Episode description

Dr. James J. Hughes (author, professor and transhumanist) is today's featured guest.

Topics: his doubts about the probability of the Singularity; Techno-Progressive Transhumanism verses Libertarian Transhumanism; Embracing Change with All Four Arms: A Posthuman Defence of Genetic Engineering; his new book Cyborg Buddah; Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future; Terry Shivo and brain death; the recent protests in the middle east for more freedom and reform; the politics of science fiction; and the personhood of clones and genetically engineered people.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the March 2, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 46 minutes] This interview was recorded as a Skype-to-Skype call on February 18, 2011.

Dr. James J. Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is also a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Director of Institutional Research and Planning. 

He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future , and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. Since 1999 he has produced a syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio. 

He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Humanity+, the Neuroethics Society, the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. Dr. Hughes speaks on medical ethics, health care policy and future studies worldwide.

News Item: Telomere loss, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute say, is the root molecular cause of a variety of ills brought on by advanced age. Ills including: waning energy, failure of the heart and other organs, and metabolic disorders like diabetes. The scientists included faculty members from Dana-Farber, the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at Dana-Farber; Boston University School of Medicine; Brigham and Women's Hospital; Harvard University; University of Massachusetts, Worcester; Harvard Medical School; and St. Vincent's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Australia.