Culture & Ethics
Evolution
Wesley Smith on Transhumanism — A New Tower of Babel
What is transhumanism and what’s the problem with it? Wesley J. Smith explains in a new ID the Future episode with host Emily Kurlinski.
Smith recounts being challenged on the subject: Isn’t it “transhumanist” of him and therefore a bit of hypocrisy to wear eyeglasses? The answer is of course not — interventions like that don’t change the essence of who we are. Real transhumanism seeks to grab control of evolution to transform human beings at our core, the aim being a new species. If it were possible, it would represent the height of hubris, coming from humans who, as Wesley Smith points out, are the same folks who built the “unsinkable” Titanic. Insofar as the transhumanist project is not idle dreaming, Wesley compares it to the Tower of Babel, making war on our own nature with only suffering as the inevitable result.
Wesley has been fighting this fight almost single-handedly, as the media looks on in admiration at attempts to defeat death and usher in a secular New Jerusalem. Download the podcast or listen to it here.
Image: The Tower of Babel, by Hendrick van Cleve [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.