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Established 1845 EDITOR IN CHIEF: John Rennie EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mariette DiChristina MANAGING EDITOR: Ricki L. Rusting NEWS EDITOR: Philip M. Yam SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR: Gary Stix SENIOR EDITOR: Michelle Press SENIOR WRITER: W. Wayt Gibbs EDITORS: Mark Alpert, Steven Ashley, Graham P. Collins, Steve Mirsky, George Musser CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Mark Fischetti, Marguerite Holloway, Michael Shermer, Sarah Simpson, Carol Ezzell Webb EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, ONLINE: Kate Wong ASSOCIATE EDITOR, ONLINE: Sarah Graham ART DIRECTOR: Edward Bell SENIOR ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR: Jana Brenning ASSISTANT ART DIRECTORS: Johnny Johnson, Mark Clemens PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR: Bridget Gerety PRODUCTION EDITOR: Richard Hunt COPY DIRECTOR: Maria-Christina Keller COPY CHIEF: Molly K. Frances COPY AND RESEARCH: Daniel C. Schlenoff, Rina Bander, Emily Harrison, Michael Battaglia EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Jacob Lasky SENIOR SECRETARY: Maya Harty ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION: William Sherman MANUFACTURING MANAGER: Janet Cermak ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER: Carl Cherebin PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER: Silvia Di Placido PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER: Georgina Franco PRODUCTION MANAGER: Christina Hippeli CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER: Madelyn Keyes-Milch ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/VICE PRESIDENT, CIRCULATION: Lorraine Leib Terlecki CIRCULATION DIRECTOR: Katherine Corvino FULFILLMENT AND DISTRIBUTION MANAGER: Rosa Davis VICE PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER: Bruce Brandfon ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Gail Delott WESTERN SALES MANAGER: Debra Silver SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: David Tirpack WESTERN SALES DEVELOPMENT MANAGER: Valerie Bantner SALES REPRESENTATIVES: Stephen Dudley, Hunter Millington, Stan Schmidt ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, STRATEGIC PLANNING: Laura Salant PROMOTION MANAGER: Diane Schube RESEARCH MANAGER: Aida Dadurian PROMOTION DESIGN MANAGER: Nancy Mongelli GENERAL MANAGER: Michael Florek BUSINESS MANAGER: Marie Maher MANAGER, ADVERTISING ACCOUNTING AND COORDINATION: Constance Holmes DIRECTOR, SPECIAL PROJECTS: Barth David Schwartz MANAGING DIRECTOR, ONLINE: Mina C. Lux SALES REPRESENTATIVE, ONLINE: Gary Bronson WEB DESIGN MANAGER: Ryan Reid DIRECTOR, ANCILLARY PRODUCTS: Diane McGarvey PERMISSIONS MANAGER: Linda Hertz MANAGER OF CUSTOM PUBLISHING: Jeremy A. Abbate CHAIRMAN EMERITUS: John J. Hanley CHAIRMAN: Rolf Grisebach PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Gretchen G. Teichgraeber VICE PRESIDENT AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL: Dean Sanderson VICE PRESIDENT: Frances Newburg ® EVERYBODY HAS THE RIGHT to change his or her mind. But what if the subject of change is not the mind but the brain? This thought, explored in the September 2003 single-topic issue “Better Brains,” stirred a gale-force gust of letters from readers. Some were thrilled about the new possibilities for treating neurological diseases. But the moral gray area of gray matter alteration also inspired some consternation and even urgency. Several readers questioned the true impetus behind the lucrative business of brain improvement. Others raised concerns about the physiological and ethical hazards of trying to improve brains that are not actually “broken.” These ideas and more fill the following pages. ISSUES OF ENHANCEMENT The essay “Is Better Best?” by Arthur L. Caplan, neglects to mention the influence of creativity on thought. Brain engineering may create more effective thinkers, but it has yet to be proved that the brain can be stimulated to create new ideas. That is, we may be able to help a potential Shakespeare, Einstein or da Vinci produce his ideas more effectively, but we cannot create such thinkers, with their novel ideas, “from scratch.” This hurdle may be found in the quest for artificial intelligence as well. I believe that humanity has little to fear from brain engineering or artificial intelligence. Although biological enhancements may enrich our existence, diversity itself will be left to more old-fashioned methods: opportunity, coincidence and necessity. Karmen Lee Franklin Arvada, Colo. Caplan notes that the essence of humanness is to “try to improve the world and oneself.” In doing so, he has asserted a convenient definition of human life in one sentence, without defending his definition. Yet even if he were right, might not the manner in which we seek improvement also affect our humanity? If we turn ourselves into souped-up machines in the quest for perfection, doesn’t this reveal something about our humanness? The real harm of enhancement is that it can undermine our most basic and stable ideas about identity, personality, accomplishment, virtue and dignity. Too Letters EDITORS@ SCIAM.COM much for a brief letter, but certainly enough to preclude a carefree rush into enhancement. Daniel Tobey via e-mail Though arguing strongly in favor of brain improvement, Caplan never explains what he means by enhancing, optimizing or improving our brains—and I fear the consequences of such “improvements.” To understand how that could be problematic, suppose someone wanted to do better in business and eliminated inhibitions from his brain to make himself more ruthless. Humankind has a long and tragic history of attempted self-improvement. Chinese women bound their feet to improve their beauty; women of the former German Democratic Republic sought athletic prowess with massive doses of testosterone. Eugenics offered to better the human race, and Hitler attempted to apply its teachings. These days silicone and various dopants are used to alter appearance and athletic abilities. As a professor of physiology, I have seen nervous students who took tranquilizers to improve their performance but then became too incoherent to function. Caplan writes that coercion will not be needed to induce people who want to “optimize” their brains, because marketdriven societies encourage improvement. When baldness, impotence, facial wrinkles and cellulite are the (market-driven) scourges of civilization, whereas malar- 10 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN JANUARY 2004 COPYRIGHT 2003 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
