Has human evolution stopped? Not. But it has fundamentally changed: today it depends not only on genes, but also on culture and new technologies. What will we come to, having made such a bold choice?
When I met Neil Harbisson, a cyborg from Barcelona, he looked like an ordinary local hipster, if not for one difference: a black antenna protruded from the shock of blond hair at the back of his head.
We met in December. Harbisson wore a black coat over a button-down gray shirt and skinny gray trousers. 34 years old, born in Belfast, raised in Spain, suffers from a rare disease - achromatopsia: completely deprived of the ability to perceive colors.
Harbisson never considered life in black and white as a disadvantage: “But I can see objects from a very long distance. Besides, I remember shapes much easier than most people, because I am not distracted by color. True, Neil admits, he was always very interested to see what the world is like in color. Musically gifted, while still a teenager, Neil got the idea to try to see colors through the prism of sounds. And 14 years ago, he found a surgeon (his name is not named), who agreed to implant a cybernetic optimizing device in the young man.
A fiber-optic sensor, hanging at Neal's forehead, picks up the colors of objects in front of his eyes, and a microchip implanted in his skull converts the wave nature of light into vibrations in the back of his head. These vibrations become sound frequencies perceived by the bones of the skull. Neal accurately identified the color of my blazer as blue and, pointing the antenna at his friend, dancer and choreographer Moon Ribas, concluded that the color of her jacket was yellow. In fact, it was a shade of mustard, but, as Neil himself explained, in Catalonia, where he grew up, "no one has a clue about mustard."
When I asked Neil how the doctors managed to attach the device to the skull, he, without embarrassment, parted the hairs on the back of his head, exposing the antenna entrance. A small patch of pinkish flesh appeared, pressed against a rectangular plate with two retainers. Two implants: one holds the vibrating microchip, the other is a communication hub that allows Neal's friends to send him colors via Bluetooth to his smartphone.
The most incredible function of the "antenna" is the ability that Neal had that we all lack. He looked at the lamps on the roof and felt that the infrared switches activating them were not working. Then, looking at the flower bed, he "saw" the ultraviolet markings indicating exactly where the nectar is located in the heart of the flower. In general, Neil Harbisson managed not only to acquire the abilities inherent in most of us from birth, but also to surpass them.
One way or another, Neil helped humanity take the first step towards the goal that all famous dreamers-futurists aspired to. Harbisson was not at all going to embody the dream of science fiction writers - in the future, as it seems to Neal, a person is more likely to be closer to nature than to computers. However, he officially became the world's first cyborg: he persuaded the British government to allow him to be photographed on a passport without removing the antenna, insisting that it should be considered an extension of his brain.
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Moon Ribas soon followed suit, connecting the seismic activity monitor installed in her phone to a vibrating magnet implanted in her forearm. Now she receives real-time messages about earthquakes, and she reacts to the movements of the Earth, interpreting them in dance.
Of course, Harbisson's antenna is just the beginning. But does this mean that man has learned to manage his evolution? Is evolution from now on not just the result of slow natural selection, spreading the "best" genes, but everything that we ourselves are ready to do to develop our abilities? Is it about the unity of genes, culture and technology? And if so, where exactly will the chosen path lead us?
12,500 YEARS AGO: ADAPTING TO LIFE IN THE HIGH ALTITUDE
Until recently, it was believed that the evolution of our species stopped in the distant past. But by learning to look inside the genome, we learned that change continues. In the mountains, most of us find it difficult to breathe: when the air is thinner, the lungs are forced to work in an increased mode to provide the body with oxygen. However, the inhabitants of the Andes have a genetically determined feature that allows hemoglobin to bind more oxygen. It is curious: the highlanders of Tibet and Ethiopia in the course of evolution have developed completely different mechanisms of adaptation to altitude. Natural selection has many different ways that lead us to the same outcome - survival.
