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Name: Hacking Darwin
Rating: 4.4 (99 reviews)
Author: Jamie Metzl

Jamie Metzl

Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity

4.4 (99 ratings)

28 mins

Brief summary

Hacking Darwin by Jamie Metzl explores the ethical implications of genetic engineering, arguing that we must balance technological advancement with moral responsibility to shape the future of humanity.

Topics

Natural Sciences Diversity & Inclusion Life Sciences

Table of Contents

Hacking Darwin
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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Discover the genetic revolution.

Imagine walking into a fertility clinic in the year 2035. Thanks to the latest, state of the art gene technology you can reduce the chances that your child will develop Alzheimer's disease, certain types of cancer and heart disease later in life. You can even choose traits which will influence your offspring’s height, IQ and personality type.

This scenario might sound like science fiction, but it could soon be reality. Thanks to recent leaps in technology and a better understanding of the human genome, we will be able to play an increasingly active role in designing our future offspring. Welcome to the genetic revolution.

In these blinks, you’ll survey the history of evolutionary biology and genetics, spanning from Darwinian evolutionary theory to the latest in gene technology.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why a genetically altered baby is no more unnatural than a vaccinated one;
how you might soon be able to change your skin color to blue; and
how developments in genetic engineering could mean the end of hereditary disease.

Until now, humanity has evolved through the natural selection of heritable traits.

When combating fruit flies in your kitchen, it may seem hard to believe that these annoying little creatures are related to you. But, in fact, 700 million years ago, a mutual ancestor of humans and fruit flies roamed the planet.

Had you told someone this two hundred years ago, you would have been called a heretic. At that time, most people believed that humans were magically put on Earth by God along with all other creatures and that they had always been the same. This assumption was challenged when Charles Darwin published his classic On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859.

Based on years of meticulous research from his voyage around the world, Darwin posited that all life on Earth is related. Small, inherited variations in traits enabled populations to compete to survive and reproduce in a process which he called natural selection. In other words, populations evolved since species with more advantageous traits survived and reproduced more than those with less advantageous traits.

Today, most scientists agree that the first single-cell organisms emerged 3.8 billion years ago. Around 540 million years ago, mutations among organisms skyrocketed, exploding into diverse ecosystems of plants and animals. Our species, Homo Sapiens, emerged around 300 thousand years ago. Human traits have been so advantageous that we have survived and multiplied across the planet. In the process, we have outcompeted other species, such as our Neanderthal cousins, to extinction.

Darwin understood the big picture of evolution. But it was one of his contemporaries who took the first steps in understanding how our biological heritage actually works.

By studying the traits passed down to the offspring of over ten thousand pea plants, the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel found that a plant’s traits are formed by pairs of genes inherited from each parent plant. Mendel posited that individual traits are passed on independently of other traits. In cases where the two genes in a pair are different, one gene will always be dominant. That meant that an offspring’s genes are inherited as distinct units rather than being a perfect blend of its parents’ genetic makeup.

Together, Darwinian evolutionary theory and Mendelian genetics turned the tide in biology. In the next blink, we’ll take a look at how we are entering a new era beyond natural selection.

Thanks to AI and big data analytics, our biology is becoming another form of information technology.

Darwinian evolutionary theory and Mendelian genetics began an unprecedented age of biotechnical progress. At the heart of this progress is our understanding of genetics. So let’s start with some basics.

Our genetic code is made up of pairs of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, molecules stacked in a sequence that forms a double helix. There are four kinds of nucleotides, or DNA molecules, commonly known by their first letter: G, A, T, or C. Each pair of nucleotides contains one molecule inherited from our mother and one inherited from our father. The sequence in which these molecules are strung together form unique units of genetic code known as genes.

Advances in assisted reproductive technologies will lead to embryo screening for increasingly complex traits.

Even with the help of AI technology, we are only at the beginning of solving the secrets of the human genome. Nonetheless, scientists have made groundbreaking progress in the realm of reproductive technologies.

Reproductive technology can be as simple as preventing reproduction between two carriers of a recessive disease. Take Tay-Sachs, a recessive genetic disorder carried by around four percent of Ashkenazi Jews. Affected children suffer a painful death through the slow destruction of their nerve cells. By avoiding reproduction between two carriers who test positive through genome sequencing, the Orthodox Jewish community has effectively eliminated Tay-Sachs from the population since the genetic mutation for the disease was identified in 1985.

By around 2045, IVF will replace sex as the primary reproductive method.

People tend to be dogmatic about what qualifies as “natural.” That’s why most people are hesitant when it comes to the idea of conceiving babies in a lab. But when you look at the world, you’ll realize that we have been manipulating nature for our own advancement for thousands of years.

