Am I an Anti-Evolutionist?

It takes a bit of courage and self-reflection for me to write this title, since conceptual ideas around evolution are foundational to my professional life. Nonetheless, the onslaught of apps, memes, social algorithms and a million bits of internet banalia coupled with real scientific progress in genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence make for some reflection on human evolution. Taken together these factors point to an obvious outcome for Homo sapiens to evolve into a new species, fundamentally biological, but augmented from conception with various modified or deleted genes aimed at preventing inherited diseases, enhancing physique and mental acuity, and prolonging life span. Once outside the womb, an array of neural and physical modifications may be possible from thought-driven worldwide web access, to neuro-mechanical modifications for strength, reflexes, physical beauty, and so on. Currently, these ideas are largely considered science fiction, but it’s hard to watch a one-year old’s seemingly inherent fascination with an iphone, and not ponder our future.

 To take the evolution paradigm forward, there needs to be selection, meaning augmented humans will naturally bond with other augmented humans, such that within ten to fifteen generations social selection will be so strong that bonding between normals and augments (I think the science fiction terms are ‘normies’ and ‘augies’) will be largely taboo. Once these taboo’s are firmly established, evolution will lead to a fully separate species, Homo cyborgians(?), relatively quickly. It is then hard to predict the future of Homo sapiens as a species, but if the Neanderthals and Denisovisans are a guide, Sapien genes will continue, but our species will become extinct.  

As a conventional Homo sapien, I am not sure I am in favor of this evolutionary course, although I will have passed away long before it comes to pass. As envisioned here, it is a natural process, within the laws of Thermodynamics so from that point of view there is really nothing to argue against. The biology of this might require a deep think, while the genetic and biochemical machinery for human cellular replication and reproduction are well enough understood to imagine the future described here, like all biological processes, the fine details are far more complex than we can currently imagine, and may trip up any effort at self-directed evolution.  That caveat aside, this human evolutionary path strikes against a number of my personal beliefs in diversity, in finding harmony with nature, with being a self-reliant individual, with imperfection and how we adapt, and so on. Therein lies the intellectual quandary.