Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth

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“We are the primary drivers of change. We will directly and indirectly determine what lives, what dies, where, and when. We are in a different phase of evolution; the future of life is now in our hands.”Why are rates of conditions like autism, asthma, obesity, and allergies exploding at an unprecedented pace? Why are humans living longer, getting smarter, and having far fewer kids? How might your lifestyle affect your unborn children and grandchildren? How will gene-editing technologies like CRISPR steer the course of human evolution? If Darwin were alive today, how would he explain this new world? Could our progeny eventually become a different species—or several? InEvolving Ourselves, futurist Juan Enriquez and scientist Steve Gullans conduct a sweeping tour of how humans are changing the course of evolution—sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. For example:    •  Globally, rates of obesity in humans nearly doubled between 1980 and 2014. What’s more, there’s evidence that other species, from pasture-fed horses to lab animals to house cats, are also getting fatter.    •  As reported by U.S. government agencies, the rate of autism rose by 131 percent from 2001 to 2010, an increase that cannot be attributed simply to increases in diagnosis rates.    •  Three hundred years ago, almost no one with a serious nut allergy lived long enough to reproduce. Today, despite an environment in which food allergies have increased by 50 percent in just over a decade, 17 million Americans who suffer from food allergies survive, thrive, and pass their genes and behaviors on to the next generation.    •  In the pre-Twinkie era, early humans had quite healthy mouths. As we began cooking, bathing, and using antibiotics, the bacteria in our bodies changed dramatically and became far less diverse. Today the consequences are evident not only in our teeth but throughout our bodies and minds.  Though these harbingers of change are deeply unsettling, the authors argue that we are also in an epoch of tremendous opportunity. New advances in biotechnology help us mitigate the cruel forces of natural selection, from saving prematurely born babies to gene therapies for sickle cell anemia and other conditions. As technology like CRISPR enables us to take control of our genes, we will be able to alter our own species and many others—a good thing, given that our eventual survival will require space travel and colonization, enabled by a fundamental redesign of our bodies. Future humans could become great caretakers of the planet, as well as a more diverse, more resilient, gentler, and more intelligent species—but only if we make the right choices now. Intelligent, provocative, and optimistic,Evolving Ourselvesis the ultimate guide to the next phase of life on Earth. Advanced Praise for Evolving Ourselves......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 CONTENTS......Page 7 What Would Darwin Write Today?......Page 11 SYMPTOMS OF REAL-TIME EVOLUTION......Page 15 Is Autism a Harbinger of Our Changing Brains?......Page 16 The DarWa Theory Revisited . . . and a Glimpse at a New Theory......Page 19 Twenty Generations to Domesticate Humans......Page 24 Violence and the Lack Thereof......Page 30 Allergies: Another Harbinger of Our Evolving Bodies?......Page 34 Our Unnatural “All-Natural” World......Page 37 Fat Humans, Fat Animals: Another Symptom?......Page 44 Brave New Sex......Page 49 HOW DOES EVOLUTION REALLY WORK NOW?......Page 55 The Nature Versus Nurture Wars......Page 56 Missing Heredity, Mysterious Toxins......Page 60 Transgenerational Inheritance––aka “Voodoo Biology”......Page 67 WWIV: Nuking Our Microbes......Page 74 The “Yucky” Stuff Inside You......Page 81 Autism Revisited: Three Potential Drivers......Page 91 Viruses: The Roadrunners of Evolution......Page 95 A Perfectly Modern Pregnancy......Page 99 Bringing It All Together––DESTINY Is Propelling Evolution......Page 109 A WORLD OF NONRANDOM MUTATION......Page 114 Playing with the Building Blocks of Life......Page 115 Humans Hijacking Viruses......Page 119 Editing Life on a Grand Scale......Page 123 Unnatural Acts, Designer Babies, and Sex 2.0......Page 128 Boyden Brains......Page 132 EVOLVING OURSELVES . . .......Page 138 Better Living Through Chemistry?......Page 139 Forever Young, Beautiful, and Fearless?......Page 144 Unnatural Attraction......Page 148 Sports Quandaries and Beyond . . .......Page 156 Designer Organs and Cloned Humans......Page 162 Evolving Brains Revisited......Page 167 The Robot-Computer-Human Interface......Page 174 Perhaps an Ethical Question or Two?......Page 181 Technically Life, Technically Death......Page 187 Trust Whom?......Page 192 THE FUTURE OF LIFE......Page 198 I Don’t Remember You . . . De-Extinction......Page 199 Humanity’s Really Short Story......Page 204 Evolving Hominins . . .......Page 207 Synthetic Life......Page 214 Humans and Hubris: Does Nature Win in the End?......Page 219 Leaving Earth?......Page 221 EPILOGUE: New Evolutionary Trees......Page 231 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 238 APPENDIX: Darwin––True or False: Did He Get It Right?......Page 241 GLOSSARY......Page 250 NOTES......Page 257 INDEX......Page 331