More Than Human: Summary and book reviews of More Than Human by Ramez Naam, plus links to an excerpt from More Than Human and a biography of Ramez Naam.
More Than Human Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement
by Ramez Naam
Hardcover: Mar 2005,
228 pages.
What if you could be smarter, stronger, and have a better memory just by taking a pill?
What if we could alter our genes to cure Alzheimer's and Parkinson's?
What if we could halt or even reverse the human aging process?
What if we could communicate with each other simply by thinking about it?
These questions were once the stuff of science fiction. Today, advances in biotechnology have shown that they're plausible, even likely to be accomplished in the near future. In labs around the world, researchers looking for ways to help the sick and injured have stumbled onto techniques that enhance healthy animals—making them stronger, faster, smarter, and longer-lived—in some cases, even connecting their minds to robots and computers across the Internet. Now science is on the verge of applying this knowledge to healthy men and women, allowing us to alter humanity in ways we'd previously only dreamed possible. The same research that could cure Alzheimer's is leading to drugs and genetic techniques that could boost human intelligence. The techniques being developed to stave off heart disease and cancer, have the potential to slow or even reverse human aging. And brain implants that restore motion to the paralyzed and sight to the blind are already allowing a small set of patients to control robots and computers simply by thinking about it.
Not everyone welcomes this scientific progress. Cries of "against nature" arise from skeptics even as scientists break new ground at an astounding pace. Across the political spectrum, the debate roils: Should we embrace the power to alter our minds and bodies, or should we restrict it?
Distilling the most radical accomplishments being made in labs worldwide, including gene therapy, genetic engineering, stem cell research, life extension, brain-computer interfaces, and cloning, More Than Human offers an exciting tour of the impact biotechnology will have on our lives. Throughout this remarkable trip, author Ramez Naam shares an impassioned vision for the future with revealing insight into the ethical dilemmas posed by twenty-first-century science.
Encouraging us to celebrate rather than fear these innovations, Naam incisively separates fact from myth, arguing that these much-maligned technologies have the power to transform the human race for the better, so long as individuals and families are left free to decide how and if to use them.
If you've ever wondered about the boundaries of humanity, More Than Human offers a vision of a world where we use our knowledge to improve ourselves, unhindered by the fear of change.
Bill McKibben, author Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
Ramez Naam provides a reliable and informed cook's tour of the world we might choose if we decide that we should fast-forward evolution. I disagree with virtually all his enthusiasms, but I think he has made his case cogently and well.
Bill McKibben, author Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
Ramez Naam provides a reliable and informed cook's tour of the world we might choose if we decide that we should fast-forward evolution. I disagree with virtually all his enthusiasms, but I think he has made his case cogently and well.
Publishers Weekly
Some of the author's prognostications, with their Nietzschean overtones of people being "more than human," may frighten readers, but Naam is persuasive that many of these advances are going to happen no matter what, and that despite the potential for abuses, they offer hope for our well-being and the survival of the species.
Kirkus Reviews
An intriguing presentation by an unabashed advocate of the technological tricking and co-opting of mother nature.
Booklist - Gilbert Taylor
Both the researchers and the companies developing biotechnologies receive Naam's positive attention, and he avers that over time their inventions will become widely affordable. This confident, libertarian sentiment suffuses Naam's approach.
Charts the little-known history of
eugenics in America—a movement that began in the early twentieth century
and resulted in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 Americans.
The emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.
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Bill McKibben, author Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
