Juan Enriquez - Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
Evolving Ourselves

This book provokes terror and inspiration in equal measure. Terror because humankind has become a potent evolutionary force affecting all life on the planet, including itself. Inspiration because with awareness comes the capacity to direct humanitysand the planetsevolutionary trajectory. Read this book and you will never think the same way about evolution ever again.

Paul Saffo, technology forecaster

Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans convincingly argue that Darwins driving force, natural selection, no longer holds true in a world where little remains natural and free of the hand of man. Their book raises important questions that we all should consider deeply as individuals, as nations, and as a global community as we venture forth into this next phase of evolution.

Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D.; founding director, Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

Science continues to accelerate, speeding past science fiction, and the publics understanding continues to lag. In Evolving Ourselves, Enriquez and Gullans give us a whiplash-worthy account of the state of science in a fearless, balanced, and thoughtful way. A must-read whether youre contemplating why were here, planning the future of your company, or wondering what your childrens world will be like.

Joichi Ito, director, MIT Media Lab

Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Evolving Ourselves is rich in the fascinating details of how we work, how we got there, and how we are changing. Enriquez and Gullans take us down a path of observations and logic that leads to either your grandest hopes or your darkest nightmares. Fasten your seat beltsthis rocket is about to take off.

Martin Blaser, author of Missing Microbes

Enriquez and Gullans take off all the blinders and explore the myriad, astounding ways we humans are rapidly influencing and shaping, both intentionally and not, our future selves. With mounting knowledge of what makes our species tick, they describe how well have the power to direct our evolutionary path.

Linda Avey, cofounder, 23andMe

A provocative and sobering vision of the evolutionary forces at work in our modern post-Darwin world and the control that we humans exert over our genetic destinies. Essential reading for anyone who retains hope that humanity, through sheer application of ingenuity, will persevere, survive, and surmount the inestimable challenges that lie ahead.

George Daley, M.D., Ph.D.; professor, Harvard Medical School

Timely and exceptionally rich, this book is guaranteed to stimulate reflection on what the new biology means for our species.

Dr. Erling Norrby, former permanent secretary, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Enriquez and Gullans brilliantly describe a future of extreme possibility and extreme responsibility. Thinking deeply about the implications of their work improves our chances of creating a desirable version of that future.

Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO; author of Change by Design

In a rapidly changing world, considerations of human evolution are rarely taken into account as a critical factor that shapes the immediate future, but Enriquez and Gullans will convince you otherwise. They will make you rethink what constitutes a victory (antibiotics! air travel!) over our natural biological constraints and its unintended consequences.

Hidde Ploegh, professor of biology, MIT; member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

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First published by Current, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2015

Copyright 2015 by Juan Enriquez and Steven Gullans

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ISBN 978-0-698-17498-6

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Our enduring love and extreme gratitude

CONTENTS

EPILOGUE
New Evolutionary Trees

What Would Darwin Write Today?

I magine we somehow plucked Charles Darwin out of his nineteenth-century home and placed him smack in the middle of modern-day Trafalgar Square, London. What would he make of it?

After the initial brutal disorientation, this dissector of human strengths and foibles would start to observe: How can everything be so clean and orderly? Where is the soot, horse dung, squalor, gruel, stench, ailments? No fleas? And where are all the Oliver Twistlike urchins? Everyone seems so well fedin fact, way overfed. People look familiar but also very different; where did all these tall folks come from, and why are so many large but weak? Why are there so few kids and so many old peopleand why do the white-haired folk appear so healthy? He would marvel at the variety of foods, halal carts, taco trucks, schnitzel stands, and rolling organic juice bars. But he would also wonder about the signs that read PLEASE INFORM YOUR SERVER OF ANY ALLERGIES . Then he would focus closer: Everyone looks clean and has teeth. Children can read and have free time to play... but why are adults running through Trafalgar Square wearing short pants and neon shoes? Why dont some of the old people have wrinkles? Why are many kids and elderly drawing deep breaths from inhalers?

When you know what to look for, the symptoms of rapid evolution are all around us; in just 150 years the human species has changed. We have redesigned our world and our bodies while at the same time becoming an ever more domesticated and smarter species. But taking control of our own evolution can also generate surprises; symptoms of rapid evolution include explosions in autism, allergies, obesity, and a host of other changes, not all positive ones.

Until relatively recently only a minority of humans lived in the kind of poverty depicted in the works of Darwins contemporary, Charles Dickens, in cities where destitution, sickness, filth, and early death were commonplace. The majority of people lived much closer to a state of nature in the brutal world Darwin described in his most famous book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, where nature was the ruler and driver of evolution and two key forces determined what survived and thrived on this planet: natural selection and random mutation.

To recap Bio 101, natural selection means that you see only those species Usually these changes are benign and unnoticeable. Occasionally significant changes help individuals reproduce and survive better than their ancestors. But sometimes they can lead to horrible genetic diseases.