ABSTRACT
Before human beings discovered writing, or learned to live in cities, they practiced biotechnology in its simplest forms: agriculture, selective breeding of plants and animals, the use of yeast to produce bread and wine and beer, and the processing of plant extracts for medicinal purposes. These basic forms of biotechnology helped give rise to cities, laws, religions, philosophies, and eventually to the modern science of biology, which drives biotechnological advances to new levels. Biotechnology alone has growing powers to remake living things, but today’s bio-
technology is anything but alone. Nanotechnology, and information technology, and a host of other new and exotic strategies have emerged – and some would say they are about to converge – in the human quest to transform nature, including human nature. These unprecedented powers may be used for good or ill. But even if they are used largely for good, they are profound in what they portend for our humanity and for our relationship with the natural world. Today’s biotechnology comes into existence within a Darwinian world-view,
reflecting its assumptions and possibilities. Throughout the twentieth century, Darwinian evolution and molecular genetics were brought together into a “grand synthesis,” culminating in massive projects in genetics research that allow precise genetic comparisons between species. Thanks to this synthesis, we now see the whole realm of living things as interrelated and evolving. We human beings now see ourselves as evolved creatures who share most of our genetic information with other species. For many, the theory of natural selection implies that there is no direction or purpose in evolution itself apart from the human purpose. If that is so, then paradoxically it might now be said that we human beings, who are nothing more than the unintended result of blind processes, are imposing our purposes on evolution by trying to modify nature to suit our will. It is precisely this combination of a Darwinian world-view and rapidly emerging
technologies that create such anxieties about biotechnology. The world of living things seems radically open to our manipulation. Nothing in nature seems to guide us or restrain us. The powers of technology are both expanding and converging. Never before in the history of nature has one species seemed poised to modify the
natural world so radically and so quickly. Never before in human history have we been so powerful in our control over living things, including our own bodies and brains. It is no wonder that many today find themselves worrying whether our technology now poses an unmanageable risk to nature and to our own kind. If technology controls nature, who or what controls technology?
