El objetivo del presente libro es afirmar que Huxley tenia razon que la amenaza mas significativa planteada por la biotecnologia contemporanea estriba en la posibilidad de que altere la naturaleza humana y por consiguiente nos conduzca a un estadio posthumano de la historia. Esto es importante alegare porque la naturaleza humana existe es un concepto valido y ha aportado una continuidad estable a nuestra experiencia como especie. Es junto con la religion lo que define nuestros valores basicos. La naturaleza humana determina y limita los posibles modelos de regimenes politicos de manera que una tecnologia lo bastante poderosa para transformar aquello que somos tendra posiblemente consecuencias nocivas para la democracia liberal y para la naturaleza de la propia politica. Puede suceder como en el caso de 1984 que a la larga descubramos que las consecuencias de la biotecnologia son completa y asombrosamente benignas y que haciamos mal al preocuparnos. Es posible que al final la tecnologia resulte ser mucho menos poderosa de lo que parece hoy en dia o que los responsables sean moderados y cautos a la hora de aplicarla. Sin embargo una de las razones por las que no soy tan optimista es que la biotecnologia -en contraste con otros muchos avances cientificos- encierra beneficios evidentes pero tambien peligros mas sutiles.
Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), resident in FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent books are America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy, and Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap between Latin America and the United States. His latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution will be published in April 2011.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation from 1979-1980, then again from 1983-89, and from 1995-96. In 1981-82 and in 1989 he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, the first time as a regular member specializing in Middle East affairs, and then as Deputy Director for European political-military affairs. In 1981-82 he was also a member of the US delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.
Dr. Fukuyama is chairman of the editorial board of The American Interest, which he helped to found in 2005. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), and Kansai University (Japan). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy, and member of the advisory boards for the Journal of Democracy, the Inter-American Dialogue, and The New America Foundation. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Pacific Council for International Affairs. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
March 2011
