Stephen Hawking feared genetic engineering would create 'super humans'

[Standing Wolf]

It appears that "eugenics" has become one of those words that some folks invoke, in a negative way, when almost any deviation from the original "have sex and see what happens" plan is followed or proposed. Some people have a serious problem with any sort of prenatal genetic testing on the grounds that someone is "tampering" with one thing or another. I had a coworker some years ago who considered any life-saving in vitro medical procedure to be "evil" (her word) because it presumed God didn't know what he was doing, or some such thing.

It should be obvious that some aspects of what can broadly be termed "genetic engineering" are wrong - perhaps even "evil". Things done on an involuntary basis would most likely fall into that category, I should think. Measures to create a population of low intellect drones - I recall they injected tank-grown fetuses with alcohol in Brave New World to retard their mental development - would certainly qualify.

However, what is the rationale for creating legal prohibitions against a procedure done simply to enhance the positive physical or intellectual capabilities of a human being when it is done on a purely voluntary basis? I'd certainly be interested in hearing others' thoughts on the matter. Where is the harm to anyone - aside from the possibility of some dystopian sci-fi scenario come to life involving the enslavement of humans by "super beings" - as long as what is being done or proposed is positive and voluntary?

[Lummy]

You're scenario would require consensus after consensus by fewer and fewer, more and more powerful people. It won't get that far.

[Chris]

However, what is the rationale for creating legal prohibitions against a procedure done simply to enhance the positive physical or intellectual capabilities of a human being when it is done on a purely voluntary basis?

The OP already explained, but here is more from Hawkings:

The scientist presented the possibility that genetic engineering could create a new species of superhuman that could destroy the rest of humanity. The essays, published in the Sunday Times, were written in preparation for a book that will be published on Tuesday.

“I am sure that during this century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence and instincts such as aggression,” he wrote.

“Laws will probably be passed against genetic engineering with humans. But some people won’t be able to resist the temptation to improve human characteristics, such as memory, resistance to disease and length of life.”

In Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Hawking’s final thoughts on the universe, the physicist suggested wealthy people would soon be able to choose to edit genetic makeup to create superhumans with enhanced memory, disease resistance, intelligence and longevity.

Hawking raised the prospect that breakthroughs in genetics will make it attractive for people to try to improve themselves, with implications for “unimproved humans”.

“Once such superhumans appear, there will be significant political problems with unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete,” he wrote. “Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant. Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings who are improving at an ever-increasing rate.”

Essays reveal Stephen Hawking predicted race of 'superhumans'

[Standing Wolf]

“the physicist suggested wealthy people would soon be able to choose to edit genetic makeup to create superhumans with enhanced memory, disease resistance, intelligence and longevity.”

There are individuals living today - as there always have been - who possess those qualities in greater measure than the average person. Depending on where they live in the world, along with other factors, those qualities may afford them some advantages in employment and that sort of thing. Nevertheless, I am unable to imagine what Hawking might have meant by "political problems". Do smarter, healthier, longer-lived people with better memories have more legal rights than those who possess those qualities to a lesser extent? Hopefully the entire essay explains Hawkings' fears in greater detail.

[Chris]

There are individuals living today - as there always have been - who possess those qualities in greater measure than the average person. Depending on where they live in the world, along with other factors, those qualities may afford them some advantages in employment and that sort of thing. Nevertheless, I am unable to imagine what Hawking might have meant by "political problems". Do smarter, healthier, longer-lived people with better memories have more legal rights than those who possess those qualities to a lesser extent? Hopefully the entire essay explains Hawkings' fears in greater detail.

Next line down: “Once such superhumans appear, there will be significant political problems with unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete,” he wrote. “Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant. Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings who are improving at an ever-increasing rate.”

Saw it during the Progressive Era. Saw it under the Nazis. But what could go wrong?

[Lummy]

It appears that "eugenics" has become one of those words that some folks invoke, in a negative way, when almost any deviation from the original "have sex and see what happens" plan is followed or proposed. Some people have a serious problem with any sort of prenatal genetic testing on the grounds that someone is "tampering" with one thing or another. I had a coworker some years ago who considered any life-saving in vitro medical procedure to be "evil" (her word) because it presumed God didn't know what he was doing, or some such thing.

