THE CREATION OF THE SUPER BEING

VIA THE BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION

SUPER SOLDIERS, DESIGNER BABIES, REGENERATING LIMBS, ENHANCED LIFE SPANS

THE POSSIBILITIES LOCKED WITHIN OUR GENES

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IN PURSUIT OF THE SUPER BEING

The idea of the "Super Being" is popular today in the world of Science Fiction. We see the fascination with super beings represented among the super heroes, mutants, cyborgs and androids that populate today's movies and comic books. Even the first novel that was technically Science Fiction, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," was about a doctor's attempt to create a superior being.

Yet now via the science of genetic engineering and biotechnology, such fiction is becoming a reality.

China is at the forefront of a biotech research revolution in today's world. Not only do they host one of the world's largest genetic research centers, but they have been presiding over one of the world's longest continuous eugenic policies via their own population. In the west the idea of eugenics became controversial after 1945. Yet this is not the case in China.

Even back in ancient times, the Chinese State played a predominant role in dictating the course of human reproduction.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF EUGENICS AND SELECTIVE BREEDING

FROM ANCIENT CHINA TO TODAY

Eugenics has very ancient roots in the history of Chinese civilization. This leads back to the concept of "yousheng" ("good birth"—which has the same literal meaning as "eugenics").

For generations, there has been a close relationship in China between the state (guojia), the nation (minzu), the population (renkou), the Han race (zhongzu), and, more recently, the Chinese gene-pool (jiyinku). Traditional Chinese medicine focused on preventing birth defects, promoting maternal health and "fetal education" (taijiao) during pregnancy, and nourishing the father's semen (yangjing) and mother's blood (pingxue) to produce a strong and healthy population.

Much later in Chinese history, the Communist revolution took less of a role in eugenics. Mao Zedong was too obsessed with promoting military and manufacturing power, and too terrified of a peasant revolt, to interfere with traditional Chinese reproductive practices. His policies focused more on economic control. Yet this all changed after Mao's death.

The next leader, Deng Xiaoping, reinvigorated China's focus on population control. Deng understood that China would succeed only if the Communist Party shifted its attention from economic policy to population policy. He liberalized the markets, but implemented the one-child policy — which was partly put in place to curtail China's population explosion, but also to reduce dysgenic fertility among rural peasants.

Deng's legacy in China focused on "Comprehensive National Power". This includes economic power, military power, and 'soft power' - which encompass matters such as the Olympics, architecture, music, culture, etc.

But crucially, Comprehensive National Power also includes "biopower": creating the world's highest-quality human capital in terms of the Chinese population's genes, health, and education.

CHINA IS CURRENTLY RUNNING THE WORLD'S LARGEST EUGENICS PROGRAM

China has been running the world's largest eugenics program for more than thirty years, driving China's ever-faster rise as a global superpower.

A tenant of this program has been China's famous "one child" per family policy. The wealthy are allowed to pay a fee to have more children, whereas the poor cannot afford such a privilege. This allows the wealthy and educated among China's population to have more children than the poor and less educated.

Another chief example of China's eugenic policy is the 1995 "Maternal and Infant Health Law." This was originally known as "The Eugenic Law," but Western opposition forced a name change. Under this law, China forbade people carrying inheritable mental or physical disorders from getting married, and this law also promoted mass prenatal ultrasound testing for birth defects.

CHINA IS CURRENTLY THE WORLD'S LARGEST GENETIC RESEARCHER

China has seen the double digit growth of its biotechnology sector in recent times, and has one of the fastest growing biotechnology sectors in the world. The key national biotech body in the country is the China National Center for Biotechnology Development. Today in China, the field of biotechnology is a billion dollar industry.

China is also now home to the world's largest genetic research center - BGI Shenzhen. BGI-Shenzhen currently employs more than 4,000 researchers. It has far more "next-generation" DNA sequencers that anywhere else in the world, and is sequencing more than 50,000 genomes per year.

DESIGNER BABIES: THE RESEARCH INTO CREATING HYPER INTELLIGENT CHILDREN

There are many debates over how the inheritance of intelligence works. In fact, much of what we know about intelligence in general is still inconclusive. However, we do know that the inheritance of intelligence does not occur at a one to one ratio. In other words, sometimes intelligent parents are capable of producing less than intelligent children. Sometimes average parents can miraculously give birth to a genius. There are still many mysteries about this process, since the genes that result in intelligence are not as easy to pinpoint as other genes - such as the ones that cause hair and eye color.

Yet in China, scientists are busy at work trying to figure out which genes control intelligence, and how parents can rig the genetic lottery.

At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000 of the world’s smartest people and are sequencing their entire genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles which determine human intelligence. An allele is a variant of a gene.

If the scientists at BGI Shenzhen can pinpoint the alleles that control intelligence, this will open up the possibilities of performing embryo screenings. Embryo screening will allow parents to pick their brightest zygote and potentially bump up the collective IQ of a generation.

How exactly will embryo screening work?

The way this would work is that a couple could have several eggs fertilized in a lab with dad's sperm and mom's eggs. Then at the lab, they would test the multiple embryos and determine which one was going to be the smartest. The child of this experiment would belong to the couple as if they had birthed it naturally, but it would be the smartest possible progeny that the couple would be able to produce within their natural gene pool. It’s not genetic engineering or adding new genes, it’s the genes that the couples already have. The first generation of such children would only be about 5 - 15 IQ points smarter than average. But imagine the impact of such an activity over several generations. Such technology has the potential to dramatically enhance the IQ of the over all population.