Take vaccines. They have been embraced in spite of the seemingly shocking idea of injecting your child with a virus and the risks of having an allergic reaction. Assisted reproduction technology will be no different.

Rapid developments in genetic engineering suggest a future in which scientists can edit, engineer and create life.

Embryo selection enables prospective parents to select their future offspring based on the genetic makeup of the embryo. But developments in gene editing suggest that in the future, rather than just choosing an embryo, you’ll be able to manipulate your embryo’s genetic code.

Though it has been around since the 1980s, gene-editing is more precise and affordable than ever. This is thanks to the development of the 2010 CRISPR system, which uses bacteria to cut DNA in precise locations, like tiny molecular scissors. In 2015, scientists in China used CRISPR to alter genes in an unimplanted embryo to prevent the development of a severe blood disorder. In 2017, a team in the United States successfully altered defected sperm cells to prevent hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which reduces the heart’s ability to pump blood.

Individual, societal and national opinion on the genetic revolution will be divided.

Cultural diversity is part of what makes humanity so special. Unfortunately, it also often leads to conflict. This is especially true when it comes to new technologies. Just look at genetically modified (GM) crops. Studies across the board have revealed that GM crops are as safe to eat as traditional crops. In America and China, farmers have adopted GM seeds to yield more crops using fewer pesticides.

But fearmongering led by anti-GMO activists, who see GM crops as dangerous, led to their being banned by seventeen countries in the EU. The issues surrounding GM food production illustrate how humanity might clash over the regulation of genetic engineering. So far, polls on genetic engineering in the United States reflect that Americans are in favor of manipulating genes to prevent diseases, as well as genetic alterations that would protect their children from harm. But ideological differences will be inevitable.

Competition will drive the genetic revolution forward.

For years, Russia and China have secretly sponsored doping athletes for international competitions like the Olympics. Not long from now, these and other countries will be able to edit the genes in adult athletes. This will technically be cheating. But, as it will be difficult to determine whether someone has been genetically edited or not, curtailing how genetics will be used in international sporting competitions presents serious challenges.

In the United States, parents can already check the athletic aptitude of their children through genomic tests. Uzbekistan’s national sports program has incorporated genetic testing since 2014. China recently announced that the selection process for the 2022 Winter Olympics will include genetic sequencing. But athletic competition is only a fragment of how competition is driving an international genetic arms race.

The genetic revolution raises critical ethical questions regarding diversity and equality.

Will the universal adoption of embryo selection lead to a homogenous monoculture? Or will genetic enhancements result in new class hierarchies? And how will we treat parents who decide not to engage in genetic engineering? These are just a few of the ethical questions we must face as we march forward into the genetic era.

One of the most pressing concerns about reproductive technologies is diversity. The future of humanity will depend on diversity for survival, as it has for the entirety of our evolution. Genetic alterations that shift sexual orientation or skin color to fit a certain social bias would be socially devastating. More concerning, since we can’t predict for certain what the demands of our future world will be, interfering with our evolutionary processes could accidentally kill off our species.

Public education and regulating reproductive technologies will be key to preventing catastrophe.

Ethical concerns are only one potential pitfall of genetic engineering. Terrorists could also use gene-editing to create harmful pathogens to use as weapons. Even unintentionally, the introduction of genetically altered organisms could wipe out whole ecosystems. We need to create national and international institutions to determine the regulation of genetic engineering going forward.

People will argue that setting up an international infrastructure around genetics is not an urgent matter. But just look at our past attempts to create international bodies for regulating potentially devastating technologies. Ratified in 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has prevented a global nuclear crisis but has failed to prevent the United States and Russia from possessing nuclear weapons or countries like North Korea and Israel from acquiring them. International regulation is often a chaotic and conflict-ridden process.

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What is Hacking Darwin about?

Hacking Darwin (2019) argues that humanity is on the cusp of a future beyond natural selection with the help of assisted reproductive technologies that will enable us to hack our genetic makeup. By mapping the history of genetics, technology and the implications of genetic engineering, it advocates for an informed adoption of the genetic revolution and suggests how to approach its political and ethical challenges.

Best quote from Hacking Darwin

We are, in other words, beginning a process of hacking Darwin.

—Jamie Metzl

Who should read Hacking Darwin?

Prospective parents interested in advanced reproductive technologies
Futurists, technocrats and sci-fi enthusiasts
Students of ethics and biology

About the Author

Jamie Metzl is a leading futurist, geopolitics expert, sci-fi novelist, entrepreneur and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee in 2019, he develops global standards for the governance and oversight of human genome editing. Metzl has also served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department and Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is also the author of the genetics sci-fi thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata.

Categories with Hacking Darwin

Technology & the Future Science

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