I examine the ways in which the theological and philosophical debate surrounding transhumanism might profit by a detailed engagement with contemporary biology, in particular with the mainline accounts of species and speciation. After a short introduction, I provide a very brief primer on species concepts and speciation in contemporary biological taxonomy. Then in a third section I draw out some implications for the prospects of our being able intentionally to intervene in human evolution for the production of new species out (...) of Homo sapiens. In a fourth section Account of Human Nature? And Where Does This Leave Transhumanism?”) I bring in the debate over the proper relationship between biological and theological conceptions of human nature, laying out the major options available and considering their possible implications for our understanding of transhumanism. In a fifth section several concrete examples are drawn out pertaining to particular subdisciplines within theology. I conclude by briefly laying out some suggestions for future work, focusing on tasks that theologians specifically ought to pursue. (shrink)

The nonreductionistic theory of the multiple aspects of reality offered by the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd is employed to illuminate the status of bodies and biological entities in relation to attached and incorporated technological devices. I first present a review of the interpretations of the mechanization of biology and then argue from a Dooyeweerdian viewpoint that this mechanization also amounts to a reduction of the biotic aspect to previous aspects, such as the physical and the regulatory or cybernetic aspect. Next, (...) the irreducible meaning of the biotic aspect is defined as the vital life cycle and generational continuity that delineate the form of a species. Finally, I show how this definition helps us identify a normativity and a respect for living things, and I discuss its implications for bioengineering practices. (shrink)

This essay argues that a Christian incarnational response to posthumanism must recognize that what is at stake isn't just whether belief systems align. It seeks to relocate the interaction between the church and posthumanism to how the practices of posthumanism and Christianity perform the bodies, affections and dispositions of each. Posthuman practices seeks to habituate: (1) A preference for informational patterns over material instantiation; (2) that consciousness and the self are extended and displaced rather than discrete and localized; (3) that (...) the body is merely a tool, the original prosthesis we learn to manipulate and (4) that human life is organized such that it is seamless with intelligent machines. The Christian performance of embodied life, on the other hand, has Christ as template and, in the Eucharist, Christians are marked by offering, sacrifice and celebration in a community that affirms the integrity of our common incarnate life. (shrink)

This paper seeks to expand our appreciation of the gene editing tool, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats‐associated protein 9 (CRISPR‐Cas9), its function, its benefits and risks, and the challenges of regulating its use. I frame CRISPR's emergence and its current use in the context of 150 years of formal exploration of heredity and genetics. I describe CRISPR's structure and explain how it functions as a useful engineering tool. The contemporary international and domestic regulatory environment governing human genetic interventions is (...) reviewed and shown to be increasingly ineffective in its ability to restrain, guide, and optimize the emerging use of CRISPR. Several reasons for this lack of consensus are discussed. In conclusion, I suggest a number of public policy recommendations that might allow us to simultaneously embrace our most important moral values and manage the inevitable power CRISPR will come to have in our lives. (shrink)