Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (review)

Abstract

History, concedes Francis Fukuyama, is not coming to an end after all—and irresponsible science is the major reason why. Fukuyama's celebrated 1989 article (and subsequent 1992 book) about the "end of history" argued that clashes between different systems, ideologies, and civilizations were fast losing their potency and might soon cease altogether. The indefinite future would then be marked by the "universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." But now Fukuyama worries that biotechnology poses a threat to the integrity of human nature itself. Unless sternly regulated, it could spawn a new kind of tyranny, with the genetically enhanced wielding a monopoly of resources and political power.