Texas Tech University

Transhumanism and its Discontents

Dr. Charles T. Rubin

Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

We stand on the brink of scientific and technical breakthroughs that will give us the power to redesign our bodies and minds. Should we seize upon them to "perfect" ourselves, or do such dreams embody an arrogance that can only destroy what we hold most dear?

Dr. Charles T. Rubin, Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, addresses this gigantic, now inescapable question in his lecture entitled "Transhumanism and Its Discontents."

As Dr. Rubin argues in his recent book, The Eclipse of Man, "transhumanism" is a utopian ideology that, stripped of its visionary rhetoric, does little more than justify human extinction. Rather than following its deceptive counsels, he urges a more modest approach that preserves those qualities that ultimately define our humanity.