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THE CLASSIC EVOLUTION OF SPECIES CONTINUES AND VERY ACTIVELY
Not so long ago, we knew what only a few of the good 20 thousand genes are doing that encode proteins in our cells, that is, are responsible for all functions of the body. Today we understand what exactly 12 thousand of them are doing.
And even if genes make up a negligible fraction of DNA in our genome, a storehouse of genetic information has already presented scientists with dozens of examples of relatively recent evolutionary changes in humans. Modern, in terms of anatomical structure, man, as you know, began his journey from Africa 80,000-50,000 years ago. Our original genetic heritage was conducive to survival in warm conditions - exactly where the species first evolved from early hominins to Homo sapiens. Since then, people have spread across the planet, and adaptation to new environmental conditions has led to changes in our genes. There are many such examples.
For example, in the Australian aborigines living in a hot desert, a new variant of the gene has spread over the past 10,000 years - it makes it easier to tolerate high temperatures. Another example: in the prehistoric period, most people, like other mammals, could only digest milk in infancy. This is due to the presence of a gene that turns off the production of an enzyme necessary for the digestion of milk during the period when the baby was weaned. However, about 9000 years ago, when some members of the human race mastered animal husbandry, milk became available to adults. Pastoralists developed genetic changes that allowed the body to produce the necessary enzyme throughout their lives. As a result, livestock has provided man with an abundance of valuable sources of protein and vitamins.
The ancestors of all non-Africans who migrated from the Black Continent were black, and there was a time when the skin of Europeans and Africans remained almost the same. But gradually in people in northern latitudes, where solar radiation is not so strong, the skin became lighter, which contributed to better absorption of ultraviolet rays and more efficient production of vitamin D.
8000 YEARS AGO: ADAPTING TO THE DESERT CLIMATE
The desert has posed an evolutionary challenge to the inhabitants of Sahul, the supercontinent that once united Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. After about 50,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern aborigines arrived by sea to Sahul, they had to develop adaptation mechanisms that allowed them to survive in dramatically changing temperatures: frost at night, and more than + 38 ° C during the day. A mutation in a gene for a protein that is linked to a hormone responsible for thermoregulation gives desert inhabitants (especially in children) a vital advantage: they easily adapt to changes in temperature.
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Evolution is impartial: as soon as there is a chance to increase the survival rate of a species, genetic transformations proceed in several ways at once. For example, the peoples of the Middle East from lactose intolerance are protected by a different gene variant than Europeans. Africans have found about half a dozen genetic changes that help them fight off malaria (but one of them leads to sickle cell anemia if a child inherits an altered variant of the gene from both parents). Over the past half century, scientists have managed to discover different adaptation mechanisms in the inhabitants of the Andes, Ethiopia and Tibet, which help them survive in the highlands. In the Andes, these mutations keep oxygen levels high in the blood. The Tibetans received a variant of the gene, useful for high altitude conditions, from the Denisovans, mysterious people who died out tens of thousands of years ago. All these adaptations give the aboriginal peoples the opportunity to breathe mountain air, which contains little oxygen.
In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin argued: "Natural selection is a force constantly ready to act and as immeasurably superior to weak human efforts as the works of Nature are superior to the works of Art." The book was published in 1859. Is this statement true today? And was it true in the Darwinian age? Biological evolution can be inevitable and probably much more effective than the transformations available to humans when different types of plants and animals are crossed. But how important is it today in comparison with the devices and technologies that a person can create? To paraphrase paleoanthropologist Milford Wolpoff, what if you can run fast if you can ride?
OUR DAYS: TECHNOLOGY AGAINST NATURAL SELECTION
Armed with all our tools, medical advances and other cultural innovations, we have become a potentially deadly race - but at the same time vulnerable to some kind of drug-resistant superbug. Kevin Olival, a medical ecology expert with the EcoHealth Alliance, believes that humanity has entered a "new era of pandemics." Risk factors include the speed at which the disease can spread across the globe today, the destruction of habitual human habitats, and climate change. As a result, people are more and more likely to encounter pathogenic organisms.
