http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/harvey_fineberg_are_we_ready_for_neo_evolution.html
Harvey Fineberg starts his TED talk with the rhetorical question written in the title. I would say that this is a very effective way to start (even if your English teacher says otherwise). It gets people thinking right of the bat and there is really no beating around the bush. Another move that really accented Fineberg’s speech was the fact that he had visuals on a PowerPoint of some sort. These pictures, quotes, and graphs gave the audience something to look at while they listened and they also helped him explain his main idea: evolution and how it will continue. He gives a short description of evolution and goes s far back as the Big Bang. Also, he tells the audience of how he found his love for biology in college, expressing his nerdiness and therefore making a connection with the people who are listening. As always, a sense of humor comes into play. He makes a couple simple cracks that go along with his topic just to keep the people on their toes. One sound effect is used in this speech. It is a very short ding that symbolizes how short of a time that humans have been here compared to how long the Earth itself is.
Harvey Fineberg starts his TED talk with the rhetorical question written in the title. I would say that this is a very effective way to start (even if your English teacher says otherwise). It gets people thinking right of the bat and there is really no beating around the bush. Another move that really accented Fineberg’s speech was the fact that he had visuals on a PowerPoint of some sort. These pictures, quotes, and graphs gave the audience something to look at while they listened and they also helped him explain his main idea: evolution and how it will continue. He gives a short description of evolution and goes s far back as the Big Bang. Also, he tells the audience of how he found his love for biology in college, expressing his nerdiness and therefore making a connection with the people who are listening. As always, a sense of humor comes into play. He makes a couple simple cracks that go along with his topic just to keep the people on their toes. One sound effect is used in this speech. It is a very short ding that symbolizes how short of a time that humans have been here compared to how long the Earth itself is.
The sole test of survival is adaptation to the environment. According to Harvey Fineberg, there are three possibilities in which evolution could occur.
- No evolution at all. We could simply be the end of the line. Through medicine, we have preserved genes that we wish to keep. Therefore, preventing the natural occurrence of new genes. Also, human beings have almost stopped adapting to their environments. Instead, we have mad the environment adapt to US.
- Traditional evolution will continue just as it always has. It has been said that the wheels of evolution grind slowly, but they never quite stop. Evolution will always be there, we just won’t be able to see it as clearly. Evolution also occurs when there is isolation and environmental changes. If and when we migrate to other planets, there will be plenty of both of those things.
- The last possibility of human evolution is neo-evolution. It is extremely controversial because it deals with making our own genes and deciding what stays or goes. Some work has recently been done on a human skin cell to the point where it reverted back to a human stem cell: the root of all life. With self directed evolution, we can take a process that usually takes 100,000 years and condense it to 100.
With a few changes in your genes, you can make yourself however you want to be. We can get rid of diseases, increase life expectancies, and even add “super attributes”. I can understand the desire to be rid of the world’s crippling diseases of today. They do not bring anything but pain in suffering in most cases. But eliminating diseases would cause the world to have a longer lifespan. This is probably not a good thing. Look at how overpopulated we are right now. Would there be room on this Earth if people continued to reproduce but never died? This also eliminates room for mental and social growth. With new generations come new ideas. If the older generations never went away, the new generations would not get a chance to speak and move forward. Now, the most controversial things about self-directed evolution are so-called “super attributes”. No, this doesn’t mean becoming X-Men. It just means bettering the random aspects of life like memory, fitness, creativity, etc. Who would opt for fitness? Memory? Creativity? Unfortunately, not many people would go for the creative aspect. Most lean towards the vainer of the choices. According to Dan Pink and the books he has written, this isn’t good for the future. The world is getting tired of just getting by in life. They need something else to keep them satisfied. Not just the simple, one use ideas. They need something creative. But getting back to the choosing: What if you could change the cells in your offspring before they are born? Hey, who doesn’t want healthier children? I read this book last year called Double Helix. It was about this intern at a science institute that found out a huge secret about the founder: He had been performing experiments on fertilized eggs in order to better their DNA. In real life, there is a certain point where this kind of experiment just isn’t a good idea anymore.
So, what is the next phase in the human existence? Are we destined to become something different? Or are we already there? If we do end up taking the path of neo-evolution, will we choose a community that is better, kinder, and more successful? What about the “super attributes”? Will only some people get these? Is that a good idea? Will the society we make be boring and uniform or robust and versatile? More importantly, will we develop the wisdom to make these choices wisely? Well?
No comments:
Post a Comment