Garreau's Four Possible Scenarios For The Future

Washington Post reporter Garreau gets readers on a cross-country journey into the future as he interviews scientists and other thinkers struggling with the implications of our newfound—and, to some, frightening—knowledge of the genome. Highlighting what he calls the bend the rate of exponential change in technology—Garreau breaks the centered part of his book into four scenarios. In Heaven, genetic technology will make us more powerful and healthier, help us reside longer and metabolize our food more efficiently.

Hell resembles the isle of Dr. Moreau: science sprints amok, we cripple the genome of our food supplies, and offspring are born with unforeseen deformities instead of the advanced characteristics pledged by gene therapies. The Prevail scenario might furthermore be called Muddling Through: even if we make a error now and then, we will number out how to slow possibly harmful changes and speed up possibly beneficial ones. Last, transcend considers that humans might conquer the adversities that lie ahead and appear into a new age beyond our wildest dreams. Science buffs enthralled by the leading perimeters of societal and technological change and readers worried by the ethical issues that change presents will find much to ponder in Garreau's nonjudgmental gaze into our likely futures.

Brief recount of the four scenarios

Imagine a world in which human beings no longer worry about procuring food. Imagine a world in which infection becomes a thing of the past. Imagine a world in which mortality devotes way to human/machine hybrids that can reside for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Sounds good, doesn't it? If so, imagine a different sort of world, a world in which a small class of people in ownership of this sort of expertise genetically engineers babies. Imagine a world in which these identical people turn traditional humans into slaves. Imagine, even, the expertise in this likely future spiraling out of command and turning the planet into gray sludge. Sounds scary, doesn't it? These two scenarios play a central role in Joel Garreau's "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies--And What It Means to Be Human." (Garreau, 2005, 39) Another scenario plays out in the book, one in which human beings prevail over rapid technological changes and, by doing so, accept or decline which types of "radical evolution" to adopt. The succeeding conversation on these three matters fills pages with marvels that boggle the ...