Science: Genes, Machines and Human Beings ; John Maynard Smith Is Arguably the World's Greatest Evolutionary Biologist. in a Rare Interview, He Talks to Sanjida O'Connell about Eugenics, Cloning and How We Might Triple Our Life Expectancy

Sanjida O'Connell, The Independent (London, England)

In 1931 a science-fiction writer called Olaf Stapledon wrote a book which changed the lives of two men. Last and First Men was set a hundred million years in the future. There had been an atomic war and an oil crisis; a new breed of artificial intelligences were building giant brains to take over the planet. The take-home message was that if human beings were ever to live in a stable, happy society, they would have to change themselves, and if they didn't, robots would do it for them.

The two men not only read the same book, they read the same copy from the same small library in Sussex. Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001: A space odyssey and The nine billion names of God, …

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Publication information: Article title: Science: Genes, Machines and Human Beings ; John Maynard Smith Is Arguably the World's Greatest Evolutionary Biologist. in a Rare Interview, He Talks to Sanjida O'Connell about Eugenics, Cloning and How We Might Triple Our Life Expectancy. Contributors: Sanjida O'Connell - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: June 9, 2000. Page number: 8. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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