"Human beings, as currently constituted, are good enough"

Bill McKibben says that the brave new genetic world may give us better teeth and brains -- but it'll steal our souls.

By Ralph Brave

Apr 30, 2003 | Bill McKibben, author of the renowned book "The End of Nature," has a new concern: the end of human nature.

In his just published book, "Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age," McKibben zeroes in on the prospect that new genetic technologies could ultimately be used to create "post-human" children, whose character and skills would be designed by parents or society. As McKibben sees it, when genetics merges with other new technologies, such as robotics or nanotechnology, the word "human" may not even be part of the equation. The greatest danger, he argues, comes not from any future genetic dictatorship, but rather from genetic or other technological enhancements that, at least on the surface, seem desirable.

The result, McKibben fears, would be the loss of what he most values in human existence, values he hopes others share. His new book surveys what scientists are cooking up, then delivers his meditations on the choices we will face and on whether we will have the wisdom to say "Enough."

While some experts doubt that the technologies in question will ever develop to the point that McKibben fears, others equally expert argue that it is just a matter of time. Earlier this year, University of Wisconsin scientists announced that they had successfully carried out targeted genetic changes in human embryonic stem cells, declaring they now had a technique "that allows us to manipulate every part of the human genome that we want."

The risks associated with genetic experimentation with human subjects present a major obstacle to perfecting this technology. But DNA double helix co-discoverer James Watson, for one, is unfazed: in his own new book he argues that scientists should proceed with the experiments even though "they put lives at risk." For McKibben, this is unthinkable.

McKibben spoke to Salon about the Watson worldview, the politics of genetically modified humans, and his own view of the human future.

A theme of a recent talk you gave to the Rachel Carson Society was "the legacy of questioning progress." Lately your writing has been focusing on human genetic engineering. What's the question that you are pursuing in this area? And what kinds of conclusions have you come to?

I'm interested in, and have always been interested in, threshold issues. Issues that are large enough that if you go past a certain point, everything's different. That's why I've been interested in climate change, on which I've spent most of my work. Unlike other environmental issues, everything changes if you change the temperature of the atmosphere.

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