From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Jul 12 2002 - 22:09:32 MDT
At 01:38 AM 7/13/02 +0200, Anders wrote:
>Another area is of course human nature. We should be happy Fukuyama
>brought it up - now it is our turn to give our answers. How to make
>biotechnology something that enhances human dignity is important for us
>too, and we better articulate how we think this can be done.
>
>Then there is the issues surrounding tolerance, diversity and the right
>to choose one's lifestyle. We go further than most in our affirmation of
>morphological freedom, and it can act as a generalisation of the many
>ideas circulating today about the rights to one's body, the health
>concept etc.
After reading the Slate discussion between Robert Wright (NONZERO and other
books) and Frank Fukuyama, I sent Wright a copy of my review of OUR
POSTHUMAN FUTURE, reposted here a little while back. He responds with the
usual mixed reactions of an open-minded, scientifically informed intellectual:
================
Thanks for sending your review, which I enjoyed. As you've no doubt
gathered, I share your basic view of the Fukuyama book. I'm actually not a
big biotech booster, and there are lots of things about the coming world
that give me pause, but I (a) literally can't discern a coherent argument
behind many of the anti-biotech arguments; (b) consider biotech a largely
unstoppable force; and (c) think it will do a lot of good, along no doubt
with some bad.
--Bob Wright
================
Some more encouragement to Bob from Max, Anders, Robert etc might be worth
trying. :)
Damien Broderick
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