BBC – Future – Why "post-natural" age could it be strange and beautiful

At 4913 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, there is an unusual institution. The Center for PostNatural History is a small museum that presents a mix of eclectic and strange specimens: you'll find a ribbeless mouse embryo, a sterile male screw worm, a sample of E. coli x1776 (a specimen designed to be harmless and unable to survive outside the lab), and a BioSteel stuffed transgenic goat called Freckles, genetically engineered to produce spider silk proteins in its milk.

The post-naturalism of the museum is the study of the origins, habitats and evolution of organisms modified intentionally and hereditarily by genetic engineering, as well as the influence of human culture and biotechnology on evolution. . His slogan: "It was then. That's now, "completes his logo, an evolutionary tree with an arrow joining two separate branches. Visitors are encouraged to consider that each specimen has a natural and evolutionary history, as well as a post-natural cultural history.

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Since man exists, we influence the flora and fauna of our planet. So, if humanity continues to flourish far into the future, how will nature change? And how could this genetic manipulation affect our own biology and evolutionary trajectory? The short answer: it will be strange, potentially beautiful and like never before.

Perhaps romantically, we always consider anything that has not been selectively high, industrialized or deliberately genetically altered to be natural and "virgin". However, there remains very little in nature that does not carry sticky fingerprints of humanity in one way or another. Since our ancestors scattered out of Africa 50 to 70,000 years ago, nibbling all the megafauna that was preparing and thus radically changing the landscape, our species is shaping and transforming nature.

About 10,000 years ago, we started selectively selecting the organisms we found most desirable, changing the genetic makeup of the species. Today, technology has only accelerated this practice. The sperm of an early bull can be collected and thousands of cows impregnated with this male, a feat impossible even for the most determined Casanova cattle. From cattle to pet dogs, we have spread these organisms around the world, creating huge biomass that would not exist without us and introducing cosmopolitan breeds that test the limits of physiology for aesthetic or agricultural benefits.

Over the millennia, our influence on many taxonomic groups has been profound. Our demand for food means that 70% of all birds currently alive are chicken and other poultry, enough to create their own geological layers. Meanwhile, human hunting, competition and habitat destruction have killed so much wildlife that the average size of mammals has declined, according to paleontologist Felisa Smith of the University of New Brunswick. Mexico. There have already been irreversible losses of biodiversity and species.

However, our impact on nature is only the beginning so far. New genetic tools promise a radical change in our ability to manipulate organisms. We are moving towards the future where the selection of positive traits in crops or animals resulting from natural variations, a process that remains long and laborious, is no longer necessary. With more and more accurate genomic editing techniques, such as Crispr-Cas9, we can move gene sequences between species, drive certain genes preferentially within natural populations – and even create fully synthetic organisms . As such, bioengineering represents a new form of transfer, creation and inheritance of genetic information.

The modification of organisms also extends to the irreversible extermination of certain species. Although humans have made war on Anopheles mosquitoes for hundreds of years, by chemical, mechanical or other means, they remain one of the greatest natural enemies of humanity. Biotechnology has enabled the creation and release of hordes of sterile males, designed to reduce the number of populations when they mate with wild females, and now, mosquitoes containing "gene drives," which accelerate the passage from a sterility mutation to the next generation, have also been developed.

With climate change really taking root, scientists and policymakers have begun to prioritize essential ecosystem services for humans, such as pollination and replenishment of fish stocks, and explore ways to disseminate the nature of organisms derived from bio-engineering or mechanical agents. .

For example, as the coral of the Great Barrier Reef is in terminal decline, research is underway to know how to release into the ocean zooxanthellae, the photosynthesis symbiont of coral polyps. Walmart has patented mechanical pollen drones, which seem to be aimed at sustaining its operations. Finally, the US Agency for Advanced Defense Research Projects (Darpa) has also recently awarded grants to develop genetically modified insects carrying viruses to allow genetic modification of plants, apparently for crops in the field, but such technologies could eventually be extended to ecosystems.

If we extend our goal to a distant future, how will these technologies change our relationship with the rest of life on Earth? Different trajectories await us, from the most holistic to the most strange.

First, we may decide to reduce our manipulation of nature and nature. After all, there are some very precious concerns about what could go wrong: for example, off-site genetic damage where the molecular "scissors" used to cut and insert pieces of DNA produce unexpected effects, or Recipient ecosystems become unstable in others, not planned. manners.

In this future potential trajectory, humans could collectively decide to rediscover nature and give way to the non-human on a planet that works well, recognizing that the biosphere (although already strongly influenced by humans) still represents complex and stress-tested form of adaptive complexity, for billions and billions of years.

The powers and curiosity of humanity to manipulate the raw materials of life seduce and continue to grow.

This would probably be the most effective way to protect ecosystems and ensure human survival on the planet Earth in the long run. We could "reinvent" a significant part of the planet and concentrate food production in multi-storey city centers. It would be an action that, in my opinion, would respect all forms of life today (deer, wolves, hyacinths, giraffes and even humans), knowing that things will evolve slowly and change without explicit interference.

Yet, even if I wish, I am not sure that the future trajectory is very likely. There will likely be a national and commercial arms race to develop and implement technologies that will continue to alter nature, particularly to protect or patent essential ecosystem services in the Anthropocene, or in the name of defense, but also since the powers and power of humanity. the curiosity to manipulate the raw materials of life seduces and keeps growing. At the same time, we are increasingly separated from other organisms and ecosystems. In such a state, it is easier to conceive of radically changing the fabric of nature to fully support human interests.

