Francis Fukuyama: Our Posthuman Future

By SIMON COLLINS

In America today, 28 million people - 10 per cent - have taken Prozac to make themselves feel better.

Some psychiatrists say that 15 million young Americans suffer from attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and many of them are being prescribed Ritalin, a cocaine-like drug that helps them to concentrate - and also makes them easier for adults to manage.

In all developed countries, unborn babies are now routinely screened for Down's syndrome, and most parents choose to have them aborted if they test positive.

As Francis Fukuyama points out, in these and other ways we are already using modern medical technologies to "improve on nature".

In principle, he says, it is only a small step from here to "designer babies" - allowing parents to pick which embryos they want to take to full term based on their qualities such as strength or intelligence, or passing laws to prevent the birth of babies with "violent genes" such as one found in a sample of violent young men in a recent study in Dunedin.

All these things make Fukuyama deeply uneasy, and he has written this book to think through the implications.

It is an unexpected book from a liberal who made his name with The End of History and the Last Man (1989), arguing that the collapse of world communism signalled the final triumph of liberal democracy.

He now says he was wrong: "history" cannot end until "science" ends. And far from ending, science is just beginning to open up the whole new field of biotechnology which challenges not just our present forms of social organisation but our basic idea of what it means to be human.

Science is forcing society to respond, and Fukuyama says we must respond with regulation.

This is one area that cannot be left to the market. It requires rethinking fundamental human values, which takes up most of the book.

In the end, Fukuyama suggests the law should allow use of the new technology for "therapy" but not for "enhancement" - in other words, "to cure genetic diseases like Huntington's chorea or cystic fibrosis, but not to make our children more intelligent or taller".

Personally, I think he has chosen the wrong values and so come to the wrong answer.

In my view, both therapy and enhancement should be allowed if they produce healthier or happier children.

But we should outlaw things which may be good for a parent's ego but are likely to produce weaker children, such as cloning, which deprives a child of the vigour that comes from two parents.

However, all readers will bring their own values to this book and make their own responses to the issues.

Fukuyama has a clear, almost racy style, and brings sense to a vast, confusing area. If the price seems steep, request it at the library; you will find it a disturbing but enlightening read.

Profile Books

$59.95

* Simon Collins is a Herald senior journalist and science writer.