[chrischen]

Skimmed the article... but I thought the point was about idealogical progress? The flying fish thing was a metaphor about human nature (how we behave, not what we can technically accomplish). For example, we've invented better weapons, like guns, but it's still used to kill people.

I think the answer to progress is to fundamentally alter human genes (thereby altering fundamental human nature), which the author seems to assume is not possible. Of course genetic evolution will also provide progress to humans—if not provided by technical accomplishments.

[cytokine_storm]

I read the article properly and came to the same conclusion. The author (of the article, unsure of the book) is definitely arguing that Progress is a flawed concept because of the frailty of human nature.

Genetic alteration and controlled environments might help solve these issues and help overcome the "human nature sucks" argument against the idea of Progress. But maybe the problem is more universal than human nature. One could argue that we become "less" human by attempting to make ourselves less irrational or prone to being negatively effected by our environment with the endpoint being that we become some kind of rational uncaring machine that is every Romanticist's worst nightmare.

I'm not doing a terribly good job of getting my point across so I'll reference some good reading that relates to this:

For becoming less human try: Blindsight by Peter Watts

For a vision of a technocratic utopia try Iain Bank's Culture novels.

[islon]

Genetic modifications can't alter human nature. What you'll have is a different species, closely related to humans. You can argue that's just semantics, I can agree to a point but unless you give a proper answer to what does it mean to be human my criticism is still valid.

[ef4]

As long as we're going to argue semantics, a "species" is a set of animals who can reproduce with each other.

Dogs are all still dogs, despite the massive genetic changes we've imposed on the various breeds. They can all still interbreed.

I really don't expect humans to accept genetic modifications that make their offspring reproductively incompatible with the rest of humanity. So speciation seems unlikely.

[chrischen]

There are genetic differences between different human races... not to mention constant mutations.