Genetic engineering has been with us since 1982 - when insulin, instead of being extracted from the pancreases of cows, sheep, and pigs, was made in bioreactor vats from the human insulin gene inserted into a bacterium or yeast. But there’s hacking and hacking: these books are about the deepest cuts of all - into the heart of life itself. I wrote those words before I had seen Nessa Carey’s book, and was pleased to note that she uses the same trope in the introduction: “A human is a person who hacks stuff about.” Her mock name for the species is Persona hackus. Those who yearn for humans to return to something like a natural state should recognize that being human means “not natural” - we are a rogue species that has always flouted every natural norm. We have bent the electromagnetic spectrum to carry our voices, text, and pictures to any pinpoint on the globe. Long before we ever saw the image of an atom, we were making molecules never intended by nature, like those pesky plastics now contaminating the planet. From our earliest days, we saw trees and thought, “Hack them down and we can make shelters” wool on a sheep, hide on a cow? - “They’ll do for clothing.” With time, our hacking has become more subtle. TWO BOOKS THIS YEAR with “hacking” in their title - Hacking the Code of Life and Hacking Darwin - prompt the thought that this might be the defining trait of Homo sapiens.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |