美国国家公共电台 NPR Juan Enriquez: What Can Happen If Humans Control The Future Of Evolution?

 

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's the TED¹ Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. And on the show today, ideas about the things we do in the present that could have troubling consequences in the future. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look forward to the future. I mean, there are reasons to be hopeful.

When you think about the future of technology, are you super excited about what it's going to be like in, you know, 10, 20, 30 years?

JUAN ENRIQUEZ: I'm wildly excited.

RAZ: This is Juan Enriquez. He's a futurist and a writer.

ENRIQUEZ: You know, there's just such a long list of stuff. We're going to generate as much data, photographs, books as has been generated in human history in the next two years. And we're just doing this on an exponential level. So our understanding of life, our ability to modify life, our ability to find life on other planets, our ability to redesign genetic² code, to increase overall intelligence - there's just so many things going on. It's an extraordinary time to be alive.

RAZ: And Juan is especially excited about something that could fundamentally change life itself. It's called life code.

ENRIQUEZ: What we're doing is we're learning how life is written. So first, biology was observational. We watched what happened. And then, we realized that life was written in DNA³, in four base pairs. And then we realized we could copy that DNA by cloning animals, by cloning bacteria, by cloning plants. And now we're at a stage where we can use ways of inserting or deleting or altering genes⁴ in such a way that we can edit life code. And that's going to be the biggest single driver of wealth creation, of power, of change in the world for the next foreseeable decades.

RAZ: I mean, what you're talking about and what lots of people in this field are talking about is basically taking control over our evolution.

ENRIQUEZ: I think that's exactly right. And we're at this break point where we're playing on a six-dimensional chess board because you can change the basic DNA code, you can change the way it's executed through proteins, you can change it by changing the environment. There's just a whole lot of places where we can alter how this life code is written, how this life code is edited, how this life code is executed. So you can actually alter species very quickly through selective pressures. And then we've also reached a very strange break point because for 4 billion years, what lived and died on this planet was determined⁵ by natural selection and random⁶ mutation⁷.

And now what we've done is we've created this parallel evolutionary⁸ superhighway that operates on a completely different logic⁹. And we call it unnatural¹⁰ selection. And I'll give you an example. A little Chihuahua, like the Chihuahuas you see walking down Fifth Avenue in those fancy handbags...

RAZ: Yeah.

ENRIQUEZ: ...That's created by human beings and bred basically from wolves. But if you take that little Chihuahua and you place it in the middle of the African jungle, you're going to see natural selection happen very quickly because that is an animal adapted to human apartment buildings, not to nature.

RAZ: Yeah.

ENRIQUEZ: And the same thing happens with the cornfield, and the same thing happens with the soybean field. They're the least natural places on earth. They would not be there absent human intervention¹¹. So we're determining, to a great extent, about 50 percent of what lives and dies on Earth. And that is a true superpower. I mean, a superpower is not leaping over tall buildings in single bounds. A superpower is not being able to light something on fire if you look at it. A superpower is determining what that life form does and how that life form executes. And that's what we're learning how to do. And we have to, on the one hand, be awed¹² by it, take responsibility for it, understand the ethical¹³ moral implications of that. But above all, we have to become literate¹⁴ in this because this is going to be the language that drives the world economy and the world political system.

RAZ: And right now, we're just in the beginning stages of what life code can do. Here's Juan Enriquez on the TED stage.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

ENRIQUEZ: So this life code stuff turns out to be this incredibly powerful way of changing viruses, of changing plants, of changing animals, perhaps even of evolving ourselves. Well, some of these treatments actually end up changing your blood type. Or they'll put male cells in a female body or vice¹⁵ versa, which sounds absolutely horrible until you realize the reason you're doing that is you're substituting bone marrow¹⁶ during cancer treatments. So by taking somebody else's bone marrow, you may be changing some fundamental aspects of yourself. But you're also saving your life. And as you're thinking about this stuff, here's something that happened 20 years ago.

