The term directed evolution is used within the

transhumanist Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the human enhancement, enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cogni ...

community to refer to the idea of applying the principles of

directed evolution Directed evolution (DE) is a method used in protein engineering that mimics the process of natural selection to steer proteins or nucleic acids toward a user-defined goal. It consists of subjecting a gene to iterative rounds of mutagenesis (cre ...

and

experimental evolution Experimental evolution is the use of laboratory experiments or controlled field manipulations to explore evolutionary dynamics. Evolution may be observed in the laboratory as populations adapt to new environmental conditions by natural selection. ...

to the control of human evolution. Law professor Maxwell Mehlman has said that "for transhumanists, directed evolution is likened to the Holy Grail". Riccardo Campa of the IEET wrote that "self-directed evolution" can be coupled with many different political, philosophical, and religious views within the transhumanist movement.

Criticism of the term

Andrew Askland from the

Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (ASU Law) is the law school at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona. The school is in the Beus Center for Law and Society on ASU's downtown Phoenix campus. Created in 1965 as the Arizona State Unive ...

, referring to

transhumanism Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the human enhancement, enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cogni ...

, says that directed evolution is problematic because evolution is ateleological and transhumanism is

teleological Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Applet ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

biophysicist and entrepreneur Gregory Stock has defended the concept, saying in 1999 that "the human species is moving out of its childhood. It is time to acknowledge our growing powers and begin to take responsibility for them."

Participant evolution

Participant evolution is an alternative term that refers to the process of deliberately redesigning the

human body The human body is the entire structure of a Human, human being. It is composed of many different types of Cell (biology), cells that together create Tissue (biology), tissues and subsequently Organ (biology), organs and then Organ system, org ...

and

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

using

technological Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as ute ...

means, rather than through the natural processes of

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...

and

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

, with the goal of removing "biological limitations" and human enhancement. The idea was first put forward by

Manfred Clynes Manfred Edward Clynes (August 14, 1925 – January 19, 2020) was an Austrian-born scientist, inventor, and musician. He is best known for his innovations and discoveries in the interpretation of music, and for his contributions to the study of ...

and Nathan S. Kline in the 1960s in their article ''Cyborgs and Space'', where they argued that the human species was already on a path of participant evolution.

References

Transhumanism Evolution {{Future-stub

Criticism of the term

Participant evolution

See also

References