Artists have speculated on what it might look like, like Vincent Fournier, who imagined some of the chimerical organisms we could create: some designed to promote precipitation, others to respond to pollution.

In the movie Blade Runner, the writers describe a world with humanoids and manufactured animals, which belong to the societies that created them. This dystopian future may be something of a truth, since even nowadays artificial organisms – such as the BioSteel goat exhibited in the Center for PostNatural History – are the property of intellectual property rights related to their increases. It is conceivable that some companies hold all ecosystem services – pollination, for example.

These bioengineering agents are likely to be more "fit" than their predecessors and will become competitors, as long as they are deliberately designed to meet human aspirations (and therefore will preferably be under our protection) or survive in a man-made world. As such, modified organisms are likely to replace Nature as such, or companies could seek, openly or covertly, to completely eliminate comparatively unreliable biological entities and to populate it with synthesized agents. It is a future that is likely to be fragile and fraught with complications, in addition to being devoid of biophilia.

In the very long term, a bio-designed trajectory for nature could even change our sense of what it means to be human.

In recent decades, many have speculated on how we could merge with silicon technology. This transhumanist techie point of view proposes to possibly incorporate artificial intelligence in order to enhance the sensory or intellectual abilities of humans, or to transfer us into a digital realm after death in order to achieve a kind of immortality.

But what if our path were to merge with nature? Consider the eco-feminist literature of the late 20th century, as in the writings of Donna Haraway, who advocated for a "green" transhumanism, in which the human integrates with the animal and the vegetable so as to transform itself. The true utility of artificial intelligence may be to help us reassign genes and organisms into, as Haraway puts it, a "sympoiesis" – a mutually beneficial hybridization with humans.

This post-natural future is far from the comfort zones of many people. It was explored in the novel Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (part of the Brave New Weird genre), which became a Netflix film starring Natalie Portman. In history, a mysterious and shimmering area opens up in the rural United States, refracting and splicing DNA among the organisms found there, including that of the soldiers and the locals. scientists sent to investigate. Although elements of the novel and the film deal with the concepts of abandonment and acceptance of this fundamental fusion and co-creation with other forms of life, disruption and multiplication of material Genetics are often portrayed as a body horror and the motivation of volunteers the area is explained as self-destructive. The radical change of genomes is confused with the idea of ​​a completely lost human identity, even though the results on plants and animals in the area are sometimes undeniably beautiful.

In the distant future, consenting adults could accept a symbiosis with useful increases, such as photosynthetic organisms, that could be stored in our skin in a similar way to lichen, rather than merging the information from these organisms into our own genome. Or, we could go to the end and incorporate the genetic information of specific endangered animals into our lineage in perpetuity, in order to become their advocate and bearer of information in the future , as an intimate and protective act.

All of these potential genetic manipulations could be uncomfortable and strange for many people nowadays. Philosophers, however, have proposed two ways of thinking about the transfer of information that these future trajectories would encompass, which, in my opinion, will become more and more important in the post-natural era.

The philosopher Timothy Morton of Rice University says we should face not only the beauty but also the darkness and strangeness of nature – an approach he describes as a "dark ecology". He is opposed to separating ourselves from nature by beatifying it and thereby making us an alien, foreign, and more and more corrupt influence. According to this view, ecosystems are constantly changing and climate change is seen as a form of "global strangulation" that is changing and disrupting nature. Dark Ecology is a way of exploring and accepting the beauty and horror of the manipulation of the natural world by humanity, like VanderMeer in Annihilation.

In the same vein, the "philosophy of the process" considers that there is no real boundary between man and the environment, that there is no individual, and that everything, including flows of genes in the future and their routes, is in a constant state. flux. For example, the cells of our own body are the result of the symbiosis of two distinct microbial lineages in the deep past – a major evolutionary transition discovered by evolutionary biologist, Lynn Margulis. In addition, our genome is littered with genetic and extracellular remains of viruses and other parasites, and in adulthood, our body contains more cells belonging to other species (mainly bacterial) than ours. The philosophy of the process indicates that we are inevitably involved in everything and that we are constantly in material and informational contact.

In the distant future, when biotechnology has matured and the restrictions on gene transfer removed, we could perhaps consider a radical change in evolutionary processes from the point of view of the philosophy of the process or from the point of view of biotechnology. dark ecology. In simple terms, a new form of genetic information transfer will have evolved, like the large evolutionary transitions of the past.

Reloading, although seemingly unlikely at this time, remains the safest and most moral path for the future. But assuming that biotechnology becomes more ubiquitous, we do not know exactly how we will exist in the post-natural era. Everything will depend on how we manage the growing threat of climate change, but if humanity's long-term trajectory of manipulating nature continues, the future will likely be a strange country.

Modified mouse embryos, BioSteel goat and fluorescent fish at the center of postnatal history may well be only a beginning. Yet, as pointed out Gail Davies, an interdisciplinary researcher at Exeter University, this museum of weird creatures "does not celebrate this technological exploitation of the immanence of life. nor a simple rejection. Instead, it's a careful exploration of how lives could be lived together. "

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Lauren Holt is a researcher at the Center for Existing Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge. It studies the impact of humanity on biological complexity and the effect of technology on ecosystems.

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