Eclipse of Man: Human Extinction and the Meaning of Progress

(Hardback)

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Tomorrow has never looked better. Breakthroughs in fields like genetic engineering and nanotechnology promise to give us unprecedented power to redesign our bodies and our world. Futurists and activists tell us that we are drawing ever closer to a day when we will be as smart as computers, will be able to link our minds telepathically, and will live for centuries--or maybe forever.

Reviews

"Rubin identifies a disquieting tendency among technologically minded idealists to regard not the human condition but humanity itself as the problem" --Financial Times "A thoughtful warning about 'transhumanists' who aspire to make man immortal." --World Magazine "Rubin's book... demonstrates the right way for scholars to grapple with the multifaceted questions raised by advances in biotechnology, robotics, and computing." --Catholic World Report "A hugely significant accomplishment... The transhumanist future, Rubin meticulously explains, is neither as inevitable nor as reasonable as some believe." --Peter A. Lawler, Berry College "Nano-utopia ... the redesign of the body ... the biochemistry of bliss ... the immortality of an uploaded mind ... the coming Singularity. It's tempting to dismiss transhumanism as wacky. Charles T. Rubin shows why we should take seriously this most radical aspiration, and with clarity and beauty, defends the good of being human." --Diana Schaub, Loyola University Maryland "More than a decade ago, Charles T. Rubin pointed out that the utopian dreams of perfecting humanity amounted to nothing less than an 'extinctionist project.' In this new book he explores some of the confusions and contradictions inherent to transhumanism, thereby helping us to understand and appreciate better what it means to be human." --Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs

Author Bio

Charles T. Rubin is an associate professor of political science at Duquesne University, where he teaches courses in political philosophy and about the normative aspects of policy making. He is the author of The Green Crusade: Rethinking the Roots of Radical Environmentalism (1998), and has written for The New Atlantis (where he is a contributing editor), First Things, Commentary, and other publications.