GENETIC RESEARCH WILL FOCUS ON OTHER TRAITS AS WELL

SUCH AS STRENGTH, APPEARANCE AND EVEN IMPULSE CONTROL

Such technology would not only be utilized to select genes oriented towards intelligence, it could also be mobilized to select other traits, like strength, speed, health, hair color, eye color and even impulse control. It is also said that it may be possible to isolate genetic factors of personality, such as how conservative, liberal, religious or non-religious a person may turn out.

THE CREATION OF SUPER SOLDIERS

GENETIC MANIPULATION AS A WEAPON OF WARFARE

So far we have mentioned genetic research in relation to children. Yet there is also much interest in the military applications of biotechnology and genetics, especially in the creation of super soldiers. If this technology is successful, the soldiers of tomorrow could be capable of super human feats. We're talking about mutant combatants with regenerating limbs, faster reaction times, improved unit cohesion, a lowered need for sleep, and resistance to chemical, nuclear and biological warfare.

Experiments done on mice have revealed how human muscle tissue can be genetically enhanced in the future.

In 2005, Ronald Evans, a hormone expert working at Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, California experimented on mice and showed how genetic modification can increase the athletic power of mice. The scientists produced a group of genetically modified mice with an increased amount of "slow-twitch" muscle fiber. This is a type of fiber associated with strong cardiovascular muscles and boosts an athlete's endurance. These genetically modified mice could run for an hour longer than normal mice, they did not even gain weight - no matter what they were fed, and could remain completely fit without exercise.

Such an application in human beings would be a formidable weapon for any military.

While this article has mainly focused on China, we must mention that the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, The Pentagon, have begun research into human transgenics. As of now, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) has a functioning exoskeleton that enables soldiers to run faster and handle heavy weights (biotech articles).

Yet how far is the U.S. government willing to go in the field of human biological modification?

Some argue that the super human troops of the future may not even be American. So far, the U.S. military has been reluctant to embrace biological modifications of their troops. Such resistance could lead to a mutant gap, leaving the U.S. outgunned. Part of this resistance is based on moral and ethical questions about the nature of human augmentation. However, other countries, such as China and Russia are much less reluctant to do such research (Wired).

Yet this doesn't mean that U.S. won't go forward. If other nations are speeding ahead in this area, then it will be inevitable to join the Bio-Modification race in order to stay relevant.

So what are other countries doing about their own super soldier programs? It is hard to tell because much of this information is classified. “Other countries are also interested in these areas but are not so open as the U.S. about what they are doing, so it is difficult to know exactly what is going on in many cases,” notes Rod Flower, a professor at the William Harvey Research Institute in the U.K. and the chair of the Royal Society’s biomods study.

It is also difficult to know which terrorist groups may eventually use such technology for more nefarious purposes.

The ability to alter genes can be both an asset and a threat. On the upside, genetic modification could establish peace, by making populations live longer, need less food, and genuinely enhance the quality of life.

Yet a researcher named Andrew Herr points out the downside. He states that breaking down genes is easier than fixing them.

His argument is the following:

"In one dire scenario, an army might attack its enemies by changing their physiology to make them dumber, slower, more afraid. In The Atlantic recently, two researchers even discussed the possibility of governments or terror groups genetically assassinating enemy leaders by tailoring cancers specifically to the target’s DNA. The authors pointed out that the U.S. State Department already surreptitiously collects DNA samples from foreign dignitaries (Wired)."

The nation with the ability to wield such technology will truly have a competitive edge on the world stage.

CRACKING IMMORTALITY

Scientists from Harvard and the University of New South Wales have reversed the aging process in mice. While this research has focused on mice, early clinical trials have also been performed on humans. Scientists say they have switched the youthful genes on and turned the older ones off, by using naturally occurring proteins and molecules.

Eventually, scientists will be able to use this research to find ways for humans to live longer and healthier lives (ABC).

It is also possible that nano-technology could be utilized to reprogram our bodies. Nanorobots would work to replace blood cells and do their work a thousand times more efficiently and effectively.

While such technology is unlikely to make humans live forever, it will certainly extend their life spans and health beyond anything experienced today.

CONCLUSIONS

Upon reading this article, keep in mind that what we have written is only what is publicly known so far. What this means, is that there is possibly a world of clandestine biotech research that is even further along than what we already know, as Rod Flower, the Chair of the Royal Society’s biomods study pointed out above.

After all, the Chinese government is very secretive about their own research and activities. It is a running joke-hypothesis that the stellar performance of Chinese athletes in the most recent Olympic Games has been a result of genetic tinkering. Yet soon enough, such ideas will no longer be a laughing matter.

Is China on the road to creating a hyper intelligent, super human populous? Have they already moved the process along with the 1995 "Maternal Health Law?"

Will biotechnology be the next arms race as nations compete to create a race of super soldiers? Will biotechnology change what it means to be human, as life spans are expanded and the aging process is brought to a halt?

The results of such questions will manifest themselves in the following generations. While the quest to create the super being is not new, biotechnology is. It is likely that the nation that masters biotechnology is likely to define the coming century ahead.

THE CREATION OF THE SUPER BEING

VIA THE BIOTECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION

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