This blog post explores how the advancement of biotechnology is transforming humanity, pondering whether it represents evolution or apocalypse.
In the 21st century, humanity’s science and technology are advancing at a rapid pace. In the field of biotechnology, attempts are being made to resurrect the extinct Neanderthals. In cyborg engineering, efforts are underway to replace parts of the human body with mechanical devices. In inorganic engineering, researchers are striving to recreate the human brain within a computer. Amid this rapid tide of progress, humanity will inevitably be influenced by enhanced science and technology and will consequently change. And now that the Genome Project is complete and we can examine what biological changes in humans created the consciousness we possess today, that change is upon us. This raises the question: ‘Can we still call our transformed humanity Homo sapiens years from now?’ To answer this question, I wish to discuss ‘The End of Sapiens’.
‘Homo sapiens’ refers to us, the modern humans living in this era. And we, Homo sapiens, have spread across the globe, reigning over other life forms on Earth. Hearing that the ‘end of Sapiens’ is imminent might seem absurd in this context. However, the ‘end of Sapiens’ discussed here is not an external extinction caused by natural disasters or nuclear war, as depicted in countless films, but an autonomous extinction brought about by humanity’s own transformation. In his book ‘Sapiens,’ Yuval Noah Harari identified three causes for the end of Sapiens. The first is biotechnology, the second is cyborg engineering, and the third is inorganic engineering. Among these, I will focus on biotechnology and explain the end of Sapiens brought about by it.
Biotechnology refers to research aimed at harnessing the functions or characteristics of living organisms for human purposes. Examples include creating less aggressive castrated bulls for labor or manipulating the genes of E. coli and various fungi to produce insulin. Humanity has used this biotechnology to evolve into what we are today. In the past, humans could only utilize existing organisms through natural selection, the process where individuals with more suitable traits survive. However, humans replaced the process of natural selection with intelligent design through a form of biotechnology called selective breeding, which involves mating individuals with traits more useful to them. As a result, they created dogs that follow humans and chickens that are easy to raise, evolving into the humans of today. And biotechnology continues to advance. In the past, we could only take a roundabout route, like breeding individuals with useful traits to obtain more useful offspring. But today, it has advanced to the point where we can insert genes from one organism into another, enabling us to achieve desired results more directly. The greatest significance of this lies in the ability to add traits that an organism did not originally possess, creating beings vastly different from their predecessors. Humanity is utilizing this, transforming other organisms according to its own desires and convenience, as if becoming a transcendent being.
Until now, such biotechnology research has been limited to plants, fungi, bacteria, and insects—organisms posing relatively fewer potential problems—due to various political and ethical issues, including criticism that scientists are attempting to usurp the role of nature or God. Research involving humans has been delayed. However, given that biotechnology research holds the potential to deliver outcomes that many people desire—such as extended lifespans or cures for incurable diseases—and that these outcomes are indisputably beneficial, the delay in research is unlikely to persist for long. Furthermore, once research progresses, driven by humanity’s desire for ‘superior abilities,’ its products will not be confined solely to treating diseases but will also be used to enhance humanity itself. This raises a question: if biotechnology is used to enhance human capabilities, can the resulting humans still be called ‘Homo sapiens’?
Biotechnology can already increase a worm’s lifespan sixfold, create genius mice with vastly improved memory and learning abilities, or isolate the genes responsible for monogamy in field mice. Applying this to humans could create beings with extended lifespans, vastly superior intelligence compared to today, and free from social problems. Would such humans be the same as the humanity we know? It is said that humanity’s transformation from a relatively insignificant primate into the dominant species did not require distinct physiological functions, brain size, or external morphological changes; it was merely associated with minor alterations in the brain’s internal structure. However, if the genes of Homo sapiens were manipulated through biotechnology, Homo sapiens could become something entirely different and new, possessing a different consciousness.
And whether we could recognize them as the same species is also problematic. Looking back at history, humanity has often failed to accept others as the same species even over minor differences like skin color or appearance—treating them instead as slaves or targets for conquest. The problem of racial discrimination, where people cannot accept each other as equal human beings, remains far from fully resolved. In this context, can we truly consider a new humanity—distinguished not by skin color but by differences in lifespan, intelligence, behavior, and most significantly, by being genetically engineered—as belonging to the same species? The same question applies from the new humanity’s perspective. To them, observing us—with our shorter lifespans, susceptibility to disease, lower intelligence, and tendency to cause social problems—might feel akin to us watching monkeys in a zoo, aimlessly tossing objects around. Could they possibly consider the old humans—with their shorter lifespans, susceptibility to disease, lower intelligence, and countless social problems—to be the same species?
A biological species refers to ‘a group of individuals capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring in a natural state.’ Even if the newly transformed humans initially live intermingled with pre-transformed humans and can be classified as the same biological species, if they possess a new consciousness different from before or no longer consider past humans as the same species, forming separate groups, then just as the mountain ash fly and the apple tree fly were originally the same species but diverged into different species due to dietary differences leading to group separation, the new humans and old humans will see their groups diverge and the differences between the groups will grow so large that they can no longer be considered the same biological species.
Living in this era of rapidly advancing science and technology, we will soon face humanity’s own transformation through various scientific and technological fields such as biotechnology, cyborg engineering, and inorganic engineering. If new humans are born through genetic manipulation via biotechnology, they may possess different consciousnesses or fail to recognize us as the same species. Consequently, these new humans would no longer be ‘Homo sapiens’. This signifies the ‘end of sapiens’—not an externally imposed end, but an autonomous conclusion, or an evolution into a new form of existence.
