Abstract
Human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity. Such systems can be difficult to enhance. When we manipulate complex evolved systems, which are poorly understood, our interventions often fail or backfire. It can appear as if there is a “wisdom of nature” which we ignore at our peril. Sometimes the belief in nature’s wisdom—and corresponding doubts about the prudence of tampering with nature, especially human nature—manifests as diffusely moral objections against enhancement. Such objections may be expressed as intuitions about the superiority of the natural or the troublesomeness of hubris or as an evaluative bias in favor of the status quo. This chapter explores the extent to which such prudence-derived anti-enhancement sentiments are justified. We develop a heuristic, inspired by the field of evolutionary medicine, for identifying promising human enhancement interventions. The heuristic incorporates the grains of truth contained in “nature knows best” attitudes while providing criteria for the special cases where we have reason to believe that it is feasible for us to improve on nature.
Keywords
- Human Organism
- Inclusive Fitness
- Mathematical Ability
- Evolutionarily Stable Strategy
- Evolutionary Restriction
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
On the role of mid-level principles in one area of applied ethics, see Beauchamp and Childress 1979.
- 2.
Which side effects are acceptable depends, of course, on the benefits resulting from the enhancement, and these may vary between subjects depending on their goals, life plans, and circumstances.
- 3.
Increasing oxygen levels (another requirement for metabolism) also improves cognition.
- 4.
In like manner, we can view vaccinations both as therapeutic (or, more accurately, prophylactic) and as enhancing.
- 5.
- 6.
Evolution might still have the last laugh if in the long run she redesigns our species to directly desire to have as many children as possible or to have an aversion against contraceptives. Cultural “evolution” might beat biological evolution to the punch.
- 7.
The items in the list need not be final goods. Characteristics that are mere means to more fundamental goods can be included. For example, even if one thinks that musicality or musical appreciation is not intrinsically good, one can still include them in the list if one believes that they tend—as a matter of empirical fact—to promote well-being (e.g., by creating opportunities for enjoyment).
- 8.
Adding a carbon dimer to a diamond surface using a nanotechnological tool would take more than 6.1 eV (Merkle and Freitas 2003), about 20 times more energy than is released by the ATP hydrolysis that powers most enzymatic actions.
- 9.
For their comments, we are grateful to Rebecca Roache for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and to the audience at the TransVision 2006 conference in Helsinki, Finland, for useful questions.
References
Aiello, L.C., N. Bates, and T. Joffe. 2001. In Defense of the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. In Evolutionary Anatomy of the Primate Cerebral Cortex, ed. D. Falk and K.R. Gibson, 57–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allison, A.C. 1954. Protection Afforded by Sickle Cell Trait against Subtertian Malarial Infection. British Medical Journal 1: 290–294.
Andersson, R.E., G. Olaison, C. Tysk, and A. Ekbom. 2001. Appendectomy and Protection against Ulcerative Colitis. New Engl J Med 344(11): 808–814.
Baldwin, K.M., and F. Haddad. 2002. Skeletal Muscle Plasticity—Cellular and Molecular Responses to Altered Physical Activity Paradigms. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 81(11): S40–S51.
Barton, N., and L. Partridge. 2000. Limits to Natural Selection. Bioessays 22(12): 1075–1084.
Battista, J.R., A.M. Earl, and M.J. Park. 1999. Why is Deinococcus Radiodurans so Resistant to Ionizing Radiation? Trends in Microbiology 7(9): 362–365.
Beauchamp, T.L., and J.F. Childress. 1979. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Oxford/New York: University Press.
Bersaglieri, T., P.C. Sabeti, N. Patterson, T. Vanderploeg, S.F. Schaffner, J.A. Drake, M. Rhodes, D.E. Reich, and J.N. Hirschhorn. 2004. Genetic Signatures of Strong Recent Positive Selection at the Lactase Gene. American Journal of Human Genetics 74(6): 1111–1120.
Boon, T., and N. van Baren. 2003. Immunosurveillance against Cancer and Immunotherapy—Synergy or Antagonism? New Engl J Med 348(3): 252–254.
Brunswick, N., G.N. Martin, L. Marzano, and N. Savill. 2007. Visuo-Spatial Ability, Handedness and Developmental Dyslexia: Just how Sinister was Andy Warhol? Presentation to the 25th European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology, Italy 2007.
Bunker, J.P. 2001. The Role of Medical Care in Contributing to Health Improvements within Societies. International Journal of Epidemiology 30(6): 1260–1263.
Burt, A., and R.L. Trivers. 2006. Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Genetic Elements. Harvard: Belknap Press.
Buss, D.M. 2000. The Evolution of Happiness. The American Psychologist 55(1): 15–23.
Caldwell, J.A. 2001. Efficacy of Stimulants for Fatigue Management: The Effects of Provigil and Dexedrine on Sleep-Deprived Aviators. Fatigue in Transportation (Part F) 4: 19–37.
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., and W.F. Bodmer. 1999. The Genetics of Human Populations. New York: Dover Publications.
Cochran, G., J. Hardy, and H. Harpending. 2006. Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence. Journal of Biosocial Science 38(5): 659–693.
Colloca, L., and F. Benedetti. 2005. Placebos and Painkillers: Is Mind as Real as Matter? Nature Reviews. Neuroscience 6(7): 545–552.
Dawkins, R. 1976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Murcia, G., and S. Shall, ed. 2000. From DNA Damage and Stress Signaling to Cell Death: Poly ADP-Ribosylation Reactions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Demas, G.E., V. Chefer, M.I. Talan, and R.J. Nelson. 1997. Metabolic Costs of Mounting an Antigen-Stimulated Immune Response in Adult and Aged C57BL/6J Mice. American Journal of Physiology—Reg I 42(5): R1631–R1637.
Diener, E., E.M. Suh, R.E. Lucas, and H.L. Smith. 1999. Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress. Psychological Bulletin 125(2): 276–302.
Dorus, S., E.J. Vallender, P.D. Evans, J.R. Anderson, S.L. Gilbert, M. Mahowald, G.J. Wyckoff, C.M. Malcom, and B.T. Lahn. 2004. Accelerated Evolution of Nervous System Genes in the Origin of Homo sapiens. Cell 119(7): 1027–1040.
Dunn, G.P., L.J. Old, and R.D. Schreiber. 2004. The Immunobiology of Cancer Immunosurveillance and Immunoediting. Immunity 21(2): 137–148.
Elia, M. 1992. Organ and Tissue Contribution to Metabolic Rate. In Energy Metabolism: Tissue Determinants and Cellular Corollaries, ed. J.M. McKinney and H.N. Tucker, 61–79. New York: Raven.
Evans, P.D., S.L. Gilbert, N. Mekel-Bobrov, E.J. Vallender, J.R. Anderson, L.M. Vaez-Azizi, S.A. Tishkoff, R.R. Hudson, and B.T. Lahn. 2005. Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans. Science 309(5741): 1717–1720.
Fairclough, S.H., and K. Houston. 2004. A Metabolic Measure of Mental Effort. Biological Psychology 66(2): 177–190.
Falk, D., and K.R. Gibson, ed. 2001. Evolutionary Anatomy of the Primate Cerebral Cortex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Falkner, F., and J.M. Tanner, ed. 1986. Human Growth: A Comprehensive Treatise. New York: Plenum Press.
Farah, M.J., J. Illes, R. Cook-Deegan, H. Gardner, E. Kandel, P. King, E. Parens, B. Sahakian, and P.R. Wolpe. 2004. Neurocognitive Enhancement: What Can We Do and What Should We Do? Nature Reviews. Neuroscience 5(5): 421.
Fish, J.L., and C.A. Lockwood. 2003. Dietary Constraints on Encephalization in Primates. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 120(2): 171–181.
Fisher, R.E. 2000. The Primate Appendix: A Reassessment. The Anatomical Record 261(6): 228–236.
Flegal, K.A., B.I. Graubard, D.F. Williamson, and M.H.H. Gail. 2005. Excess Deaths Associated with Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity. Journal of the American Medical Association 293(15): 1861–1867.
Fontaine, K.R., D.T. Redden, C.X. Wang, A.O. Westfall, and D.B. Allison. 2003. Years of Life Lost Due to Obesity. Journal of the American Medical Association 289(2): 187–193.
Force, U.S.P.S.T. 2002. Aspirin for the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Events: Recommendation and Rationale. Annals of Internal Medicine 136(2): 157–160.
Frech, H.E., and R.D. Miller. 1996. The Productivity of Health Care and Pharmaceuticals: An International Comparison. UCLA Research Program in Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy 97–1. http://repositories.cdlib.org/pep/97-1/. Accessed 11 Aug 2016.
Freitas, R.A. Jr. 1998. Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical Artificial Red Cell. Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobilization Biotechnology 26: 411–430.
Gaesser, G.A. 1999. Thinness and Weight Loss: Beneficial or Detrimental to Longevity? Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 31(8): 1118–1128.
Goldspink, G. 2005. Mechanical Signals, IGF-I Gene Splicing, and Muscle Adaptation. Physiology 20: 232–238.
Gottfredson, L.S. 1997. Why G Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life. Intelligence 24(1): 79–132.
———. 2004. Life, Death, and Intelligence. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology 4(1): 23–46.
———. 2007. Innovation, Fatal Accidents, and the Evolution of General Intelligence. In Integrating the Mind: Domain General versus Domain Specific Process in Higher Cognition, ed. M.J. Roberts, 387–425. Hove: UK Psychology Press.
Goulandris, N.K., M.J. Snowling, and I. Walker. 2000. Is Dyslexia a Form of Specific Language Impairment? A Comparison of Dyslexic and Language Impaired Children as Adolescents. Annals of DysleExia L 50: 103–120.
Green, C.S., and D. Bavelier. 2006. Enumeration versus Multiple Object Tracking: The Case of Action Video Game Players. Cognition 101(1): 217–245.
Hagen, E.H. 2002. What is the EEA? (detailed answer) Evolutionary Psychology FAQ. http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/eea2.html. Accessed 2 July 2006.
Hammerstein, P. 1996. Darwinian Adaptation, Population Genetics and the Streetcar Theory of Evolution. Journal of Mathematical Biology 34(5–6): 511–532.
Hoekstra, H.E., J.M. Hoekstra, D. Berrigan, S.N. Vignieri, A. Hoang, C.E. Hill, P. Beerli, and J.G. Kingsolver. 2001. Strength and Tempo of Directional Selection in the Wild. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98(16): 9157–9160.
Hofsten, C., and L. Backman, ed. 2002. Social, Developmental, and Clinical Perspectives, Psychology at the Turn of Millennium. Vol. vol. 2. Hove: Psychology Press.
Holliday, M.A. 1986. Body Composition and Energy Needs During Growth. In Human Growth: A Comprehensive Treatise, ed. F. Falkner and J.M. Tanner, 101–117. New York: Plenum Press.
House, J.S., K.R. Landis, and D. Umberson. 1988. Social Relationships and Health. Science 241(4865): 540–545.
Hubbard, E.M., M. Piazza, P. Pinel, and S. Dehaene. 2005. Interactions between Number and Space in Parietal Cortex. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience 6(6): 435–448.
Humphrey, N. 2002. Great Expectations: The Evolutionary Psychology of Faith-Healing and the Placebo Response. In Social, Developmental, and Clinical Perspectives, Psychology at the Turn of Millennium, ed. C. Hofsten and L. Bäckman, Vol. 2, 225–246. Hove: Psychology Press.
Jensen, P.S., D. Mrazek, P.K. Knapp, L. Steinberg, C. Pfeffer, J. Schowalter, and T. Shapiro. 1997. Evolution and Revolution in Child Psychiatry: ADHD as a Disorder of Adaptation. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 36(12): 1672–1679.
