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Come, let us play God

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Although this book was written in 1969, it is even more applicable today than it was thirty years ago. Augenstein took a look at the trends in biological advancement and realized that humanity was on the verge of reinventing the very physical definition of human life. While no one argues that humans have been doing that from the first moment intelligence appeared in our brains, the rate of change had always been rather low. Until the middle years of the twentieth century progress was measured by a slow improvement in the average life span. However, in the last half of the twentieth century, biological knowledge advanced so rapidly that a qualitative change took place.
The questions that humanity is now required to answer deal with whether we should actively and significantly change the fundamental components of the human body. The potential changes are so significant that they are beginning to enter the realm of where humans can be considered the co-creator of what we are to become. Hence the title of the book.
Some of the questions Augenstein addresses are the consequences of organ transplants and who determines the recipients of these scarce resources. This was a problem thirty years ago and will remain a problem until new scientific breakthroughs either create artificial replacements or allow us to grow new organs.
The expansion of the human population and how this fundamental problem is dealt with is examined in two chapters. With the declining birth rate in the developed countries, this has ceased to be the burning issue that it used to be. However, that does not mean that it has gone away. The world population continues to rise and in 2004 is probably more than the planet can reasonably sustain. Furthermore, the problem has shifted to the increasing average age of the populations in all countries. The percentage of resources that are being earmarked to care for the elderly continues to rise and threaten to overwhelm all social strategies currently in place to cope with the problem.
The questions that are raised by this increase in knowledge are probably the most significant that the human race will ever have to answer. In fact, the possibility exists that complete solutions may never be found. Augenstein asks the questions, thereby opening a debate that continues to this day, with no resolution in sight.