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In the modern world, the main driving force on the path to successful procreation - and to evolutionary change - is culture and its instrumental embodiment - technology. And everything is going this way because evolution has ceased to keep up with the changes taking place in the world. We are poorly adapted to the effects of our computer screens, to work non-stop, to digest salted chips, to live in a modern - polluted - environment. Why are our internal clocks so stubborn? Why doesn't our appendix, which once helped digest grass, start breaking down sugars? If human genetic changes could be represented as a technology company, it would have gone bankrupt long ago,because her business plan implies only the accidental appearance of inventions with their subsequent long distribution through sexual selection.
This “business plan” works great with mice that breed every three weeks, but not with humans, when a new generation grows only once every 25-35 years. At this rate, any innovation will spread for many thousands of years. Unsurprisingly, in our time, technology has to some extent replaced evolution.
Technology is now doing much of the work that evolution once did, and doing it much faster: improving our physical skills and developing our intelligence, allowing us to adapt to life in new, more challenging conditions.
“The main selection today is in the areas of culture and language, computer technology and clothing,” says George Church, a molecular engineer who works part-time at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Earlier, in the days of DNA, some cool mutation spread among people for thousands of years. Today, a mobile phone of the latest model will fly across the planet in just a week."
Of course, the big picture is much more complicated. Some of us live in the world of Church, in the world of molecular medicine and gene therapy, and it seems that the moment is near when our initial set of genes will turn into a draft, requiring corrections. But outside the developed world, gene selection is still inevitable.
However, in some cases, natural selection still plays a decisive role for all of us. If, for example, a pandemic occurs, as was the case with the flu in 1918, those who are immune to the pathogen will gain a significant evolutionary advantage. They will survive and pass on their set of genes to their offspring.
We have medicines to fight against many infectious diseases. But recently discovered deadly bacteria are resistant to antibiotics. (Air travel can spread the infection around the world in a matter of days.)
Elodie Gedin, a microbiologist at New York University, talks about AIDS, a disease that has killed 35 million people worldwide, comparable to the number of victims of the 1918 pandemic. According to her, only one in a hundred people on Earth has an innate immunity to AIDS: the mutation has modified the receptor protein to which the human immunodeficiency virus attaches in order to enter the cell. For such people, the chances of contracting HIV are almost zero. If you live in a prosperous area in the capital with access to modern antiviral drugs, the presence or absence of this mutation is not too important for you. But if you're a rural resident of an AIDS-ridden African country, your life will depend on that mutation.
Many situations can be described in which genes are able to play a leading role in the life of humanity. Christopher Impi, professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona and an expert on space travel, predicts that permanent human settlements on Mars will become a reality during our grandchildren's lifetime. For a community to be viable, each must have at least 100-150 people. The first, small groups of settlers, the scientist sees in an even less distant future. And, as soon as the first settlements appear on the Red Planet, he adds, the natural processes of evolution will accelerate many times over: "The unnatural habitat will very aggressively dictate the conditions of survival for space travelers and settlers." An optimal earthling who becomes a Martian, according to the scientist, will be tall and slender,since the gravity on Mars is only one-third that of Earth. Body hair and eyelashes will gradually begin to fade under conditions in which the human body never comes into contact with dust. Impi predicts that in the absence of interbreeding between people from Earth and Martian colonists, significant biochemical changes will begin in the body of the latter already in the first few tens of generations. Physical changes will take place in the life of several hundred generations. Physical changes will take place in the life of several hundred generations. Physical changes will take place in the life of several hundred generations.
One human ability, clearly determined genetically, continues to be the most valuable, especially against the background of the triumph of technology - intelligence. For hundreds of thousands of years, our gene pool has undergone changes aimed at developing the brain. But despite this, we will always be not smart enough.
