Reviews of More Than Human
Publisher's Weekly says:
Imagine a person severely disabled by a stroke who, with electrodes implanted in his brain, can type on a computer just by thinking about the letters. Or a man, blind for 20 years, driving a car around a parking lot via a camera hard-wired into his brain. Plots for science fiction? No, it's already happened, according to future technologies expert Naam.
In an excellent and comprehensive survey, Naam investigates a wide swath of cutting-edge techniques that in a few years may be as common as plastic surgery. Genetic therapy for weight control isn't that far off--it's already being done with animals. Countless people who are blind, deaf or paralyzed will acquire the abilities that most people take for granted through advances in computer technology and understanding how the nervous system functions. Naam says the armed services are already investing millions of dollars in this research; they envision super-pilots and super-soldiers who will be able to control their planes and tanks more quickly via thought.
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 says:
Wired minds, designer bodies, doubled life spans, a child for every
happy couple: an optimistic portrayal of the brave new future of
scientifically improved life. The subtitle is apt, as Naam (a computer
engineer at Microsoft) makes no attempt to mask his enthusiasm for the
drugs, therapies, products, and procedures of cutting-edge biotech. This
is not a sage analysis of the immediate feasibility or likelihood of
specific changes. Nor does the author claim experience in a biological
field or medical training. His book, instead, is a logical and
structured explanation of bioengineering projects underway: gene therapy
to cure disease, enhance athletic performance, and lengthen life span;
brain implants to allow the paralyzed to move, the mute to speak, the
blind to see, and the deaf to hear; brain-computer interfaces to mimic
telepathy ("Just as we can e-mail our words . . . we'll be able to
broadcast the inner states of our minds"). There's little chance that
all of these will ever become mainstream, but some certainly will, and
that fact alone is both exciting and frightening.
Naam doesn't shy away from trumpeting controversial propositions such as human cloning or genetic selection of embryos, and he audaciously sets out game plan and shining new playing field, though he still does address some of the bumps in any road that will lead to universal acceptance.
He shows a knack for plain and clear explanations of highly complex and technical concepts without condescension or pedantry. He goes beyond the simple gee whiz and even takes time to address the economics of research (development is expensive, implementation thereafter often cheap). Along the way, he refers to political trends that suggest eventual acceptance of initially controversial practices and ideas, and he investigates large-scale implications of many of the biotechnologies, as, for example, the impact upon world population of life extension techniques. An intriguing presentation by an unabashed advocate of the technological tricking and co-opting of mother nature.
LA Times writes:
Scientific and medical advances in the last 150
years have doubled average life spans in advanced countries; made
historical curiosities of fearsome epidemic diseases; eliminated
childhood scourges; turned fatal adult diseases into chronic illnesses
to be "managed"; and changed the way we think about aging. But if you
think these changes have pushed at our sense of what it means to be
human, just wait for what will happen in the next 20 years.
Gene therapy could eliminate genetically based diseases; designer drugs
could combat neurological or brain disease, improve intelligence or
sculpt personality. A variety of therapies could affect life at its
beginning and end, allowing parents to modify the genes that shape an
unborn child's mind and physique, or elders to dramatically slow the
aging process. Brain implants already let us use thought to control
prostheses and robotic devices. In a few years, they could evolve into
machine-mediated brain-to-brain connection — Internet-enabled telepathy
and mind reading.
Authors as different as Bill McKibben in "Enough" and Francis Fukuyama
in "Our Posthuman Future" argue that technologies could so dramatically
alter our bodies, or challenge our capacity for self-determination and
free will, that we should be wise enough to refuse — even ban — them.
Stop worrying, Ramez Naam says in "More Than Human." He argues that
efforts to ban such enhancements are either folly or futile for several
reasons. Prohibition wouldn't destroy the markets for life-extending
therapies or genetic redesign of human embryos, he says; it would just
drive them abroad or underground. Banning technologies and therapies
also constrains the freedoms of individuals and markets. The Declaration
of Independence declared that "Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness" are inalienable rights: Denying someone access to cortical
implants hits the trifecta.
Further, Naam argues, "scientists cannot draw a clear line between
healing and enhancing." Banning the latter would inevitably cripple the
former. Finally and most provocatively, "far from being unnatural, the
drive to alter and improve on ourselves is a fundamental part of who we
humans are." This turns the argument of bioethicists like Leon Kass
(head of the President's Council on Bioethics, which has been famously
conservative in its recommendations) upside down. Our limits don't
define us, Naam says; our desire to overcome them does.
"More Than Human" is a terrific survey of current work and future
possibilities in gene therapy, neurotechnology and other fields. Naam
doesn't shy away from technical detail, but his enthusiasm keeps the
science from becoming intimidating. But he's less successful in making
the case for "embracing the promise of biological enhancement." Yes,
people are greedy, regulations are often ineffective and the war on
drugs has not gone well. But none of these facts is likely to change the
minds of people who oppose gene therapy on moral or theological grounds.
Many religions see the body as a prison, not a temple, and illness and
death as part of life's natural course. Indeed, the Pontifical Academy
of Life recently decried the Western world's "health-fiend madness,"
arguing that it takes money away from simpler but more potent public
health measures — and denies us the hard-won wisdom that suffering can
bring.
But in today's borderless high-tech world, if gene therapies and neural
implants are banned in the U.S., they'll probably be available somewhere
else. Medical tourism is already a growth industry in parts of Latin
America and Asia that have low labor costs, attractive locations and
good facilities. One can only imagine the money a small tropical nation
could make restoring youth to the elderly. Rather than focus on banning
them, we'd be better off making sure these therapies are not available
only to the super-rich and figuring out how their availability could
affect the future.
Those efforts might be helped by realizing that "More Than Human"
describes two different technologies. Life-extending therapies, despite
their likely popularity, probably wouldn't dramatically change our sense
of what it means to be human. In contrast, neurotechnologies that allow
a prosthetic device to feel like a part of our bodies, or let us
directly share thoughts and senses with others, would scramble our basic
notions of body and mind, self and other, individual and community.
I tend to agree with Naam that the desire to prolong life, acquire new
physical powers and extend the mind does not risk making us less human.
There's more to life than trying to recapture lost youth, but no one who
defends the humanity of the weak, the disabled and the very old should
deny the humanity of those who seek to re-engineer their bodies or
minds. "More Than Human" maps some of this future, but it probably won't
help you decide whether you want to really go there.
Scientific American: "Editors Recommend" More Than Human
Other Praise for More Than Human
“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
“More Than Human is excellent—passionate yet balanced, clearly
written and rich with fascinating details. A wonderful overview of a
topic that will dominate the twenty-first century.”
—Greg Bear, author of Dead Lines and
Darwin’s Children
“Sixty years ago, human beings gave digital computers the ability to
modify their own coded instructions—sparking a revolution that has now
given us the ability to modify our own coded instructions, promising
revolutions even more extreme. Whether for, against, or undecided about
genetic modification of human beings, you should read this book—a bold,
compelling look at what lies ahead.”
—George Dyson, author of Darwin Among the Machines
“More Than Human is one of those rare books that is both a
delightful read and an important statement. You’ll relish the
fascinating stories of physical and mental enhancement that Naam has
assembled here, but you’ll also come away with a new sense of wonder at
the human drive for pushing at the boundaries of what it means to be
human. No one interested in the future intersections of science,
technology, and medicine can afford to miss this book.”
—Steven Johnson, author of Mind Wide Open: Your
Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
“Ramez Naam’s look at the coming of human enhancement is a major
contribution; he shows convincingly that the conceptual wall between
therapy and enhancement is fast crumbling.”
—Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans