A More Perfect Human: The Promise and the Peril of Modern Science

Abstract

As nearly everyone appreciates, we live near the beginning of the golden age of biomedical science and technology. For the most part, we should be mightily glad that we do. We and our friends and loved ones are many times over the beneficiaries of its cures for diseases, prolongation of life, and amelioration of suffering, psychic and somatic. Since the latter third of the last century, most human beings living in technologically advanced countries have been living healthier and longer lives than even the most fortunate individuals in prior human history. Diphtheria, typhoid, and tuberculosis threaten us no longer; despite the lack of a definitive cure, half the people who are today treated for deadly cancers survive more than five years. The average Americans life expectancy at birth has increased from 47 in 1900 to 78 in 2000, and millions are now living healthily into their eighties and nineties. Thanks to basic research in neuroscience and new psychotropic drugs, the scourge of major depression and other devastating mental illnesses are finally under effective attack. We have every reason to look forward eagerly to new discoveries and new medical blessings. Every one of us should be deeply grateful for the gifts of human ingenuity and for the devoted efforts of scientists, physicians, and entrepreneurs who have used these gifts to make those benefits possible.