OUR DAYS AND THE NEXT FUTURE: EVOLUTION IN OWN HANDS
Genetic diagnosis of embryos before implantation during IVF allows them to be checked for mutations that can cause serious diseases. Genome correction tools are now being developed, the introduction of which will initiate a new stage of evolution - under human control. So far, research is being done on animals, such as mosquitoes, to rule out the possibility of transmission of Zika virus or malaria. But soon it will be possible to learn how to manage such technology in order to "design" future children by choosing the desired eye or hair color. Is this acceptable? “There is certainly a dark side to this phenomenon,” says bioethics expert Linda MacDonald Glenn. "But I believe that expanding human capabilities is inevitable."
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However, soon we will not have to wait for evolution to solve this problem. In a 2013 report for the journal Global Policy, Nick Bostrom and Karl Schulman of the Institute for the Future of Humanity at Oxford University examined the social consequences of "improving intelligence." The focus was on the selection of embryos in artificial insemination. During the IVF procedure, parents can choose for themselves which embryo to place in the mother's body. According to the researchers, the choice of the "smartest embryo" out of ten proposed will increase the IQ of the unborn child by about 11.5 points relative to random selection.
Nevertheless, only the descendants of such a person could take full advantage of the advantage. According to Shulman, ten generations later, the IQ of the descendants would be 115 points higher than the IQ of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. The scientist noted that he relied on the most optimistic forecasts. However, even with a lower performance, the average descendant would still receive an intelligence equal to the intelligence of what we would consider a genius today. But who wants to wait for a brilliant offspring for two centuries? Schulman, meanwhile, points to another obvious fact: "In ten generations, the capabilities of computer programs are likely to surpass those of anyone, even the most highly developed person."
But there is also a more serious obstacle to the implementation of such a scenario: we still know too little about the genetic conditioning of intelligence to learn how to choose the "smartest embryo." Recognizing the existence of the problem, the authors of the study argue that we will be able to get closer to solving it in 5-10 years.
At first glance, this is unlikely. The genetic basis of intelligence is very complex. Each of the individual aspects - computational and analytical skills, orientation in space, empathy - is certainly polygenic in nature, and moreover, they are all subject to the influence of environmental factors.
THE NEXT FUTURE: SCIENCE BECOMING A REALITY
More than half a century ago, the word "cyborg" was coined to denote a fantastic creature - half man, half machine. Today, more than 20 thousand people walk around the planet with implanted chips - electronic keys to locks on doors. Neil Harbisson, a color blind person who has learned to perceive colors by transforming them into sounds using a sensor implanted in his head, is sure that this is only the beginning of the path to a more perfect future. “Night vision,” he says, “will allow us to better adapt to natural conditions by changing ourselves, not the planet. After all, changing the planet only harms it."
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In 2014, Stephen Hsu, vice president of research at Michigan State University and one of the founders of the Cognitive Genomics Laboratory in Beijing, suggested that approximately 10,000 gene variants are involved in the development of intelligence. In the same article, he writes that people will be able to manage such a huge number of genetic variants "in the next ten years." Other scientists generally believe that it is not at all necessary to study all options to select "smart embryos". “The question is not how much we know or how much we don’t know,” says George Church. - The question is how much we need to know in order to achieve a result. How much did we know about smallpox when the vaccine was invented? ".
If the assumptions of Church and Hsu are correct, soon only ourselves will become the only obstacle on the way to development. Not the fact that we want to apply eugenics techniques to our genome. But will it stop us? And if so, for how long? A technology called CRISPR / Cas9 was developed in one of Church's laboratories. This technology (National Geographic already wrote about it, see "The Gene Scalpel") will allow us to explore the limits of human curiosity. First tested in 2013, CRISPR is a procedure that allows you to quickly and accurately alter DNA. What used to take scientists years to do can now be done in seconds.