So this is Emma Ott. She's a recent college admittee. She's studying accounting¹⁷. She played two varsity sport. She graduated as a valedictorian. And that's not particularly extraordinary, except that she's the first human being born to three parents. Why? Because she had a deadly mitochondrial disease that she might have inherited. So when you swap¹⁸ out a third person's DNA and you put it in there, you save the lives of people. But you are also doing germline engineering, which means her kids will be - if she has kids - will be saved and won't go through this. And her kids will be saved, and their grandchildren will be saved, and this passes on.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RAZ: OK, so the story of Emma Ott is pretty awesome¹⁹ and inspiring and of course, I think, everybody - almost everybody would agree that this is the right thing. We should be doing this kind of stuff. Right? And - but the problem is that it opens up a whole Pandora's box of things we can do. And then it becomes a philosophical²⁰ question of where we start - where do we stop?

ENRIQUEZ: So imagine for one second that you had a time machine. And somehow, you could bring Grandpa and Grandma back, age 18, and sit them in your living room and have a birds and the bees talk with them. Grandpa, Grandma - do you know that you can now have sex and not have a baby?

RAZ: This is getting weird²¹, by the way, just thinking about my grandparents. But keep going. Keep going.

ENRIQUEZ: So for all of human history, normally, sex equaled baby.

RAZ: Right.

ENRIQUEZ: Right?

RAZ: Yes, right.

ENRIQUEZ: And now, all of a sudden, you're telling them, no. You've separated sex from conception. And then you continue the talk and you say, and oh, by the way, because I'm doing my graduate degree, maybe what I want to do is to do this in vitro later. And then what you've done is you've separated sex from being with somebody. So all of a sudden, you don't have to physically²² be with somebody to conceive a child. And their eyes would get very big at that.

RAZ: Yeah, they'd freak out. They'd totally freak out.

ENRIQUEZ: And then the third thing you'd tell them is - oh, by the way - because you can freeze this and because you can freeze fertilized²³ eggs and because you can have a surrogate mother, with today's technology, you could have an identical twin born every 50 years. And at that point, they'd wonder what you were drinking, and they'd storm off.

But see, we take that stuff for granted.

RAZ: Right.

ENRIQUEZ: We think that's just kind of stuff you talk about over a latte as an option. And I think some of the things you're talking about are going to scare us to death but are going to be so normal and natural to our grandkids that they'll kind of go, Grandpa, Grandma - why didn't you have these choices? Why would you allow kids to be born and suffer and give them cancer? Why didn't you have double the lifespan like we have? And that'll just be a menu of stuff that to them will seem, you know, like, of course you can do that. And to us it would be like, you can what?

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

ENRIQUEZ: That makes people nervous. So 20 years ago, the various authorities said, why don't we study this for a while? And there are risks to doing stuff and there are risks to not doing stuff because there were a couple dozen people saved by this technology. And then we've been thinking about it for the next 20 years. So as we think about it, as we take the time to say, hey, maybe we should have longer studies - maybe we should do this; maybe we should do that - there are consequences to acting²⁴. And there are consequences to not acting - like curing deadly diseases, which, by the way, is completely unnatural. Right?

It is normal and natural for humans to be felled by massive epidemics²⁵ of polio, of smallpox²⁶, of tuberculosis²⁷. When we put vaccines²⁸ into people, we are putting unnatural things into their body because we think the benefit outweighs²⁹ the risk. Because we've built unnatural plants, unnatural animals, we can feed about 7 billion people. We can do things by creating new life forms.

RAZ: Yeah, I mean - I - the problem is that it allows humans to pick and choose. So one person may say - listen, you know, I don't think that people with red hair deserve to live. And we should just eliminate red-haired humans from the planet, and I know how to do it.

I mean, I'm not saying that that will happen. But if the technology is available, there's a danger that something like that could happen.

