Blog#7:Evolution Selection vs. Natural Selection

The idea behind the title of this blog came from a comment that Jacob made in class a couple of weeks ok, and that Dr. Lucas responded on. I can’t remember the question exactly, but basically it was about parents being able to decide the traits they would want their unborn child to have. The presence of new, revolutionary technology in society has given us the ability to determine the outlook of determining who we are or who we become physically. Basically we will be able to change natural selection through evolution selection—hence the title of my blog. This changing of natural selection, or interference of natural selection as I like to call it, will it cause us as society to deviate from being less human to being more like a cyborg? Over the course of the semester we have read several pieces on the “cyborg”—what it is or how we as human beings are becoming or will all be like cyborgs in the future. At first I thought this idea was simply ridiculous, but the more I begin to think about it we are not becoming cyborgs—we are in fact cyborgs right now.

With all the rapid changes in technology people evolving into cyborgs at a rapid rate. In his book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil says that: “Technology picks right up with the exponentially quickening pace of evolution. Although not the only tool-using animal, Homo sapiens are distinguished by their creation of technology. Technology goes beyond the mere fashioning and use of tools. It involves a record of tool making and a progression in the sophistication of tools. It requires invention and is itself a continuation of evolution by other means” (14). Kurzweil’s definition of technology is exactly the way that we as humans are using technology to physically change ourselves. The problem with this is our technology (evolution selection) has caught up with natural selection. Kurzweil notes this problem by adding that pretty soon humans will be able to create evolution (natural selection) with technology (evolution selection). Kurzweil response on the problem with technology is basically how we have all become cyborgs in my opinion.

The thought about humans becoming cyborgs was at first ridiculous, but the thought of using technology to create natural selection is just plain scary. Will technology eventually wipe out natural selection completely? or will we just tweak natural selection to make it better suit us? Either way we are deviating from being human like (natural selection) and towards being more like a cyborg (evolution selection). Once upon time natural selection changed us, now we are the ones changing or interfering with natural selection to better suit our needs.

Works Cited

Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines. New York: Penguin, 1999. 14.