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Human bodies will never go very far from Earth. This is a rather static view of human bodies. Your list is nice, but it's about current limitations on the avar
by Strom 12y ago
Human bodies will never go very far from Earth.
This is a rather static view of human bodies. Your list is nice, but it's about current limitations on the avarage 2014 human body living on Earth. Human bodies haven't always worked exactly like this and I'm convinced the evolution isn't about to get stagnant now. Quite the contrary, with the advancements in biotech we will surely be able to accelerate the adaptation process to non-Earth environments.
- dagw 12y agoQueue discussion of what is "Human". If a life form can trace its origins to biotech experiments carried out by humans on other humans, is that resulting life form necessarily human?
- Strom 12y agoDepends on the definition, as you predicted. In general I agree with Dawkins that mono definitions don't even make sense here. [1] There never was an Australopithecus mother who gave birth to a Homo child, for every child ever born belonged to the same species as its mother. However to give some rough idea, then in the context of this space exploration discussion, when I say "Human" I mean everything starting from the first person who learned how to cook [2], all the way to potential future versions where there's only a brain within a cyborg body. [1] http://edge.org/response-detail/25366 http://edge.org/response-detail/25366 [2] http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_human_brain http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_...
- dagw 12y agoWhile I agree with Dawkins as such on his point, I can also imagine a future in which both "mother" and "born" become a bit of an anachronism. In that future I wouldn't be overly comfortable simply slapping the label "human" on everything.