Abstract
Human enhancement is a common theme in fiction and popular culture (i.e. science fiction films) and often constitutes an attempt at exploring the future. This chapter sets out to what extent it is also encountered in more ‘serious’ and scientific explorations of futures. There are different approaches to the exploration of futures: long-term explorations, essayistic reflections and diagnoses of our time. These investigations originate in the desire to be able to anticipate the impact of new societal developments, unknown mechanisms and unusual circumstances. The exploration of futures is now an officially recognised research area and has inspired a novel branch of scholarship, comprising a multitude of different approaches and opinions and exploring a wide variety of possible future scenarios. However, human enhancement is a topic that is usually treated only marginally in such studies. Ultimately, most explorers of futures do not believe that human beings will be ‘created’, but they do stress the importance of trying to visualise the possible future developments and scenarios which could emerge from new science and technologies.
Translated by Lucie Martin.
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Cornips, L., van Asselt, M. (2013). Human Enhancement in Futures Explorations. In: Koops, B., Lüthy, C., Nelis, A., Sieburgh, C., Jansen, J., Schmid, M. (eds) Engineering the Human. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35096-2_4
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