Biological engineering starts with the insight that we are far from realizing the full potential of organic bodies. For 4 billion years natural selection has been tweaking and tinkering with these bodies, so that we have gone from amoeba to reptiles to mammals to Sapiens. Yet there is no reason to think that Sapiens is the last station. Relatively small changes in genes, hormones and neurons were enough to transform Homo erectus - who could produce nothing more impressive than flint knives - into Homo sapiens, who produce spaceships and computers. Who knows what might be the outcome of a few more changes to our DNA, hormonal systems or brain structure. Bioengineering is not going to wait patiently for natural selection to work its magic. Instead, bioengineers will take the old Sapiens body, and intentionally rewrite its genetic code, rewire its brain circuits, alter its biochemical balance, and even grow entirely new limbs. They will thereby create new godlings who might be as different from us Sapiens as we are different from Homo erectus.
-Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
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