The Brave New World of Genetically Modifying a 'New Human Species'

Brandon Turbeville

Activist Post

November 11, 2011

If some of the information emerging from the technology, governmental, and academic worlds are any indication, not only is the police state here; the scientific dictatorship is right around the corner. Indeed, if recent comments made by Juan Enriquez are indicative of the coming state merger between technology and genetics, we have much to be concerned about. 

For those that are unfamiliar with Enriquez, he may not be the most flashy of the science superstars currently on the scene, but he is not exactly a nobody either. Enriquez was the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project and is currently chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy LLC., a “life sciences research and investment firm” and managing director of Excel Venture Management. He is the author of numerous books, including As The Future Catches You: How Genomics And Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health, and Wealth and The Untied States of America: Polarization, Fracturing, and Our Future. 

Enriquez also serves on the boards of Cabot Corporation, The Harvard Medical School Genetics Advisory Council, The Chairman’s International Council of the America’s Society, the Visiting Committee of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center, Tuft University’s EPIIC, and Harvard Business School’s PAPSAC. 

Enriquez is a Harvard graduate himself who has previously served as CEO of Mexico City’s Urban Development Corporation, Coordinator General of Economic Policy and Chief of Staff for Mexico’s Secretary of State. Enriquez also boasts of working closely with Craig Venter, who is generally credited with the mapping of the human genome.

Obviously, Enriquez has established quite the résumé in the academic and business worlds.  This, combined with his appearances on the very popular TED conference talks, only add to his qualifications in the field of culture creation which is most likely his role. Indeed, much like the other scientific superstars provided to the public by the culture industry, it appears Mr. Enriquez may be more talented in the area of delivering messages than making discoveries. This is why Enriquez’s comments during the interview with Technology Review’s Emily Singer are somewhat disturbing.

The interview was conducted after Enriquez’s speech at a Technology Review conference where he mentioned that, as described by Singer, “Our newfound ability to write the code of life will profoundly change the world as we know it.”  According to Enriquez, because we as humans can engineer both our environment and ourselves, humanity is now breaking the “boundaries” of our own natural existence and development which, of course, is described as “Darwinian evolution,” itself a questionable strand of a highly suspect theory to begin with. 

Nevertheless, when asked why he thought there is going to be a new human species, Enriquez responded in typical eugenicist fashion. He said,

The new human species is one that begins to engineer the evolution of viruses, plants, animals, and itself. As we do that, Darwin’s rules get significantly bent, and sometimes even broken. By taking direct and deliberate control over our evolution, we are living in a world where we are modifying stuff according to our desires. 

He goes on to discuss the manner in which humans are already influencing their own “evolution.” He says:

If you turned off the electricity in the United States, you would see millions of people die quickly, because they wouldn’t have asthma medications, respirators, insulin, a whole host of things we invented to prevent people from dying. Eventually, we get to the point where evolution is guided by what we’re engineering. That’s a big deal. Today’s plastic surgery is going to seem tame compared to what’s coming.

Enriquez’s comments in this regard are a bit puzzling if the reader does not fully understand the position from which he is coming. The fact that millions of people are attached to electronic devices on which their lives depend is not a testament to guided or enhanced evolution at all. If anything, this would indicate a move in the opposite direction. 

Keep in mind that Enriquez is a Darwinian Evolutionist, so he is keenly aware of the process by which Darwinian evolution allegedly progresses. For that reason, his comments may seem to be a contradiction of his own belief system to some. However, when one reads the rest of the interview, Enriquez’s statement begins to make more sense. 

During the course of the short interview, Enriquez makes reference to how the new technology, as it emerges, will change virtually everything in society as we know it. 

And he means everything. Not just industries. Not just economic disparity. Everything. 

This includes morality itself. In fact, Enriquez even goes so far as to define this shift in morality as the “new ethics.” 

Enriquez saves the best for last, however, when he explains how the “new ethics” will come into play.
 

He says:

The issue of [genetic variation] is a really uncomfortable question, one that for good reason, we have been avoiding since the 1930s and '40s. A lot of the research behind the eugenics movement came out of elite universities in the U.S. It was disastrously misapplied. But you do have to ask, if there are fundamental differences in species like dogs and horses and birds, is it true that there are no significant differences in humans? We are going to have an answer to that question very quickly. If we do, we need to think through an ethical, moral framework to think about questions that go way beyond science.

This statement alone echoes the same mentality that was accepted and promoted during the early half of twentieth century to justify mass sterilization, institutionalization, social segregation, even infanticide. 

Although eugenics is now allegedly abhorred by academia and the mainstream media, the fact is that it still plays as much a role in both science and government policy as it ever did. Only the names have changed. 

Instead of “eugenics” and “racial hygiene,” the scientific community now promotes “social biology” and “sociobiology.” “Deficient” genes now replace the term “inferior” genes.  “Family planning” now replaces “abortion” and “sterilization.”

As quoted above, Enriquez stated that eugenics were disastrously misapplied in the 1930s and 1940s. Although he does not clarify whether he is referring to the American or the German version (or both), we can reasonably assume that he meant that the program was often race-based, as opposed to being based simply on “inferior genetics” across the board. Or, perhaps he is merely referring to the public relations issues that arose from these systems.  At this point, it is difficult to determine. 

Regardless, he openly questions whether or not some humans are so different from one another that they may be considered an entirely different species. This, in and of itself, is reminiscent of a language used in eugenics campaigns in both Europe and America years ago. 

Considering the fact that Enriquez is in favor of the creation of a “new ethics,” this statement alone, if his philosophy gains any traction, is quite concerning. 

In light of the increase in propaganda masquerading as science and being peddled by science superstars like Enriquez, there is no doubt the world’s population is being prepped for a eugenics-based future. This time, of course, the system will be assisted by a much more sophisticated technological machine and, thus, a much more efficient system of eugenics. After years of non-stop television, media repetition, and “experts” who tout the benefits of merging man and machine, as well as the cost of inheriting “inferior” genes, there is also little doubt that the world’s population will march into this future willingly. 

Although greatly improved in terms of implementation and public perception, we have seen this system before and, unfortunately, what Juan Enriquez labels a “new ethics” may not be very new at all.