We are pleased to post Nigel Cameron’s abstract of his upcoming Oxbridge 2008 lecture.” Please write in with your thoughts.
“Stewarding the Self: A Human Future for Humans”
The 21st century will bring into sharp focus the dilemmas raised by our dominion over the natural order when it includes ourselves. The barbaric eugenics that characterized the first part of the 20th century, and the furor over experimental laboratory manufacture and use of embryonic members of our species that has bridged into the 21st, set the pace for a future that seems certain to hold more subtle but perhaps more consequential challenges. A “kinder, gentler” eugenics is in the works; transhumanists press the case for the redesign of the species; and a planet increasingly concerned with the preservation of “nature” seems less interested in a future for human nature as we know it.
I believe that the culture in which I find myself has completely forgotton its part in nature. Have the “green” community developments forgotten that we ourselves are as “green” a land mammal as any other animal they seek to protect? I am all for environmental stewardship and preservation. In fact, I do believe that our heart in this regard is a touch of the “imago dei”. However much of the results of our “green” culture are disturbing indeed, when they come at the expense of the respect and preservation of human life. I really wish I could be present at Nigel Cameron’s talk.