More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement | 
|  | | | Title: | More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement | | Author: | Ramez Naam | | Publisher: | Broadway | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 08 March, 2005 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0767918436 / 9780767918435 | | List Price: | $24.95 | | You Save: | $8.48 | | Amazon Price: | $16.47 | |
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Product Description
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.
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Customer Reviews:
• Unusual Because It Mixes Realism And Optimism So Well 06 December, 2005
Most futurist manifestos are not well founded in reality. Naam did his homework, and has pages and pages of endnotes to prove it, and to lead the curious reader to the original sources. I share his extreme optimism about all these present and future avenues for human enhancement, but needed some better arguments on which to base my optimism. He provided more than enough, including thoughtful analyses of economic, ethical, and societal ramifications. To sum it up, it is all going to happen, whether we want it or not, and we better begin to get used to the ideas now, and prepare for enhanced humans of all sorts. Getting scared and putting regulations on things does not work--He has many examples of that. If we embrace change it will all go much more smoothly and sooner! I hug the future warmly.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2Z7FERY8IG30E
• Great Book That Puts Life Into Perspective. 31 July, 2008
Ramez Naam writes very well. His ideas a presented elegantly and supported by evidence. I always thought I was normal but Ramez Naam demonstrated to me that what I think is normal is really not so. He has also persuaded me to look forward to a great future of human achievement.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3K5XSH3HTARHP
• Wired Brains, Hands, Even Arms & Legs. 05 October, 2005
What if we could communicate with each other simply by thinking about it? I try that all the time but I don't know if it works. Now, researchers have developed techniques to connect a human's mind to robots and computers across the Internet. Using brain implants to restore motion to the paralyzed and sight to blind people allow some patients to control robots (and computers) simply by thinking about it!
'Serenity' is closer to the truth, though based in 2046, with the behavior modification used on rebellious recruits. It gave power and strength to a skinny little girl, River, with fighting skills of a giant. I saw the tallest man I ever did see at the post office the other morning, and it was scary seeing how long and skinny his legs were.
Is it good to alter our minds? I've watched the hypnotist at the fair make "normal" volunteers from the group watching act silly and do ridiculous things. I had decided that he'd hypotized them with his melodious, deep voice, as his personality was not spectacular.
Labs worldwide are dabbling with cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering as shown so clearly in the movie, 'The Island,' craeting ethical dilemmas as to the "rightness" to change people in this manner. The United States of America have imposed severe limits on government funding for stem cell research, but have left the private sector to do what it wants. Though embryonic stem cell science got its start in the States, the rest of the world is fighting to take the lead.
We were not granted life extensions, which may be possible in the future, but at what cost? Will it make life better for the "altered" or will it turn them into robots as in 'The Stepford Wives"? Bodies are flexible; by contrast, "our computers are simple, rigid, specialized things. An e-mail program will never learn to handle voice-mail, despite the similarity between the two." Voice mail is available on some of the Internet carriers now, but you would need a new, energized system with plenty of memory space.
Should we fear change? Ramaz Naam doesn't think so. Thanks to him, I am able to use Internet Explorer to clear out the junk in my daily computing so this old computer will go another day. He was also intrumental in developing Microsoft Outlook, but that is something I haven't tried. I am still a novice on the computer, learned word processing some years ago, which come in handy on these reviews.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2F3SXHT6RBV81
• More Than Interesting 23 July, 2006
Whether you are a technoprogressive biohacking singularity buff, or you think "H+" is just a hydrogen ion, this book will definitely interest you. Providing an incredibly optimistic view of the biotechnological advances soon to be made, Ramez Naam gives us a comprehensive overview of the potential benefits of human enhancement technologies. This book is nice in that is covers many aspects of current research in transhumanism, from mind-machine interfaces to gerontological engineering, unlike most books which are slimmer in scope. It is well written and well researched, although very obviously one-sided. If you want to get both sides of the controversy, read this, some Kurzweil, then check out Leon Kass or Francis Fukuyama. Although I don't agree with them, I suppose it's good to know your enemies =) Even if you've never heard of transhumanism, check this book out.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A18PRCBUXIWRAN
• Explains Biological Enhancement For Everyone 25 March, 2006
Ramez Naan does a great job here detailing rapidly growing and maturing biological enhancement technologies. This is a very diverse field, ranging from life extension medications, genetic modifications, to minds hooked directly to the internet, and even mind-to-mind connections may be possible. Such mind/computer links may become natural extensions of ourselves, Naam writes. Idle speculation this is not, Naam gives many examples of present day uses, and also discusses research projects now under way, in addition giving extrapolations sometimes for up to several decades into the future. If you are interested in this sort of thing, I recommend THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR, by Ray Kurzweil, a very forward-looking book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2IP33O7WBJLU5
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