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Will humans be able to re-create themselves in just a few decades?

In just a few years, perhaps in just a couple of generations, humans will finally reach the long-awaited dream of being in control of their own destiny and they will re-create themselves deciding the direction of their own evolution, according to author, businessman, and academic Juan Enriquez, chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy (www. biotechonomy.com).

According to Enriquez, in the same way the prehistoric homo habilis (able to use tools) yielded his place to the modern homo sapiens (able, but not always, of using his reasoning), soon we will leave our place to the emerging homo evolutis, “a new (human) species, one with extraordinary capabilities.”

Enriquez says our grandchildren will allow us “to see glimpses of this long-lived, partly mechanical, partly regrown creature that continues to rapidly drive its own evolution.” The new humanity “will involve an ever faster accumulation of small, useful improvements.”

This kind of statements may look like something from a science-fiction book, but they are not science-fiction. In fact, they are statements by a distinguished researcher with undeniable credentials. In addition to his work at Biotechonomy, Enriquez is the founding director of Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project.

Enriquez was also part of a world discovery sailing voyage led by Craig Venter, who sequenced the human genome. He previously served as CEO of Mexico City's Urban Development Corporation and Chief of Staff for Mexico's Secretary of State.

Lacking the solid and diverse academic and business experience of Enriquez, it is difficult to evaluate the validity of his statements about the emerging new species of human beings, but precisely because of his academic and business experience, it results even more difficult to reject Enriquez’ claims.

Perhaps it is true that our grandchildren will be so different from us, both in physical appearance and in intellectual capabilities, as we are different from our prehistoric ancestors. But if Enriquez is correct, the change will happen in mere decades, not millennia.

Assuming the change will happen as Enriquez anticipates, and that our grandchildren will belong to a new humanity, what it means for us today in this country knowing that soon we will see fast evolutionary changes?

It means an immense and unavoidable responsibility for all of us, but even more so for all Latinos, because, according to Dr. Carlos Cortes of the University of California at Riverside, almost 70 percent of those under the age of 10 in this country are Latinos.

In other words, combining both analyses, it can be said that most of the first members of the humanity will be descendants of Latinos. Our descendants.

I don’t like the idea that my grandchildren will be cyborgs who will see me as an obsolete species on its way to extinction. But I like even less the idea that we have in front of us a huge social, cultural, and educational responsibility that perhaps for negligence or laziness we won’t be able to fulfill.

The road from postmodernism to transhumanism seems unavoidable but it certainly presents many interesting challenges.

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