Letters ia, cholera and malnutrition are largely ignored, we are a long way from understanding real improvement. H. Peter Clamann University of Bern Switzerland PLANNING A HEAD I appreciate your commencing your special issue with reference to my views on the upcoming “marriage of the biologic and the cybernetic” [“A Vote for Neuroethics,” Perspectives], despite your skepticism. I will note that a primary source of our different outlooks on the prospects for brain reverse engineering is that we are considering different time frames. The special issue describes well some of the neuroscience advances now in development, innovations that we can expect to benefit from during this coming decade. We need to ask: What happens after that? Progress will not only continue, but its pace will continue to accelerate. The reason for the acceleration is that each stage of progress in a given technology creates more powerful tools to enable the next stage. Consider, for instance, that spatial and temporal resolution of brain-scanning technologies is clearly improving at an exponential pace. One of many examples is the in vivo scanning system being developed at the University of Pennsylvania, which is designed to resolve individual neurons in a cluster of up to 1,000 simultaneous cells with submillisecond temporal resolution, a dramatic improvement over current systems. According to my models, we are doubling the paradigm shift rate (the rate of technical change) approximately every decade, so we can reasonably anticipate a dozen generations of technology over the next three decades. Scientists are trained to be conservative in their outlook and expectations, which translates into an understandable reluctance to think beyond the next step of capability. When a generation of technology was longer than a human generation, this orientation served society’s needs well enough. With the rapid acceleration of progress, however, a short-term look ahead is no longer sufficient. The public has a legitimate interest in informed opinion that looks forward to 20 to 30 years from now. When we consider the implications of multiple generations of technology, the availability over the next several decades of enormous increases in the capacity of our computational and communication NEW TECHNOLOGIES could lend a hand to brain function and repair. But should they? tools, the advent of molecular nanotechnology, and far greater insight into the principles of operation of the human brain, I believe that our perspectives will converge. Ray Kurzweil Kurzweil Technologies Wellesley Hills, Mass. PHARMACEUTICAL COSTS With regard to your entire September issue, and in particular the article “Diagnosing Disorders,” by Steven E. Hyman, I am surprised that you did not mention the extra costs required to subsidize the neurological treatments discussed. For example, in a table indicating the percentage of individuals suffering psychiatric trouble, the author suggests that roughly 20 percent of individuals contend at any one time with a serious affliction. Assume that medical costs for each one amount to $1,000 a year (in reality, the figure would be much higher). With some 20 percent of 300 million people in the U.S. alone to choose from, that means a total of at least $60 billion in potentially new medical care. This vast incentive might explain why drug companies fund this research. Once the research is legitimized, the health care industry extracts the costs back from society, to the current tune of 13 percent of the GDP. It is relatively easy (and profitable) to germinate a new crop of “illnesses.” It is not so easy (and hardly as profitable) to ascertain the true reasons behind today’s social dissatisfactions. Richard Borbely Simi Valley, Calif. LAST HURRAH This issue has the finest, most evenhanded and in-depth writing and editing I have read on a series of very subtle topics. So often, even in professional journals, articles describe only a part of issues—neuronogenesis, as if the entire brain and spinal cord can regrow; or cognitive techniques for correcting dyslexia, aphasia, “left brain” thinking and so forth. Your issue includes necessary caveats about controls, “off-label” drug uses, multiple points of view, preliminary results and more, while recognizing the thrilling potentials and advances in brain research. My congratulations on excellent conceptualizations, elegant writing and editing, and fascinating reading. Sidney Werkman Department of Psychiatry Georgetown University School of Medicine ERRATUM In “Data Points” [News Scan], the distance between Jupiter and the sun should have read 778 million kilometers, not 778 billion kilometers. The distance between the new planet and HD70642 should have read 494 million kilometers, not 494 billion kilometers. MELISSA SZALKOWSKI 12 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN JANUARY 2004 COPYRIGHT 2003 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC.
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