Part 1: 10,000 years Part 2: 100,000 years Part 3: a million years Part 4: ten million years Part 5: Recommendations
The future of the human race will be, to a significant extent, written in our genes. Much about us at present is written there now. But we know too little about what those genes say, what variations in them do, and what new and beneficial variations are possible. Such information will enable, for example, advanced medical interventions, the beginnings of which are occasionally in the news now. To add to knowledge of our genes it will be helpful to develop animals whose genes are replaced by homologous human genes, so these genes can be more effectively studied. Humanized mice are now available and increasingly used in cancer research and other laboratories. Still more knowledge would become available by humanizing other animals as well. Eventually, unusually intelligent dogs could come to replace ordinary pooches as “man’s best friend.” But studying our genes is also done without humanized animals.
By comparing our genome to those of chimpanzees and other primates we can deduce a great deal about ourselves from those genes we share and those that differ in small or large ways. We can deduce not only when we split from them, but how physical characteristics vary and how fast it can take for changes to occur. Thus we can tell that several million years hence our descendants will look quite different from how we look, perhaps as much as we look different from creatures that split from our line several million years ago, like chimpanzees. But those descendants probably won’t look as different from us as bats, cats, or starfish. Many important conclusions remain to be discovered by advanced scientific techniques for comparing our genome with those of related animals. Yet many primates are decreasing in population and are now, or may become, at risk of extinction. Every such extinction will close off access to genomes and associated phenotypes (traits of the organisms) that have much to tell us about our past and, maybe, our possible future. Understanding how we got where we are now can shed considerable light on where we could go, what our genetic potentials are, and how long it might take to reach them.
Thus, preservation of primate species is in our interest and strongly recommended. The diversity of gorilla populations is one example of concern, as numbers of gorillas in distinct population locations are decreasing precipitously. At stake is not just understanding of our distant past, but of our possible futures as well.
Human evolution has produced great change, and great strides, over the past 10 million years. But wouldn’t it be nice if changes we might desire — much better brains, markedly more athletic bodies, adaptations helpful in colonizing other planets and moons, resistance to diseases from malaria to flu to heart disease, much longer lifetimes, ability to reproduce without need of assistance from the opposite sex (most plausible for women), inborn dislike of the taste of junk food (or alternatively, ability to nutritionally thrive on junk food since it is sooooo tasty), three hands since everyone knows that sometimes two are just not enough, and so on. And wouldn’t it be even nicer to get such things without those annoying multi-million year lead times. Certainly in 10 million years “we” will look very different regardless, but changes can potentially happen vastly faster, and in desired directions, if change is managed and controlled appropriately. Far from the eugenics movement of the decades surrounding the year 1900, which was so scientifically naive and blatantly racist as to make one doubt the mental fitness of its proponents, a new movement would be aimed at encouraging genetically updated people to be created and to exist, instead of the discredited concept of discouraging out groups from reproducing.
How might this new “benegenics” approach work? Benegenics would involve, first, screening people for new and rare mutations. It is those genes that will eventually rule the future. It is also those genes with the greatest potential to help change the human condition — for the better, but maybe for the worse if we are not both careful and wise. While by definition a very small proportion of people have genes that are both rare and valuable, the total number of such persons is larger now than throughout all of human history and prehistory. The simple reason is that there are more people in existence now than ever before. Once identified, such people may often be willing to participate as research subjects to expand human knowledge about our genetic potentials, particularly if paid. As for the rest of us, we are each unique in our combination of genes, but that uniqueness is not passed on to our descendants. Our children contain their own unique genetic mix, but that mix is composed of the same genes found in countless others. Your genetic recipe is unique but the gene ingredients are standard. The ingredients get passed on down the generations but the recipe gets changed each time such that it is rarely more than barely recognizable across even a couple of generations.
Even genetic differences between ethnic and racial groups are minor contributors to the human genetic range, because genetic diversity within ethnic and racial groups is known to dwarf average differences across groups. The few genes that cause visible distinctions between some groups may seem noticeable but tend to be only skin deep (literally), and not determine deeper aspects of the human condition. Consequently the self-serving pipe dream of the old eugenicists, that suppressing reproduction of people unlike themselves would improve the human race, is naive. It is also socially destructive — contradicting the movement’s own stated goal of a better society. The contribution one may hope to make with one’s children is not genetic but social and cultural, because constructive people benefit the world and every little bit helps.
This assumes the species does not go extinct first. Most species do die out. So why should Homo sapiens be any different?