes and their expression.

Some of the human traits that we generally regard as counter-productive, such as aggressiveness or a tendency to depression, could also be inseparable from things like creativity. if the accumulation of human knowledge does survive for the long-term, then it's probably almost inevitable that small sub-sections of the human race will become increasingly artificially genetically engineered. But will we ever work out the complex web of cause and effect that leads from genes to genius? I'm joking here a bit, but what if we accidentally switch off the genius gene? We won't have anybody clever enough to turn it back on again.

The way I see it, humans have a couple of options:

4) Deep Science-fiction.

Monty, I'll take door #4!

Of course humans should be responsible for their own evolution. Who would argue against us taking control?

Not only that, Atreyu, it seems we started taking control of our own evolution, and those of many other species, some time ago.

Well, what I meant Greta, was that as a general principle of course we would say it was a good thing (should) for us to be able to control our own evolution. If Mankind could control his own evolution, he could direct it in the way in wish he wanted it to go. I didn't mean it in the sense of disputing the idea that Man shouldn't 'mess around with nature'.

The idea that Man might not be better off if he was in control of his own evolution, his own destiny, is an idea worth pursuing, and seems quite plausible seeing what Man has always done to Himself in the name of 'taking control' or 'reforming' things'. One could easily argue for 'playing it safe' and not intentionally trying to alter the course of the species as a whole, particularly considering that the nature of the endeavor could easily and quickly put Man in the position of not being able to fix things and repair any mistakes....

Uummm... we're changing our own evolution already, and not in very good ways.

Technical manipulation and control is not evolution, a genuine evolutionary step for man would be a change in his nature, an expansion of his consciousness, becoming less insensitive to the natural world, less greedy and warlike, etc. Technical knowledge will not take him there and in fact has become a crutch to support the negative traits I mentioned.

Felix wrote:Technical manipulation and control is not evolution, a genuine evolutionary step for man would be a change in his nature, an expansion of his consciousness, becoming less insensitive to the natural world, less greedy and warlike, etc. Technical knowledge will not take him there and in fact has become a crutch to support the negative traits I mentioned.

Thing is, what comes with technical control is concomitant moral development. It's only to be expected - the longer the human race survives, the more moral dilemmas it encounters, deals with and sees (at least some of) the consequences of the actions. It's a constant process of fairly, if not fully, holistic learning.

Thing is, what comes with technical control is concomitant moral development.

I think you're what's called an "optimist," Greta ... It hasn't so far: war, genicide, massive environmental destruction, etc., and technology has been the tool that made these atrocities possible. Of course the game is not over yet. I am rooting for the home team but they're down 2 to 1 in the 9th inning. Coach, please do not let Casey pinch hit!!

Felix wrote:Technical manipulation and control is not evolution, a genuine evolutionary step for man would be a change in his nature, an expansion of his consciousness, becoming less insensitive to the natural world, less greedy and warlike, etc. Technical knowledge will not take him there and in fact has become a crutch to support the negative traits I mentioned.

I completely concur.

The reason why we have so much technology and knowledge is because we need it. And we need all of this "extra stuff", that our ancestors did not need in the least, precisely because we are not evolving. We are finding it more and more difficult to adapt to nature (survive) because we're moving towards extinction (devolution).

You got it right by suggesting that evolution implies a positive change in being --- in what we are. And the being of Mankind has actually gotten worse since the Stone Age. Only our knowledge has increased. But evolution implies a change of being, not just a change in knowledge, although knowledge must also grow in parallel with being.

An increase in knowledge without an increase in being, or an increase in being without a corresponding increase in knowledge, both lead to bad results. And if the two diverge too far from each other it will eventually lead to a total collapse of civilization.

And modern man's knowledge has gotten way ahead of his level of being. His level of being is not much higher than an ape or monkey, yet his knowledge has soared to ever new heights. This cannot bode well for his future, and the current situation is not much different than teaching a bunch of gorillas how to use machine guns and then placing them on an isolated island, to survive as they may...

Do you see a cure for the disease you've diagnosed, Atreyu?

Atreyu wrote:An increase in knowledge without an increase in being, or an increase in being without a corresponding increase in knowledge, both lead to bad results. And if the two diverge too far from each other it will eventually lead to a total collapse of civilization.

And modern man's knowledge has gotten way ahead of his level of being. His level of being is not much higher than an ape or monkey, yet his knowledge has soared to ever new heights. This cannot bode well for his future, and the current situation is not much different than teaching a bunch of gorillas how to use machine guns and then placing them on an isolated island, to survive as they may...

I agree that it's optimal for maturity to accompany empowerment, but I differ from the vast majority of observers who assume that what is happening is problematic or anomalous.

It may be that the biosphere is on the way towards reproduction (spreading its "seeds") and that humans are on track regarding the biosphere's reproductive phase, fulfilling a role in the biosphere that's akin to that of imaginal discs in insect metamorphosis. That would seem more in accord with the way nature operates than the idea that humans are an anomaly that somehow got lucky and is now wrecking the joint with bizarre, unnatural behaviour.