Humans have evolved as Homo sapiens and have dominated the planet, but advances in biotechnology have made genetic manipulation possible, threatening our species identity. Biotechnology offers benefits, but it also requires serious reflection on the future and end of humanity.
Humanity has existed on Earth since its emergence millions of years ago. Over that time, we have evolved and are now known as Homo sapiens. The oldest fossils of Homo sapiens are estimated to be around 130,000 years old, which suggests that we have been on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. During this time, we’ve adapted to our environment, developed technology, and built the civilized societies we know today. From primitive tool use, to the development of agriculture, to the formation of cities, to the Industrial Revolution, to the Information Age, humanity has made continuous progress.
Today, we are at the top of the ecosystem, with superior intelligence and technology, and we have free access to the planet. Humanity’s insatiable appetite for the planet and its ever-widening sphere of activity can be described as the warrant of all things. We are exploring space, planning to colonize other planets, and striving to overcome human limitations through artificial intelligence and robotics. But many species, including ancient humans, are now extinct, and we can’t be sure that Homo sapiens will be any different. Let’s think about the possible end of Homo sapiens.
The main difference between Homo sapiens and other creatures, including ancient humans, is their ability to change their environment. For example, highly intelligent dolphins can communicate with other members of their species using ultrasound, but they survive in the confines of the ocean. Primates, who are often thought of as our closest relatives, can also use their environment to make tools, but they can only do so to make themselves comfortable in their habitat. Homo sapiens, however, not only communicate with each other and make tools, but they have also expanded their activities beyond their terrestrial habitat to the ocean floor and beyond. They are even using their accumulated knowledge to change not only their environment but also the direction of their species’ development. This is where we can predict the end of Homo sapiens.
From the perspective of modern evolutionary theory, for billions of years, life has been evolving through a process called natural selection. For example, giraffes have elongated necks because species with longer necks have an advantage in survival, not because the species itself wanted to have a longer neck. However, modern humans are working on a discipline that completely challenges this. Biotechnology. In 1996, biotechnologists inserted bovine cartilage tissue into the backs of mice to make them grow ears on their backs. This was not a natural occurrence, but a deliberate manipulation of the creature’s appearance. While this science is still only being studied on a small fraction of living things, it’s not unthinkable that we’ll soon be experimenting on ourselves.
Biotechnology has brought many benefits to humanity. Tissue can be transplanted into other species to produce organs for human use, just as ear tissue was obtained from mice, or genes can be manipulated directly in humans to prevent future diseases. But what if we go further and directly manipulate human genes? What parent wouldn’t want to be able to create a child with incredibly high intelligence, just as humans have already created genius mice with enhanced learning abilities? For example, if the parents’ generation was unhappy with their short-term memory, the children’s generation could improve their memory by leaps and bounds by manipulating the part of the gene responsible for memory. Or you could manipulate the part of the gene responsible for aging to slow down aging, resulting in a very long lifespan.
So, can humans who evolved by manipulating their own genes be considered the same species as Homo sapiens? In general, when dividing species, we say that they are the same species if they can reproduce through interbreeding, and different species if they cannot reproduce. For example, a mule produced by crossing a mare and a donkey is not fertile, so mares and donkeys are different species. This is because horses and donkeys have different numbers of chromosomes, which suggests that humans may not be called Homo sapiens if excessive genetic manipulation changes the number of chromosomes. And even if the number of chromosomes does not change, excessive genetic manipulation threatens the identity of the species as Homo sapiens. Other criteria for species include the sequence of an individual’s ecosystem or the arrangement of its genes, which could make it difficult for future humans to be called Homo sapiens. This is because they may have genes that can change over generations, as well as improved intellectual and physical abilities that will allow them to occupy a higher ecological status than the current human species.
As you can see, biotechnology has brought many benefits to Homo sapiens, but it also poses risks that could change the future of the species. The traits that set Homo sapiens apart from other species and allowed them to rise to the top of the ecosystem are now paradoxically threatening the future of their own species. With science advancing at such a rapid pace, we need to ask ourselves whether it can really bring about the end of Homo sapiens, and if so, whether it is truly harmful. The modern era is one of the most transformative periods in human history. We are living in a time when we need to take full advantage of the benefits that scientific advances offer us, but also reflect deeply on the ethical and social issues that may arise.