Kiecolt, J.K., R. Glaser, J.T. Cacioppo, R.C. MacCallum, M. Snydersmith, C. Kim, and W.B. Malarkey. 1997. Marital Conflict in Older Adults: Endocrinological and Immunological Correlates. Psychosomatic Medicine 59(4): 339–349.
Kirsch, I., T.J. Moore, A. Scoboria, and S.S. Nicholls. 2002. The Emperor’s New Drugs: An Analysis of Antidepressant Medication Data Submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration. Prevention & Treatment 5: 23.
Klaus, T., R. Joerger, E. Olsson, and C.G. Granqvist. 1999. Silver-Based Crystalline Nanoparticles, Microbially Fabricated. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 96(24): 13611–13614.
Korol, D.L., and P.E. Gold. 1998. Glucose, Memory, and Aging. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 67(4): 764S–771S.
Koutroubakis, I.E., and I.G. Vlachonikolis. 2000. Appendectomy and the Development of Ulcerative Colitis: Results of a Metaanalysis of Published Case-Control Studies. The American Journal of Gastroenterology 95(1): 171–176.
Leroi, A.M., A. Bartke, G. De Benedictis, C. Franceschi, A. Gartner, E.S. Gonos, M.E. Fedei, T. Kivisild, S. Lee, N. Kartaf-Ozer, M. Schumacher, E. Sikora, E. Slagboom, M. Tatar, A.I. Yashin, J. Vijg, and B. Zwaan. 2005. What Evidence is there for the Existence of Individual Genes with Antagonistic Pleiotropic Effects? Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 126(8): 421–429.
Maizels, R.M. 2005. Infections and Allergy—Helminths, Hygiene and Host Immune Regulation. Current Opinion in Immunology 17(6): 656–661.
Manning, C.A., W.S. Stone, D.L. Korol, and P.E. Gold. 1998. Glucose Enhancement of 24-H Memory Retrieval in Healthy Elderly Humans. Behavioural Brain Research 93(1–2): 71–76.
Martin, R.D. 1996. Scaling of the Mammalian Brain: The Maternal Energy Hypothesis. News in Physiological Sciences 11: 149–156.
Martin, P.Y., and D. Benton. 1999. The Influence of a Glucose Drink on a Demanding Working Memory Task. Physiology & Behavior 67(1): 69–74.
Martin, L.B. 2nd, A. Scheuerlein, and M. Wikelski. 2003. Immune Activity Elevates Energy Expenditure of House Sparrows: A Link between Direct and Indirect Costs? Proceedings of the Biological Sciences 270(1511): 153–158.
Matte, T.D. 2001. Influence of Variation in Birth Weight within Normal Range and within Sibships on IQ at Age 7 Years: Cohort Study. British Medical Journal 323(7314): 310–314.
McCord, J.M. 2000. The Evolution of Free Radicals and Oxidative Stress. The American Journal of Medicine 108(8): 652–659.
McDade, T.W. 2002. Status Incongruity in Samoan Youth: A Biocultural Analysis of Culture Change, Stress, and Immune Function. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 16(2): 123–150.
———. 2003. Life History Theory and the Immune System: Steps toward a Human Ecological Immunology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 46: 100–125.
McDaniel, M.A. 2005. Big-Brained People are Smarter: A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between in Vivo brain Volume and Intelligence. Intelligence 33(4): 337–346.
McKeown, T., and C.R. Lowe. 1974. An Introduction to Social Medicine. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.
McKinney, J.M., and H.N. Tucker, ed. 1992. Organ and Tissue Contribution to Metabolic Rate, Energy Metabolism: Tissue Determinants and Cellular Corollaries. New York: Raven.
Mealey, L. 1995. The Sociobiology of Sociopathy—An Integrated Evolutionary Model. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 18(3): 523–541.
