Gregory Stock: How biotech will drive our evolution

In this prophetic 2003 talk -- just days before Dolly the sheep was stuffed -- biotech ethicist Gregory Stock looked forward to new, more meaningful (and controversial) technologies, like customizable babies, whose adoption might drive human evolution.

Bestselling author and lecturer Gregory Stock examines the evolutionary significance of technological progress. His 1993 book, Metaman, looks (optimistically) toward a future where the symbiotic relationship between human culture and technology increasingly resembles a "superorganism" that can respond, as a whole, to crises like global warming. 2003's Redesigning Humans poses the alluring -- and sometimes frightening -- possibility that human biology will soon become customizable: no mere question of availability, but a matter of personal choice.

Stock's other work includes Engineering the Human Germline, which looks at the implications of controlled evolution, and a set of perpetually-bestselling tabletop conversation-starters, the flagship of which is The Book of Questions.

    "Stock sees the cloning controversy as a distraction from issues of real importance, such as balancing offspring trait selection against eugenics. [He writes with] the clarity and precision of a philosopher."

Rob Lightner