Speechification

An absolutely fascinating piece, this. Scary, but fascinating. And leaves you wondering quite why it feels scary (I think I know).

Professor Julian Savulescu, an eminent ethicist at Oxford University, on why it might benefit society as a whole to allow genetic modification and enhancement of humans. Simplifying, his arguments are relatively straightforward: ignoring the fact that we already enhance - via ritalin, say, or even coffee and alcohol - if we could genuinely and safely improve IQ, behaviour, even morality through tweaking genetics and pharmacology, shouldn’t we do that? The impact on everything, from architecture to sport to law to relationships, is barely capable of being comprehended - at least, without the sharpener of modafanil and Ritalin that US airforce pilots use when flying over Iraq.

The image I’m left with, however, is that of a rabbit that had a fluorescent gene from a jellyfish transferred into it. Perfectly safely, apparently. Thus, a fluorescent rabbit, and Savulescu points out that there’s no reason we couldn’t make a fluorescent human right now, the same way. At least they’d have each other.

Background Briefing: Stronger, smarter, nicer humans (mp3)

This is more like it. This is how I saw it going. It’s gladiatorial, man! Roo brings some Kiwi comedy, Dan comes back with Aussie solar power, I sneak in a bit of calypso and Russell parries with pies. Ouch! Take that! Biff! And now, in the blue corner (ding ding): palaeobiology! Crunch!

Scientists are so cute: their enthusiasm, their optimism, their belief in the absolute necessity of their task. This show about the effort to date a human jawbone found in Torquay in the 1920s is presented by a sort of scientist double-act: Doctors Tom Higham from the Oxford Radiocarbon Unit and Roger Jacobi from the British Museum (their almost-comic interactions are priceless).

The show could serve as a case study for the psychopathology of the scientist (they interview a bunch of other scientists too so it’s a mini-festival of scientific enthusiasm). The subject matter is mind-blowing too: the first ‘British’ Neanderthal? Extracting DNA from 37,000 year-old bones? Brilliant.

The show’s press release has some useful background, the kind of stuff that’s not always provided, including the name of the producer, Martin Kurzik - a man whose decision (I assume) to entrust the programme to actual scientists and not to a professional presenter was a stroke of genius (MP3).

The pic, which shows the actual jawbone, is from Torquay Museum.