Advances in biotechnology have opened the door for humanity to evolve on its own, but how to address the discrimination and ethical issues this would bring, and how it would affect the future of humanity, needs to be discussed.
In the movie Jurassic Park, scientists clone a dinosaur. Long ago, when a mosquito that has sucked the blood of a dinosaur rests in a tree, the tree’s sap traps the mosquito. Over time, this sap turns into amber, which scientists later extract and recreate by extracting the dinosaur’s DNA. Of course, this is a fictionalized version of the movie, but scientists are actually trying to do something similar. “The dream of cloning mammoths could become a reality,” says Dr. Inseok Hwang, a researcher at Sooam Biotechnology in South Korea, who is currently working on restoring mammoths using DNA extracted from permafrost. Advances in biotechnology have made this movie story a reality.
Biotechnology is the deliberate intervention of humans at the level of biology. The technology that they“re using to restore the mammoth”s DNA is also biotechnology. Biotechnology isn“t only used to study animals, it”s also used to study human history. Currently, researchers are trying to reconstruct Neanderthal DNA by extracting it and fertilizing it with human eggs. The idea is to study human evolution and brain structure.
But are these studies limited to the past? Not really. The genes of many agricultural plants are already being modified for flavor and productivity, and biotechnology will be applied to many more organisms in the future. This suggests that it may eventually be applied to humans as well, and we may one day have a species that is more evolved than we are. As Yuval Harari, author of Homo sapiens, said, “We may not be Homo sapiens anymore because we’re tinkering with our genes.” So, if biotechnology advances and creates a species that is better adapted to its environment than Homo sapiens, and people are able to choose this change, should we allow it? Considering the potential harms and benefits of allowing it, we can see that it is better to allow it.
In order for us to evolve, we first need to understand how we evolved. No one knows exactly where we came from, but most textbooks currently base their explanations on evolutionary theory. Assuming the theory of evolution is correct, humans have been evolving since their birth about 3 million years ago. Evolution is the result of changing environments and about 3 million years of human experience. However, if we were to evolve ourselves, we might be concerned about the possibility that we could alter our genes in ways that we don’t recognize, causing us to degenerate.
However, the rapid environmental changes of the last 100 years are more severe than at any other time in human history. The rise in diabetes, for example, is a result of the fact that we have only recently been freed from hunger. We have evolved to store nutrients in our bodies to prepare for crises, but as food has become more abundant, diabetes has increased. This is an example of evolution’s inability to respond perfectly to environmental changes. Because our current evolution is not perfect, it is not unreasonable to fear that humanity’s arbitrary evolution will lead to degeneration.
The most important principle of evolution is natural selection. This is the principle that when two different species live together, the less adapted and less productive species will slowly disappear over time, while the more adapted ones will survive. If humans arbitrarily decide to change some of the humans, if that species is less capable than the current human species, it will not survive long, and if it is more capable, it will become a better adapted species. In the end, evolution will always be a positive process that adapts to its surroundings, and worrying that human arbitrariness will have a negative impact on human progress may be an overreaction.
However, the biggest social problem that can be expected from allowing evolution is discrimination. If superior DNA is developed and proven, many people will want to evolve. But evolution will come at a cost, and the poor may evolve later than others or not at all. This means that the gap between the rich and poor could become more than just a difference in wealth, but a difference in ability and superiority. This could lead to discrimination in university admissions and employment tests, which could lead to social problems.
But is this problem not present today? For example, two black men were recently arrested by police in a Starbucks cafe for sitting at a table without ordering anything. A video of the arrest went viral on social media, garnering millions of views and accusations of racism. It’s also not uncommon to see racial slurs used by spectators or players at sporting events. There is also gender discrimination, such as the pay gap between men and women and the glass ceiling for promotions, and there are still criticisms that not everyone starts life on the same starting line due to the gap in education between rich and poor.
As a result of accusations of racism, Starbucks fired an employee who reported a black man to the police and implemented bias training for employees. Racist behavior at sporting events is punished through disciplinary action, and there are ongoing efforts to reduce discrimination through the “Me Too” movement, as well as through retention taxes and welfare programs. I believe that the same approach can be used to address the issue of evolutionary discrimination.
Of course, the examples above are discrimination among humans of the same species, but in the case of humans with the same historical ancestors, it is different from discrimination between different species. In the end, the responsibility for discrimination does not lie with evolution, but with the societies and people who discriminate. The problem of social discrimination depends on how humanity deals with it. It can be solved through proper institutions and education. Therefore, it is inappropriate to oppose evolution because of the discrimination it causes by allowing random variation.
Allowing humanity to change can improve the quality of life. For example, just as many people use plastic surgery to address their appearance complexes, biotechnology can overcome problems that cannot be solved with current technology, such as differences in physical ability or intelligence. By evolving into a superior species or changing into a species with genes that can solve their complexes, the people who evolve will have a better quality of life and be happier.
In addition to this, biotechnology can also help people who are poor and have difficult lives. Currently, the human population is growing rapidly, and despite advances in science, technology, and institutions, many people are still hungry and struggling. This may be a problem of distribution, but it may also be due to our inability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. If human evolution, or biotechnology, can solve this, then it makes sense to allow it.
The benefits of allowing change are greater than you might think, as humanity could evolve into a superior species, and the failures and negative effects of evolution can be regulated by natural selection, which will eventually ensure that the superior species survive. The discrimination that comes from allowing change can be prevented through institutions and education, and can also contribute to reducing current social discrimination.
The future of humanity depends on humanity itself. If we can minimize the problems that arbitrary change causes and maximize the benefits of change, we can create a new world that is unimaginable.
