Better than Human – Allen Buchanan ***

This pocket-sized book has a fair amount of content thanks to an unusually small font size – and the subject is one that is quite topical when this review was written given the furore over the cyclist Lance Armstrong’s use of performance enhancing drugs. Allen Buchanan takes on the whole subject of human beings enhancing ourselves.

It’s an interesting book that makes quite strong arguments that augmentation, both through use of drugs and genetic modification, is going to happen whether we like it or not, and shows how many of the arguments against such an approach are based on poor reasoning. Buchanan recognizes the issues and the ways this will cause problems, but equally dismisses many of the arguments against doing so. He also points out that the use of drugs in sport is actually a bad example (sorry), as in most circumstances we aren’t playing games and we aren’t in a zero sum competition. If one person is enhanced it has the potential to benefit the rest of us, rather than being a threat.

There are some quite serious issues. Early on, Buchanan rather condescendingly points out that this is the simplified version and he has a serious book on the topic for academics. That puts us in our place. But more to the point, I am not sure he has managed to leave behind his academic approach, making the book a little stilted sometimes and too focused on shooting down various academic arguments.

I was also quite disappointed that unlike my own Upgrade Me, he makes no mention of anything other than biological enhancements, where many of the most important ones are non-biological. Take two simple ones. If I hit someone with a stone in my fist, I enhance my ability to hurt them beyond human. If I use a water bottle when crossing a desert I am enhanced in my ability to survive. It is very arbitrary to limit yourself to drug and genetic modification.

In some ways, then, a frustrating book – but nonetheless a very useful guide to the arguments for anyone worried about anything from drugs in sport to those who want to enhance their intellectual ability.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune ) underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...

E=mc2: A biography of the world’s most famous equation – David Bodanis *****

David Bodanis is a storyteller, and he fulfils this role with flair in E=mc2. The premise of the book is simple – Einstein himself has been biographed (biographised?) to death, but no one has picked out this most famous of equations, dusted it down and told us what it means, where it comes from and what it has delivered. Allegedly, Bodanis was inspired to write the book after hearing see an interview with actress Cameron Diaz in which she commented that she’d really like to know what that famous collection of letters was all about. Although the book had been around for a while already when this review was written (September 2005), it seemed a very apt moment to cover it, as the equation is, as I write, exactly 100 years old. So when better to have a biography? Bodanis starts off by telling us about the individual elements of the equation. What the different letters mean, where the equal sign comes from and so on. This is entertaining, though he seems to tire of the approach on...

Search This Blog