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By Rob Verkerk PhD
Founder, executive & scientific director
Before I get into the nitty-gritty of my rationale for not consenting to the administration of the latest crop of synthetic biology vaccines on behalf of my youngest daughter, to which I am still joint custodian with my wife, I need to give you some background. I hope you can bear with me, because this background is integral to the rationale.
The unspoken dichotomy
It’s very easy to assume that the technological world that has delivered such rapid progress over recent decades has the capacity to resolve the current multiple crises we face. These include two pairs of interrelated problems that are firmly on the radar of the world’s governing authorities. They are articulated in the form of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. The first pair are: the incapacity for current health systems to cope with the double burden of non-communicable and now infectious diseases (in the industrialised world) (SDG 3), and the same again, with a greater emphasis on infectious diseases, but with the added burdens of poverty and hunger thrown in (in the less-industrialised world) (SDG 1, 2 and 3). The second interrelated crises relate to our environment and include human-generated (anthropogenic) climate change (SDG 13), and the spiralling loss of biodiversity that is increasingly being characterised as the Sixth Mass Extinction (SDG 15).
As a passionate student of nature for over forty years, I’ve learned that nearly all truly sustainable technological developments are ones that are respectful of nature. Society has made great progress with renewable and ‘green’ energy systems that harness nature’s power, while endeavouring to not simultaneously destroy it. The likely transition towards hydrogen-based economies is driven by recognition that this may the most sustainable and environmentally benign option in an ever more industrialised world. The drives towards sustainable food systems and regenerative agriculture are driven by the same need to not destroy the natural environment on which we all depend.
Unless, of course, you feel or think that we can progress and evolve independently of nature. That the human form and its biological and evolutionary origins are limiting. That we could do better by transgressing what we’ve interpreted as humanity so far by incorporating a variety of different technologies including artificial intelligence and gene-editing into our being. As I’ve described before (here and here), this concept of transhumanism