It should be obvious that some aspects of what can broadly be termed "genetic engineering" are wrong - perhaps even "evil". Things done on an involuntary basis would most likely fall into that category, I should think. Measures to create a population of low intellect drones - I recall they injected tank-grown fetuses with alcohol in Brave New World to retard their mental development - would certainly qualify.

However, what is the rationale for creating legal prohibitions against a procedure done simply to enhance the positive physical or intellectual capabilities of a human being when it is done on a purely voluntary basis? I'd certainly be interested in hearing others' thoughts on the matter. Where is the harm to anyone - aside from the possibility of some dystopian sci-fi scenario come to life involving the enslavement of humans by "super beings" - as long as what is being done or proposed is positive and voluntary?

Excellent, thought-provoking post, by the way. I failed to mention that.

[southwest88]

It appears that "eugenics" has become one of those words that some folks invoke, in a negative way, when almost any deviation from the original "have sex and see what happens" plan is followed or proposed. Some people have a serious problem with any sort of prenatal genetic testing on the grounds that someone is "tampering" with one thing or another. I had a coworker some years ago who considered any life-saving in vitro medical procedure to be "evil" (her word) because it presumed God didn't know what he was doing, or some such thing.

It should be obvious that some aspects of what can broadly be termed "genetic engineering" are wrong - perhaps even "evil". Things done on an involuntary basis would most likely fall into that category, I should think. Measures to create a population of low intellect drones - I recall they injected tank-grown fetuses with alcohol in Brave New World to retard their mental development - would certainly qualify.

However, what is the rationale for creating legal prohibitions against a procedure done simply to enhance the positive physical or intellectual capabilities of a human being when it is done on a purely voluntary basis? I'd certainly be interested in hearing others' thoughts on the matter. Where is the harm to anyone - aside from the possibility of some dystopian sci-fi scenario come to life involving the enslavement of humans by "super beings" - as long as what is being done or proposed is positive and voluntary?

Negative eugenics was the heart of the Nazi program - preventing births of undesirables, & executing any leakers. Positive eugenics would be encouraging people with desirable traits to have children - in the hope that the desirable traits would be inheritable.

In genetic engineering, the key concept would be informed consent. In the West, it would be impossible to go forward with this kind of experiment without the informed consent of the adults involved.

As it stands now in the US (& possibly the Western World, I'd have to check) experiments with human fetuses that involve the germ plasm (that can be inherited) are forbidden. The legal prohibitions are straightforward: In order to know how to increase desirable traits genetically, you'd have to experiment on primates & then human fetal cells. That last is the part that's prohibited (because the failures - & you could expect a fair number - would have to be destroyed, especially if the traits bred true. Most mutations are lethal in nature, but these aren't - or wouldn't be exactly mutations.)

There's also the bottleneck problem - if the majority of the breeding population selects for blonde over blue, for instance, the human genome would narrow, & so lose genetic diversity. (Possibly one of the reasons the Native Peoples in the New World were so susceptible to European diseases - they'd lost, @ some time, a lot of genomic diversity, & so didn't have the full human complement of genetic coping strategies for dealing with new diseases. In practical terms, a human equivalent of the potato blight would scythe down as much as 95% of the human population. Potatoes particularly were vulnerable to this kind of blight, because it was a monocrop, vast plantings of the same variety of potato, throughout Europe.)

[Standing Wolf]

Excellent, thought-provoking post, by the way. I failed to mention that.

Thanks. I don't have a problem with the concept of society protecting itself, even to the extent of restrictive legislation, from some new scientific innovation or technology...but I'm immediately suspicious of someone's rationale or justification when it begins with the word "Presumably".

“Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant."

I'd have to hear a lot more in the way of hypothetical or predictive detail before I agreed to that presumption.

[Chris]

Surely, genetic engineering can be seen in breeding, where I believe Galton excelled. Man has domesticated plants and animals by simplifying them for predictability, grains that mature on schedule, cows that look the same, selecting them for legibility in aid of taxation. It can be said that man has also domesticated himself, and not just early slavery. All quite successfully till the environment changes in unexpected ways, as it did with early civilizations, often wiping them out when what had been domesticated couldn't survive and sustain them.

What Galton missed in Darwinian evolution was it is not progressive, not designed, not controlled. It is random in mutation.