Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human |
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List Price: $15.95
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Manufacturer: Broadway
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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 303
EAN: 9780767915038
ISBN: 0767915038
Label: Broadway
Manufacturer: Broadway
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2006-05-09
Publisher: Broadway
Release Date: 2006-05-09
Studio: Broadway
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Editorial Reviews:
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Taking us behind the scenes with today’s foremost researchers and pioneers, bestselling author Joel Garreau shows that we are at a turning point in history. At this moment we are engineering the next stage of human evolution. Through advances in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies, we are altering our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny–and perhaps our very souls. Radical Evolution reveals that the powers of our comic-book superheroes already exist, or are in development in hospitals, labs, and research facilities around the country–from the revved-up reflexes and speed of Spider-Man and Superman, to the enhanced mental acuity and memory capabilities of an advanced species. Over the next fifteen years, Garreau makes clear in this New York Times Book Club premiere selection, these enhancements will become part of our everyday lives. Where will they lead us? To heaven–where technology’s promise to make us smarter, vanquish illness, and extend our lives is the answer to our prayers? Or, as some argue, to hell–where unrestrained technology brings about the ultimate destruction of our species?
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Dense exploration of the technological explosion to come
Comment: This is about the so-called GRIN technologies: Genetic, Robotic, Information, and Nano. Properly speaking the title should be "Extreme Cultural Evolution," or perhaps "Accelerated Technological Evolution." "Radical" is used here in the sense of "extreme." Regardless of what we call it, for better or for worse, we will be enhancing our minds and bodies and changing the life forms around us, especially those we use for food. In fact we have already done so through computers, surgery, artificial limbs, genetically engineer agricultural products, etc. The difference to come is all about the acceleration of change coming from these technologies.
What happens when your daughter's brave new genetic endowment gives her a prodigious memory and makes her smarter, prettier, and stronger than you? No problem. We love our children. Ah, but what happens when she realizes that at age eighteen she is like an Australopithecus creature compared to the new genetic and nanotechnological enhancements bestowed upon her classmates just a few years younger?
What happens is the end of the world as we know it, and most critically the end of human beings as we know ourselves. The question is, is this is a good thing or a bad thing?
Joel Garreau has several answers in terms of scenarios of the future. There is the "Heaven Scenario," the "Hell Scenario," the "Prevail Scenario," and the "Transcend" possibility. Garreau interviewed a number of experts in many fields in an effort to find out not only what the prospects are, but to count noses, so to speak, and see who's optimistic and who isn't.
Put Ray Kurzweil, author of The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999)--see my review on Amazon--in the camp of those who see marvelous things happening, in fact a glorious singularity of advancement. Put Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in the camp of those who believe we are headed for a right awful hell on earth. And put polymath Jaron Lanier in the camp of those who think we can prevail over our creations. And put Michael Goldblatt of the US military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the platoon of happy warriors just having fun with the prospect of new and more amazingly advanced weaponry (or defenses from weaponry).
After reading this dense and fascinating book I have a few observations. First, regardless of whether we like it or not, or whether Luddites and social conservatives manage to slow down or even halt some of the research, nothing but nothing is going to stem the tide, or alter The Curve, as Garreau calls the shape of things to come. If we don't do stem cell research or explore replicating nanobots, you can be sure that somebody else--in Korea, in China, in Russia, even in Pakistan--will. Any nation or culture that chooses to not explore these brave new worlds will be in danger of not only being left behind economically and militarily, but in grave danger of living a sub existence like that of pets or zoo animals.
There is some debate about this point. Garreau explores the idea that nothing will stop the tsunami and does find some people who think we can put up a wall or at least quiet the rampaging waters. Still others are asking, why should we? Think-tanker Francis Fukuyama, author of Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002)--see my review at Amazon--believes there is something precious in humans as presently constituted. He is fearful that we will lose that human nature through biological engineering. Personally, glancing at the history of human kind, I think that human nature could use some altering, and indeed believe that unless human nature does change, we won't be around much longer. Fukuyama believes that, were we to become as immortal as the gods, we would stagnate. He "doesn't think immortals will ever have a new idea again" and only the death of people allows new ideas to take root. (p. 163)
What if we do conquer all and end up with this so-called heaven on earth? What will it consist of? Will we pursue endless delights from brain chemistry? Are we creatures ruled by the gods of pleasure and pain, or is there some transcendental aspect to us? Garreau explores this question near the end of the book with help from Martin E.P. Seligman's three levels of happiness: "the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life." Here I think Garreau, along with Seligman is whistling Dixie in the dark. The "meaningful life" is what? According to what I could gather on pages 261-262, the "meaning consists in attachment to something bigger than you are." Seligman finds such attachment in various activities from raising children to saving the whales to being a terrorist. I think a more lasting attachment may be to something like exploring the cosmos.
