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imprimatur to this quest. In his flamboyant essay
Metaman: The Merging
of Humans and Machines into a Global Superorganism
, Gregory Stock
presents a series of brash claims.
Both society and the natural environment have previously undergone tumultuous
changes, but the essence of being human has remained the same. Metaman,
however, is on the verge of significantly altering human form and capacity.
As the nature of human beings begins to change, so too will concepts of what
it means to be human. One day humans will be composite beings: part biologi-
cal, part mechanical, part electronic. By applying biological techniques to
embryos and then to the reproductive process itself, Metaman will take control
of human evolution.
No one can know what humans will become, but whether it is a matter of
fifty years or five hundred years, humans will eventually undergo radical bio-
logical change.
3
Stock's PhD in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University as well as
an MBA from Harvard have helped give him a clear-eyed view of what
lies ahead. As director of the Center for the Study of Evolution and the
Origin of Life at the University of California at Los Angeles, Stock has
outlined the changes he believes the future holds in store, including the
conquest of aging. “The human species,” he remarks, “is moving out of
its childhood. It is time for us to acknowledge our growing powers and
begin to take responsibility for them. We have little choice in this, for
we have begun to play god in so many of life's intimate realms that we
probably could not turn back if we tried.”
4
In Stock's hyperinflated bur-
lesque of ethical reasoning, taking “responsibility” involves recognizing
the “inevitability” of Metaman and seizing each opportunity to use
genetic engineering to move the human organism beyond what he depicts
as its present decrepit condition. While he acknowledges that such devel-
opments will generate “stresses within society,” he argues that moral
deliberation and decisions about public policy are irrelevant. “But
whether such changes are 'wise' or 'desirable' misses the essential point
that they are largely not a matter of choice; they are the unavoidable
product of the technological advance intrinsic to Metaman.”
5
Another colorful spokesperson for the posthuman future in the scien-
tific community is molecular biologist Lee Silver. His topic
Remaking
Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World
surveys near and
distant prospects for biotechnology in various fields of medicine, espe-
cially those involved with control of human reproduction. In his view,
