More Than Human: Ramez Naam on Biological Enhancement

More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement is an exciting new book by the entrepreneur and technologist Ramez Naam. Naam will talk about biological enhancement and sign copies of his book, available for immediate purchase, at the Stanford Bookstore.

From the description at morethanhuman.org...

More Than Human is about our growing power to alter our minds, bodies, and lifespans through technology - the power to redefine our species - a power we can choose to fear, or to embrace.

Over the last decade researchers looking for ways to help the sick and injured have stumbled onto techniques that enhance healthy animals — making them stronger, faster, smarter, longer-lived, even connecting their minds to robots and computers. Now science is on the verge of applying this knowledge to healthy men and women. The same research that could cure Alzheimer's is leading to drugs and genetic techniques that could boost human intelligence. The techniques being developed to stave off heart disease and cancer have the potential to halt or even reverse human aging.

More Than Human takes the reader into the labs where this is happening to understand the science of human enhancement. It also steps back to look at the big picture. How will these technologies affect society? What will they do to the economy, to politics, and to human identity? What social policies should we enact to regulate, restrict, or encourage the use of these technologies?

Ultimately More Than Human concludes that we should embrace, rather than fear, the power to alter ourselves - that in the hands of millions of individuals and families, it stands to benefit society more than to harm it.

From the profile of Ramez Naam at betterhumans.com...

Ramez Naam is a professional technologist who helped create two of the most widely used pieces of software in the world: Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook. He is currently the CEO of Apex Nanotechnologies, which develops software for nanotechnology researchers.

Naam speaks regularly at a wide range of software and nanotechnology conferences. He serves on the advisory board of the Institute for Accelerating Change, is a Senior Associate of the Foresight Institute and is a member of the World Future Society, the Extropy Institute and the World Transhumanist Association.