Q&A: Bill McKibben on Staying Human

In his latest book, Bill McKibben writes about two up-and-coming technologies, human genetic engineering (also called "germline engineering") and nanotechnology. "Enough" questions the necessity of enacting these technologies, and pursues the question of what it means to be human, and whether using genetic engineering to "perfect" humans will cause us to become something else entirely.

In "Enough," you warn against the dangers -- many of them imminent and grave -- of new technologies that will allow us to "redesign" human beings. Realistically, what kind of redesigning are we talking about?

Genetics researchers are continually discovering new traits linked, in part or in whole, to our DNA: IQ, muscle mass, height, sociability, even our inclination to optimism or happiness. Just as they've already done with many other animals, some scientists want to tweak human embryos at an early stage of development to "enhance" these characteristics.

These sound like pretty far-out ideas. Do you believe anyone -- science -- would actually do that? And if they would, isn't that light years away?

Some researchers with real scientific credibility, and real access to large amounts of venture capital, hope to do just this kind of work. Consider, for instance, James Watson, the co-discoverer of the double helix, who this spring celebrates the 50th anniversary of his Nobel-winning paper. Watson -- who was also the first head of the national genome project -- has called for aggressive pursuit of so-called "germline engineering." He urges society to "go for perfection," using our new understanding of genetics to eliminate shyness and to rule out "cold fish." "Who wants an ugly baby?" he asks, adding, "If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we do it?"

And Watson is far from alone -- top researchers at places like MIT and UCLA have deemed such work not only a good idea, but "inevitable," predicting that within a very few years the children of most people who can afford the technology will be 'enhanced' before birth. "Why not seize this power?" asks Princeton geneticist Lee Silver in his book Remaking Eden. "We control all other aspects of our children's lives and identities through powerful social and environmental influences... On what basis can we reject positive genetic influences on a person's essence when we accept the rights of parents to benefit their children in every other way."

That's an interesting question. What would be wrong with 'improved' children?

This is at the crux of "Enough." Other writers have at least begun to focus on the practical problems: all the things that could go wrong with these technologies, and the fact that they would enshrine the divisions between rich and poor into our very biology. But I've tried also to raise a deeper set of issues: the meaning of a human life will disappear if we make these changes. To understand what I mean, imagine yourself an 'improved' child. Is your intelligence your own? Is your mood your own, or the result of some protein pumped out by your cells in response to a particular stretch of commercial DNA added by your parents before your birth? Would your accomplishments, your hopes, your dreams mean anything in the way we reckon it now in such a world? Or would you be more akin to a robot?

We already try to influence our children in innumerable ways. But part of growing up is dealing with that influence: rebelling against it, finding the parts you want and rejecting the rest. You'd never be able to reject this kind of influence, though; it would be part of every cell in your body. This is the single most radical technology anyone's ever thought of -- and the greatest breach with all that came before.

Can we avoid this world of designer babies without sacrificing necessary medical progress?