ENRIQUEZ: Look, there is always a danger to acting. And some European countries have put what they call a precautionary principle in place. And the precautionary principle says, you can adopt and deploy³⁰ any technology you want as long as you can show me it will not hurt human beings. And that makes all the sense in the world at a 30,000-foot level. But when you bring that down and you think - OK, could you actually have an electric outlet³¹ in a house? Could you have a staircase? Could you use steel? There's a risk-reward ratio to any powerful technology. And yes, there's stuff that can be scary in this stuff. There's also stuff that can cure some really nasty diseases. There's also stuff that can allow us to live much longer, much healthier lives. So you have to measure the upside and the downside and not just be scared of it and not just be complacent³² about it.

RAZ: Yeah, OK. Fair enough.

ENRIQUEZ: I mean, look, I'm an optimistic curmudgeon³³, so I despair of some of the current politics on all sides. I despair about the ability to concentrate wealth in a hundred hands, literally³⁴ a hundred families. Like, I worry about some of the weapons we're creating. But overall, I think we're in a period where we can make an enormous chunk³⁵ of lives in this world far, far better off.

RAZ: Juan Enriquez - he's a futurist, venture capitalist and co-author of the book "Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection And Nonrandom Mutation Are Changing Life On Earth." You can see all of his talks at ted.com.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

3 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

4 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

5 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

7 mutation   

n.变化，变异，转变

参考例句：

• People who have this mutation need less sleep than others.有这种突变的人需要的睡眠比其他人少。
• So far the discussion has centered entirely around mutation in the strict sense.到目前为止，严格来讲，讨论完全集中于围绕突变问题上。

8 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

9 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

10 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

11 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

12 awed   

adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The audience was awed into silence by her stunning performance. 观众席上鸦雀无声，人们对他出色的表演感到惊叹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was awed by the huge gorilla. 那只大猩猩使我惊惧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

14 literate   

n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的

参考例句：

• Only a few of the nation's peasants are literate.这个国家的农民中只有少数人能识字。
• A literate person can get knowledge through reading many books.一个受过教育的人可以通过读书而获得知识。

15 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

16 marrow   

n.骨髓；精华；活力

参考例句：

• It was so cold that he felt frozen to the marrow. 天气太冷了，他感到寒冷刺骨。
• He was tired to the marrow of his bones.他真是累得筋疲力尽了。

17 accounting   

n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表

参考例句：

• A job fell vacant in the accounting department.财会部出现了一个空缺。
• There's an accounting error in this entry.这笔账目里有差错。

18 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

19 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

20 philosophical   

adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的

参考例句：

• The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
• She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。

21 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

22 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

23 Fertilized   

v.施肥( fertilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The study of psychology has recently been widely cross-fertilized by new discoveries in genetics. 心理学研究最近从遗传学的新发现中受益匪浅。
• Flowers are often fertilized by bees as they gather nectar. 花常在蜜蜂采蜜时受粉。

24 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

25 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

26 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

27 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

28 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

29 outweighs   

v.在重量上超过( outweigh的第三人称单数 )；在重要性或价值方面超过

参考例句：

• Her need to save money outweighs her desire to spend it on fun. 她省钱的需要比她花钱娱乐的愿望更重要。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Its clarity in algebraic and analytical operations far outweighs any drawbacks. 文化代数和解析运算中的清晰性远远胜过任何缺点。 来自辞典例句

30 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

31 outlet   

n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄

参考例句：

• The outlet of a water pipe was blocked.水管的出水口堵住了。
• Running is a good outlet for his energy.跑步是他发泄过剩精力的好方法。

32 complacent   

adj.自满的；自鸣得意的

参考例句：

• We must not become complacent the moment we have some success.我们决不能一见成绩就自满起来。
• She was complacent about her achievements.她对自己的成绩沾沾自喜。

33 curmudgeon   

n. 脾气暴躁之人，守财奴，吝啬鬼

参考例句：

• The old curmudgeon found a new scapegoat and that let me out.那个老守财奴找到一个新的替罪羊，这样我就脱身了。
• The old curmudgeon was talking about the smothering effects of parental duty on creative lives.那些坏脾气的老人们喋喋不休于父母生儿育女之责任的妨碍性效应。

34 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

35 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。