Never before has such a powerful technology existed to manipulate the human genome. Let's compare CRISPR and IVF. In the IVF procedure, we can choose an embryo from those created by nature. But what if none of them are outstanding? It is said that when Isadora Duncan invited Bernard Shaw to give birth to a common child who would inherit her appearance and his intellect, the writer objected: “What if he gets my looks and your mind? »CRISPR eliminates this risk. If ECO allows you to choose from a “menu”, then CRISPR plays the role of a “cook”. CRISPR gives scientists the ability to actually insert the desired gene directly into an egg or sperm, allowing not only to create a child with Shaw's intelligence and Duncan's appearance, but also to give birth to a whole race of such people.
CRISPR technology has been tested on animals many times. Church's lab was able to edit the pig's genome to make animal organs more suitable for human transplantation. Church's colleague, Kevin Esvelt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, is working to alter the genome of mice so that they can no longer carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease. A third researcher, Anthony James of the University of California, Irvine, inserted a gene into the genome of the malaria mosquito to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
Meanwhile, Chinese scientists have amazed the world by claiming that they have applied CRISPR to non-viable human embryos to correct a genetic defect that causes beta thalassemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder. Attempts were unsuccessful, but helped scientists get closer to solving the problem.
True, we must not forget that there is an international moratorium on any types of treatment that can lead to changes in the human genome that are inherited - until the safety and effectiveness of such treatment methods has been proven. And CRISPR technology is no exception.
THE FUTURE FUTURE: ADAPTING TO LIFE ON MARS?
In order for the divergence of signs and properties to begin within the species of Homo sapiens, isolation of some of its groups for thousands of years is required, which is unlikely on Earth. But maybe we can create a small settlement on Mars. Astronomy professor Chris Impi believes that the body of the ideal Martian will become more elongated and slender - this will be the reaction to a decrease in gravity - and the skin will lose hair due to the absence of dust in the new habitat.
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LONG DO WE HAVE TO LIVE IN UNCERTAINTY?
All my interlocutors are unanimous: no. Some have referred to the IVF precedent. Initially advertised as a medical procedure for infertile couples, the potential of IVF in eradicating serious genetic diseases soon became apparent. Spouses who had a mutation that could cause Huntington or Tay-Sachs disease used IVF to select disease-free embryos for bearing. Many consider this procedure completely justified. “Banning or abandoning these technologies means recognizing that evolution has always been supportive of humanity,” said Linda MacDonald Glenn, a bioethics scientist at California State University at Monterey Bay. - No matter how! Think of the pain and suffering that inherited defects bring.
As soon as IVF became a common procedure, it was used not only to prevent diseases, but also to choose the sex of the unborn child. This is especially important in Asian countries, where families dream of a son, but in Europe and America, parents are increasingly talking about the merits of "balanced families".
This is where the borderline lies, beyond which serious ethical problems begin. But we are the very species that does not know how to stop in time. “IVF specialists have told me that they can reveal many other characteristics of the future fetus, such as the desired eye or hair color,” Glenn shared with me. Anyone can get their hands on a green-eyed toddler with blond hair - just ask.
Compared to IVF, CRISPR technology is much more complex, more powerful - and carries far more risks associated with its abuse. One of the developers of CRISPR, professor of chemistry and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, Jennifer Doudna, recounted a dream in which Adolf Hitler came to her with a pig's head to learn the secrets of the technology. Jennifer recently wrote to me: she really hopes that the genetic moratorium will continue for many years.
On the other hand, the potential benefits of CRISPR cannot be denied. Linda Glenn believes there will be a thorough discussion before embarking on technology. “What will be considered the norm in the process of human improvement? she asks. - Who sets the bar? And what does "improvement" mean in general? " Many experts, however, do not think that anyone will want to discuss something. As soon as the safety of the technology for humans is proven, ethical issues will immediately disappear from the agenda, as was the case with IVF.
