Adam Keiper of The New Atlantis and the Ethics and Public Policy Center reviews Michael S. Gazzaniga’s Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Gazzaniga does little to explore the implications of the research he describes. Once we have been armed with the latest scientific findings about how our brains came to be and how they function, how ought we to act? The findings of neuroscience do not immediately penetrate to the most intimate levels of personal experience.
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Mr. Gazzaniga is far too credulous in this closing chapter, especially regarding the extravagant claims of some robotics researchers. But worse, he doesn’t consider what the coming age of mind enhancement and neural implants might mean. He concedes that tweaking human biology could have unintended consequences, just as tinkering with the natural world has sometimes gone awry. But he does not acknowledge that science alone cannot judge where our powers over our world and our selves should be limited.
The basic assumption of “Human” is that biological science is superior to every other way of thinking about human life. But that assumption leaves us unable to judge when science itself has gone too far. We may, in the end, feel compelled to turn to the very sources of wisdom – philosophy, tradition, faith and even “long windbag discussions” – that Mr. Gazzaniga scorns.
