3 ms·

How Humans Are Shaping Our Own Evolution

26 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

jfarlow 9y ago
> Human enhancements needn’t confer superhuman powers. We already have a library of powers demonstrated to us by nature itself. Because the source-codes of most life on earth is written in the same language, porting packages from one organism to another is actually, generally, reasonable. We can already port single protein packages (though with some difficulty in delivery, and associated risk). There's no fundamental reason we can't start porting over entire processes. Get radiation protection from Tardigrades[1], anti-cancer protection by mimicking elephants' possessing many copies of p53[2]. Give everyone low-oxygen tolerance conferred by PHD2 found in Tibetans[3]. More exotically, photosynthetic and alternative energy generation from various heterotrophic species. And then of course, give optical I/O access using photo-sensitive neural proteins [4]. Or other optogenetic components to give us read/run access to dormant genes already in our genomes[5]. [1] https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/dsup/ https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/dsup/ [2] https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/p53/ https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/p53/ [3] http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v46/n9/full/ng.3067.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v46/n9/full/ng.3067.html [4] http://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab/optogenetics/sequence_info.html http://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab/optogenetics/sequence_inf... [5] http://blog.addgene.org/optogenetics-crispr-using-light-to-control-genome-editing http://blog.addgene.org/optogenetics-crispr-using-light-to-c...
tropo 9y ago
They left out the obvious things that tend to reduce the number of offspring: birth control, distractions like video games, fear of losses in family court, choices that lead to prison, the fact that women no longer need to please men in order to survive, obesity/diabetes/cardiovascular issues, and the tendency to dislike spreading resources thinly across numerous children. People who overcome those impediments to reproduction are the evolutionary winners. The changes can be physical, mental, metabolic, and/or anything else -- it doesn't matter because evolution doesn't care how the job gets done. People of the future will be more like those few people of today who are effective at overcoming the impediments to reproduction.

26 points by pmcpinto 10y ago

> Human enhancements needn’t confer superhuman powers. We already have a library of powers demonstrated to us by nature itself. Because the source-codes of most life on earth is written in the same language, porting packages from one organism to another is actually, generally, reasonable. We can already port single protein packages (though with some difficulty in delivery, and associated risk). There's no fundamental reason we can't start porting over entire processes. Get radiation protection from Tardigrades[1], anti-cancer protection by mimicking elephants' possessing many copies of p53[2]. Give everyone low-oxygen tolerance conferred by PHD2 found in Tibetans[3]. More exotically, photosynthetic and alternative energy generation from various heterotrophic species. And then of course, give optical I/O access using photo-sensitive neural proteins [4]. Or other optogenetic components to give us read/run access to dormant genes already in our genomes[5]. [1] https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/dsup/ https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/dsup/ [2] https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/p53/ https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/p53/ [3] http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v46/n9/full/ng.3067.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v46/n9/full/ng.3067.html [4] http://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab/optogenetics/sequence_info.html http://web.stanford.edu/group/dlab/optogenetics/sequence_inf... [5] http://blog.addgene.org/optogenetics-crispr-using-light-to-control-genome-editing http://blog.addgene.org/optogenetics-crispr-using-light-to-c...

tropo 9y ago

They left out the obvious things that tend to reduce the number of offspring: birth control, distractions like video games, fear of losses in family court, choices that lead to prison, the fact that women no longer need to please men in order to survive, obesity/diabetes/cardiovascular issues, and the tendency to dislike spreading resources thinly across numerous children. People who overcome those impediments to reproduction are the evolutionary winners. The changes can be physical, mental, metabolic, and/or anything else -- it doesn't matter because evolution doesn't care how the job gets done. People of the future will be more like those few people of today who are effective at overcoming the impediments to reproduction.