But would humans really have sufficient desire to do that? Recalling some famous dystopias from literature, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, for example, I suspect that creatures such as ourselves (as currently constituted) can only exist in environments not that far removed from the savannah. Cities are tough enough for the couch potato obese of the Western world. If we gain everything our biology desires, we may become (further) degenerate and fall victim to something untoward and unpredictable. Or we may just end up examining our navels as the perfect mixture of chemicals courses through our bodies. If we conquer all and have no challenges left, what will we do? What does a perfectly satisfied and perfectly serene creature do? We don't know. Transcend human nature perhaps?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to the field
Comment: I read this book as part of an honors seminar at my university called "Cyborgs, Transhumansim, and the Future of Mankind." This is a very good collection of the different possibilities of how the singularity could play itself out. The author assumes that radical evolution will take place, so it is not completely objective, but he does reference scientists of different viewpoints, in order to gain a balanced picture of how believers in transhumanism envision the future. Very good overview to spur further research and thought.
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Summary: Will Humans Prevail
Comment: Well-researched, and beautifully written, Joe Garreau brings his well-honed journalism skills to bear on the most vexing question humankind has ever faced: what to do now that our genetic, robotics, information and nano technologies have begun to give us the ability to enhance our own evolution?
Garreau offers a glimpse at the mind-boggling technologies DARPA is already developing in support of our national defense, then convincingly extrapolates how the ever-quickening pace of technological innovation will likely lead to a Singularity event when humans invent something more intelligent than themselves. The remainder of the book considers whether the Singularity will lead to a Heaven state (technological nirvana), a Hell state (destruction or degradation of humankind) or a Prevail state, in which humans develop control mechanisms to avoid becoming slaves to technology.
The Heaven and Hell scenarios are set up as obvious strawmen for Garreau to knock down en route to the more likely middle outcome. Yet his analysis of the Prevail scenario loses focus, as the discussion veers off on a number of philosophical tangents and seems to conclude that adopting an iHippy group-love mentality will prove the key to our survival.
While I found this to be a stimulating read and especially liked how Garreau organized his material around key thinkers in the relevant technical fields, I wish he had more fully explored some practical ways of containing threatening technology, such as the adoption of more powerful international governing bodies with the regulatory teeth to outlaw certain technologies and the use of new media tools to blacklist undesirable practices. (The current push to be green, in reaction to the Global Warming crisis, shows the possibility of forming international positions on key issues.) I don't mean to suggest that it's possible to define the Prevail endstate with any real specifics, but I came away with the impression that Garreau turned away from his considerable analytical ability in the later parts of the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Snappy, insightful, with a great bibliography
Comment: The future of mankind is directly controllable by man. This book explores the manifestations and ramifications of this concept from the point of view of those who are engaged in it; such as doctors, geneticists, computer programmers, politicians, and military researchers. The different chapters focus on the different views of man's designer future, and how different technologies such as genetics, robotics, and nanotechnology plays a part. The text contains a lot of quotes from experts in these areas; and so the reader gets numerous points of views on each subject. The author himself stays very objective, and instead of coming to conclusions, concludes many sections with posed questions that forces the reader to think. There are no figures, charts or graphs; everything is text. Interestingly, the author focuses mainly on technologies that have not hit the mainstream. The author should have spent more verbage examining how current medical practices such as plastic surgery, braces, laser hair removal, even vaccinations have affected norms of human society. This would have placed all the future scenarios in better context.
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Summary: A good overview of biotechnology
Comment: I'm a college student majoring in science, but I had to buy this book for a humanities class. It's a good overview of the various future scenarios proposed by scientists working in several major biotech fields. At the same time, while interesting, quite a few of the theories are pretty far-fetched. The author's own scenario Prevail to Transcend shows the most promise, but be warned--this book will take you on a wild ride, and make you imagine some weird and wacky situations. Overall a good, easy, quick read with enjoyable prose, and the author's dry humorous wit interjecting sanity into some of the crazier moments.
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