Can we pay the price of Nietzsche's Übermensch?

It has been almost 140 years since German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche published Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a lot has happened in the meantime, but the rise of a new breed of humans beyond the concepts of good and evil, free of the limitations of the god (and its physical manifestation, nature) is still far in the horizon. We have successfully completely eradicated many gruesome diseases and many others are obviously under our control, downgraded from lethal to chronic or from crippling to easily treatable, but Disease, with a capital D, is still a concept present in everyday life, perhaps so much so because modern science, in spite of all its advances, has failed to rid us of it. Life expectancy has increased by more than 30 years across the globe, but phenomena like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brings to the spotlight the fact that we are still at the mercy of our genes and the chemistry inside every one of our cells, a space that is very intimate and yet unreachable to us for the most part.

This morning I was chatting with my friend Jerzy, who mentioned that his 9-year old niece was quite tall for her age but was likely to enter puberty soon, which would lead her to stop growing and leave her with a relatively short stature. Her endocrinologist had floated the idea of providing some kind of hormonal treatment to delay the onset of this change, but her mother, Jerzy's sister, did not want to hear about it and was looking for another doctor that would not insist on that line of action. My friend was trying to make the point that there are obvious social statistical advantages in being tall (within certain "normal range", the taller the better), but if I were to concede the statistical advantage, which is a dubious point, I would not consider it enough of a reason to meddle in the development of the kid. Then the discussion veered into the realm of human improvement, which overlaps greatly with Nietzsche's ideas.

Photo: PxHere

If we are to believe in the theory of evolution, there are two possible outcomes when a new trait appears in a population: if it provides an advantage in the current environment, so that the bearers of this mutation manage to reproduce themselves indisputably faster and better, the trait will become pervasive in the population within a few generations (this was the case of the lactose tolerance in the pastoral societies of northern Europe); on the contrary, if the trait only provides intermittent advantages or does not influence the reproductive ability of the individuals, it is likely to spread moderately in the population, reaching an equilibrium well below 100% presence and contributing to the ultimate resilience of the population by adding variability (this is the case of the blood types, that show different resistance to some kinds of diseases, so their distribution is unequal around the world). And variability is a value in itself, because heterogeneous groups are more likely than homogeneous ones to contain a sufficiently large number of individuals with the ability to adapt to changes in the environment. A very salient counter-example of this adaptability are the Gros Michel banana, whose worldwide-clonal population fell prey to the Panama disease and had to be replaced with the current Cavendish banana, even if the former was much easier to handle and had been in exploitation for decades.

From this perspective I do not see a problem to treat actual developmental problems, like dwarfism, but not because of the low stature, but because of all the other malformations and subsequent incoveniences that it causes. But just small size within a normal developmental pattern should not be a reason for treatment especially in minors. The temptation to project on our children our psychological complexes and to try to overcome these complexes by making them the "best possible" human is very strong, but from my point of view it should be resisted. In a post some weeks ago I mentioned how the common trend in Europe and the US to fix everybody's teeth has resulted in a endless series of smiles lacking any kind of character, all perfect, all identical.

Beside the problem of limited adaptability, there is also the possibility of reversal of trends: environmental conditions normally take several generations to change, but no so with fashion, which is bound to change year over year, sometimes swerving in completely different directions. I remember that some years ago there was a very strong trend toward full-body hair removal among men (the problem). Some men did not like the fashion (they did not have a problem), some men could not afford the expensive laser treatments (had a problem, but could not fix it) and a few fortunate had the necessary disposable income to spend it on the treatment (had the problem fixed). If this fashion would have continued, the situation would have been unfair, but stable. However, after a few years the trend reverted and now the fashionable look requires a "reasonable" (but non-zero) amount of body hair. In all likelihood those who did not find the appeal of the previous trend will continue to do so, and those who could not afford the treatment are relieved, but those who did the effort of having themselves changed have found themselves lacking in spite of all their efforts to follow the fashion. That is just one more reason to avoid undertaking such a deep manipulation on a perfectly healthy body.

In view of the volatility of the trends, the loss of diversity and the amount of unknown side effects that such a treatment can have, I think that we are not ready yet to produce the "perfect human" and, while individual efforts might be commendable for the progress of science, large scale adoption should, in my opinion, not be considered at this point in history lest it costs us our own survival. What is your take? Have a nice evening.