Church believes that many still do not see the main thing: the road to human genetic engineering has long been open, and CRISPR is nothing more than a drop in a sea of changes. He notes that there are now about 2,300 gene therapy trials in the world - in particular, in the fight against Alzheimer's disease. The results of such studies are unlikely to cause objection: we are talking about the healing of seriously ill patients. However, Church notes, any remedy that can beat Alzheimer's will almost certainly improve the person's thinking ability: "They will serve a dual function by default." In February 2016, the border of what was permitted moved a little more. It happened in the UKwhen an independent birth control authority officially authorized a team of researchers to use CRISPR technology on human embryos to investigate the causes of miscarriage.
Church is impatient to open a new chapter. “Due to cultural evolution, DNA has been left far behind,” he notes. "But now he's starting to close the distance."
The main thing that evolution in nature has taught us is that there are many ways to achieve one goal. Humanity is tirelessly struggling with the limitations that nature has prepared for it. No matter how incredible abilities CRISPR technology has endowed us with in 10 years, many of these abilities are desirable or simply necessary for someone today. And such people follow the example of Neil Harbisson.
Medicine has always taken a leading position in the application of new technologies. The fact that a person can be healed instantly simplifies complex moral issues. Around the world, hundreds of thousands of people with Parkinson's disease live with implants - called neurostimulants - that help control their symptoms. Artificial retina, which is implanted into a patient's eye for some types of blindness, and a cochlear implant, which helps with hearing loss, are all part of everyday life. Many of the innovations were made possible with financial support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Last year, at the University of Pittsburgh, a subject managed to transmit electrical impulses from the brain via a computer,to control the robot's hand and even feel what the fingers were touching. The successful connection of a human brain to a machine can help create an unmatched fighter. And it is not surprising that such discoveries do not pass by DARPA. "This research has dual goals," says Annie Jacobsen, author of The Brain of the Pentagon. "DARPA's main job is not to help people, but to create the perfect weapon of the future."to create the perfect weapon of the future. "to create the perfect weapon of the future."
Human empowerment does not mean that we are talking about superheroes. RFID devices have been implanted into the bodies of hundreds of people. Thanks to them, you can open the door of the house or log into an account on a computer without even touching them. Dangerous Things claims to have sold 10,500 RFID chips. What's more, they supply do-it-yourself kits for installing chips under your skin at home.
Buyers of these kits call themselves body-hackers. Kevin Warwick, a British cybernetic scientist, was the first to have an RFID device implanted back in 1998. Kevin told me that his decision came naturally from the need to work in a building where all the locks, automatic light sensors and room temperature controls were computerized. Warwick wanted to be as "smart" as the building in which he worked.
Those who conduct such experiments on themselves remind me of the first people who tried to learn to fly by attaching long sticks with feathers to their hands. But at the very moment when I asked Harbisson to show the place on the head where the antenna was implanted, something more was revealed to me. I doubted if my request was appropriate. But the willingness with which Harbisson showed me the antenna reminded me of how willingly people are to brag about a new smartphone or fitness tracker. And it became really interesting for me to understand what is really the difference between Harbisson and me or any of us.
World renowned market research company Nielsen published a report in 2015, saying that the average person over 18 spends about ten hours a day staring at a screen. (Compared to the 17 minutes a day we spend doing sports.) I can still remember the home phone number of one of my best childhood friends, but I’m not recalling any of my current friends’s cell phone numbers. (And this is true of seven out of ten UK residents.) 10 percent of Americans are taking antidepressants. (Among women between the ages of 40 and 60, this proportion is 25 percent.) But there is research that for many of these patients, a simple walk in the woods would be the best medicine. Virtual reality helmets are one of the best-selling toys for gamers. Cars are our feet, calculators are our minds, and Google is our memory. In the modern world, our life can be considered biological only in part. And there are no unshakable and unambiguous boundaries between the organism and technology, between carbon and silicon. Perhaps we do not really know where we are going yet, but one thing is clear: from where we were before, we left today.