|
A peer-reviewed
electronic journal published by the Institute for Ethics and ISSN
1541-0099 20(1)
– December 2008 |
Editorial: Celebrating our past, imagining our future
Russell Blackford, Monash University
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Evolution and Technology
Journal
of Evolution and Technology - Vol. 20 Issue 1 – December
2008 - pgs i-ii
http://jetpress.org/v20/editorial.htm
As described elsewhere on this journal’s website, The Journal of Evolution and Technology
(henceforth “JET”) was founded in 1998 as The
Journal of Transhumanism, and was originally published by the World
Transhumanist Association. In November 2004, JET moved under the umbrella of
the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (“IEET”), an organization
that seeks to contribute to our understanding of the impact of emerging
technologies on individuals and societies.
Prior to my appointment, in January 2008, as JET’s
editor-in-chief, I’d had four distinguished predecessors – Nick Bostrom, Robin
Hanson, Mark Walker, and James Hughes – who had established the journal as a
leading forum for discussion of the future of the human species and whatever
might come after it. Articles that they'd published in JET were – and are –
frequently cited in discussions of the human or posthuman future. With a decade
of history behind the journal as I commenced my watch this year, and with JET’s
fifth year with IEET now underway, we have much to celebrate. I'm personally
delighted to have taken up my position with a journal of ideas that has such a
rich history and so much promise.
JET is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. The
material that it publishes may or may not be submitted by scholars and
scientists currently working within the academy, but it must certainly meet the
standards of well-established academic journals. Most submissions received are
rejected because they don’t reach the required standard, but we are always
looking for appropriate articles and reviews. We require only that they be
(more-or-less directly) relevant to the human or posthuman future and that they
meet our high standards of scholarship, originality, and intellectual rigor. We
welcome submissions on a wide range of relevant topics and from almost any
academic discipline or interdisciplinary standpoint.
Central to our thinking at JET is the idea –
increasingly familiar and plausible – that the human species is about to
commence, or has already commenced, a new form of evolution. This is something
quite different from the slow Darwinian processes of survival, reproduction,
and adaptation. It is powered, rather, by new technologies that increasingly
work their way inwards, transforming
human bodies and minds. According to this idea, technology can do more than
merely giving us tools to manipulate the world around us; it can alter us far more comprehensively than by
shaping our neurological pathways when we learn to handle new tools. This idea
of a technologically-mediated process of evolution remains controversial, of
course, and even if we grant it broad acceptance there is still much to debate.
Just how the process might be manifested in the years to come, and just where
it might take us or our successors, are both unclear. Nonetheless, the idea
merits careful study from many viewpoints, whether scientific, philosophical,
historical, sociological, anthropological, legal, artistic … or even
theological.
Among writers and thinkers who take the idea of a new
form of evolution seriously, there are bound to be disagreements. To what
extent is technologically-mediated evolution already happening, bearing in mind
the considerable extent to which we are currently using technology to alter our
bodies? If the process accelerates or continues over a vast span of time, will
this be a good thing or a bad thing – or is it a phenomenon that resists moral
evaluation? How dramatic a vision of technologically-mediated evolution is
really plausible? Reasonable answers to such questions range from radical
transhumanist visions of sweeping, rapid, entirely desirable change to various
kinds of
skepticism, caution, or
concern. JET welcomes a spectrum of views on all this, as long as they meet its
standards, though we will never cater for the same audience as a technophobic
journal such as The New Atlantis.
Though we welcome many viewpoints, we are unusual in providing a forum for
radical proponents of new technology to develop their visions in detail, and
with a rigor seldom found elsewhere. Their ideas are then available in their
strongest form for scrutiny from admirers and critics alike.
In that spirit, we are leading off this new volume
(Volume 20) of the journal with Eric Steinhart’s detailed analysis, from a
radical transhumanist perspective, of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s theology and its relevance to
contemporary transhumanism. Steinhart argues that there are many reasons for
transhumanists to study Teilhard's thought, and he raises questions about how
transhumanism should respond to the massive political influence (at least in
the United States) of conservative Christianity. Steinhart is surely correct
that these questions deserve further and deeper consideration from
transhumanists and other advocates of transformational technologies. While
conservative Christianity may lose some of its influence as a result of the
most recent US election, there are many signs that it is not about to recede as
a cultural and political force. How should we respond?
JET is now moving to a publication schedule that
assigns one volume to each year, though Volume 20 will cover the last part of
2008 as well as the entirety of 2009. After that, it will be a simple regime of
one volume equals one year. Within volumes, we will put together coherent
issues, each containing a mix of articles, reviews, and sometimes other forms
such as symposia, commentaries, and so on. We will publish both regular issues
– based on submissions received from time to time – and special issues (these
may, for example, be in the form of edited conference proceedings). Generally
speaking, we will publish individual articles as they are received,
peer-reviewed, and edited, which implies a relatively quick turnaround from
submission to publication. At least with our regular issues, we need not wait
to publish a complete issue in one hit.
I apologise, however, that we do have a backlog …
which we are clearing as quickly as we can. Thus we’ve not been as timely in
publishing some pieces as we’d like. That will change very soon, because we’re
clearing the backlog successfully. I thank the authors of recently-published
articles (and of articles that we've accepted and will be publishing in the next few weeks or
months) for their patience.
This is a good time to celebrate JET’s past, now it’s
turned ten. I salute all the fine contributors and editorial staff who have
worked on the journal over the past decade-and-a-little-bit, and have made it
what it is today. Take a bow, people. There is also no time like right now to consider the future, not
just of this unique journal but of humanity itself.
Let’s get on with it.