Meikle, A., L.M. Riby, and B. Stollery. 2005. Memory Processing and the Glucose Facilitation Effect: The Effects of Stimulus Difficulty and Memory Load. Nutritional Neuroscience 8(4): 227–232.
Mekel-Bobrov, N., S.L. Gilbert, P.D. Evans, E.J. Vallender, J.R. Anderson, R.R. Hudson, S.A. Tishkoff, and B.T. Lahn. 2005. Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens. Science 309(5741): 1720–1722.
Merkle, R.C., and R.A. Freitas. 2003. Theoretical Analysis of a Carbon-Carbon Dimer Placement Tool for Diamond Mechanosynthesis. Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology 3(4): 319–324.
Moret, Y., and P. Schmid-Hempel. 2000. Survival for Immunity: The Price of Immune System Activation for Bumblebee Workers. Science 290(5494): 1166–1168.
Neisser, U., G. Boodoo, T.J. Bouchard, A.W. Boykin, N. Brody, S.J. Ceci, D.F. Halpern, J.C. Loehlin, R. Perloff, R.J. Sternberg, and S. Urbina. 1996. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. The American Psychologist 51(2): 77–101.
Nesse, R.M., and G.C. Williams. 1998. Evolution and the Origins of Disease. Scientific American 279(5): 86–93.
Newhouse, J.P., and Group TIE. 1993. Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Niven, J.E. 2005. Brain Evolution: Getting Better all the time? Current Biology 15(16): R624–R626.
Nutt, D.J. 2006. Alcohol Alternatives—A Goal for Psychopharmacology? Journal of Psychopharmacology 20(3): 318–320.
Oria, R.B., P.D. Patrick, H. Zhang, B. Lorntz, C.M.D. Costa, G.A.C. Brito, L.J. Barrett, A.A.M. Lima, and R.L. Guerrant. 2005. APOE4 Protects the Cognitive Development in Children with Heavy Diarrhea Burdens in Northeast Brazil. Pediatric Research 57(2): 310–316.
Ots, I., A.B. Kerimov, E.V. Ivankina, T.A. Ilyina, and P. Horak. 2001. Immune Challenge Affects Basal Metabolic Activity in Wintering Great Tits. Proceedings of the Biological Sciences 268(1472): 1175–1181.
Parker, G.A., and J.M. Smith. 1990. Optimality Theory in Evolutionary Biology. Nature 348(6296): 27–33.
Pica, P., C. Lemer, V. Izard, and S. Dehaene. 2004. Exact and Approximate Arithmetic in an Amazonian Indigene Group. Science 306(5695): 499–503.
Roberts, M.J., ed. 2007. Integrating the Mind: Domain General versus Domain Specific Process in Higher Cognition. Hove: UK Psychology Press.
Roth, G., and U. Dicke. 2005. Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9(5): 250–257.
Sabeti, P.C., S.F. Schaffner, B. Fry, J. Lohmueller, P. Varilly, O. Shamovsky, A. Palma, T.S. Mikkelsen, D. Altshuler, and E.S. Lander. 2006. Positive Natural Selection in the Human Lineage. Science 312(5780): 1614–1620.
Sapolsky, R.M. 2005. The Influence of Social Hierarchy on Primate Health. Science 308(5722): 648–652.
Sauro, M.D., and R.P. Greenberg. 2005. Endogenous Opiates and the Placebo Effect: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 58(2): 115–120.
Scholey, A.G., S. Harper, and D.O. Kennedy. 2001. Cognitive Demand and Blood Glucose. Physiology & Behavior 73(4): 585–592.
Siegel, J.M. 2005. Clues to the Functions of Mammalian Sleep. Nature 437(7063): 1264–1271.
Silberman, S. 2001. The Geek Syndrome. Wired 9(12): 174.
Skaper, S.D. 2003. Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation Enzyme-1 as a Target for Neuroprotection in Acute Central Nervous System Injury. Curr Drug Targets. CNS & Neurological Disorders 2(5): 279–291.
Smith, J.M. 1982. Evolution and the Theory of Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Starfield, B. 2000. Is US Health Really the Best in the World? Journal of the American Medical Association 284(4): 483–485.
Thomas, M.K., D.M. Lloyd-Jones, R.I. Thadhani, A.C. Shaw, D.J. Deraska, B.T. Kitch, E.C. Vamvakas, I.M. Dick, R.L. Prince, and J.S. Finkelstein. 1998. Hypovitaminosis D in Medical Inpatients. The New England Journal of Medicine 338(12): 777–783.
Thompson, E.E., H. Kuttab-Boulos, D. Witonsky, L. Yang, B.A. Roe, and A. Di Rienzo. 2004. CYP3A Variation and the Evolution of Salt-Sensitivity Variants. American Journal of Human Genetics 75(6): 1059–1069.
Tishkoff, S.A., F.A. Reed, A. Ranciaro, B.F. Voight, C.C. Babbitt, J.S. Silverman, K. Powell, H.M. Mortensen, J.B. Hirbo, M. Osman, M. Ibrahim, S.A. Omar, G. Lema, T.B. Nyambo, J. Ghori, S. Bumpstead, J.K. Pritchard, G.A. Wray, and P. Deloukas. 2007. Convergent Adaptation of Human Lactase Persistence in Africa and Europe. Nature Genetics 39(1): 31–40.
Trevathan, W. 1987. Human Birth: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Trevathan, W., E.O. Smith, and J.J. McKenna, ed. 1999. Evolutionary Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Udry, J.R. 1978. Differential Fertility by Intelligence—Role of Birth Planning. Social Biology 25(1): 10–14.
Vancourt, M., and F.D. Bean. 1985. Intelligence and Fertility in the United States—1912–1982. Intelligence 9(1): 23–32.
Venkateswaran, A., S.C. McFarlan, D. Ghosal, K.W. Minton, A. Vasilenko, K. Makarova, L.P. Wackett, and M.J. Daly. 2000. Physiologic Determinants of Radiation Resistance in Deinococcus Radiodurans. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 66(6): 2620–2626.
Vining, D.R., L. Bygren, K. Hattori, S. Nystrom, and S. Tamura. 1988. IQ/Fertility Relationships in Japan and Sweden. Personality and Individual Differences 9(5): 931–932.
Voight, B.F., S. Kudaravalli, X.Q. Wen, and J.K. Pritchard. 2006. A Map of Recent Positive Selection in the Human Genome. PLoS Biology 4(3): 446–458.
von Karolyi, C., E. Winner, W. Gray, and G.F. Sherman. 2003. Dyslexia Linked to Talent: Global Visual-Spatial Ability. Brain and Language 85(3): 427–431.
Waterlow, J.C. 1984. Protein Turnover with Special Reference to Man. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Physiology 69(3): 409–438.
Williams, G.C. 1996/1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Willams, G.C., and R.M. Nesse. 1991. The Dawn of Darwinian Medicine. The Quarterly Review of Biology 66(1): 1–22.
Winder, R., and J. Borrill. 1998. Fuels for Memory: The Role of Oxygen and Glucose in Memory Enhancement. Psychopharmacology 136(4): 349–356.
Wood, R.D., M. Mitchell, J. Sgouros, and T. Lindahl. 2001. Human DNA Repair Genes. Science 291(5507): 1284–1289.
Worden, R.P. 1995. A Speed Limit for Evolution. Journal of Theoretical Biology 176(1): 137–152.
Yazdanbakhsh, M., P.G. Kremsner, and R. van Ree. 2002. Immunology—Allergy, Parasites, and the Hygiene Hypothesis. Science 296(5567): 490–494.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bostrom, N., Sandberg, A. (2017). The Wisdom of Nature: An Evolutionary Heuristic for Human Enhancement. In: Ho, D. (eds) Philosophical Issues in Pharmaceutics. Philosophy and Medicine, vol 122. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0979-6_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0979-6_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-024-0977-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-024-0979-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)