I have to admit that when John Perry first suggested that we doa showon the emerging field of neurcosmetology, I was a little hesitant. I had never even heard of the subject until John brought it up. As John mentions, if you Google neurocosmetology all that comes up are links to our own web page announcing the topic. And to top it off, google asks if you don't really mean"neurocosmology." Heaven knows what that one means! But if Google is a reliable indicator, "neurocosmology" currently has a lot more currency than 'neurocosmetology.' In fairness, though, I should note that if you Google "cosmetic neurology" you'll get quite a lot of hits. There's clearly lots happening out there on this score. There's so much happening, in fact, that even the President's Council on Bioethics has seen fit to weigh in with a massive report entitled "Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Here's a quote from the Letter of Transmittal to the President -- that would be that great thinker George W. Bush -- that accompanies that report.

从乐观的角度来看，正在出现的局面是一种彻底的进步和改善。它设想了一个社会，在这个社会中，越来越多的人能够实现人人享有自由、繁荣和公正的美国梦。这是一个公民比以往任何时候都更长寿、更有能力、更有成就、更多产、更幸福的国家。在这个世界里，无论如何，更多的人——在性能提升剂的帮助下，从自然和财富的束缚中解放出来——可以过着成就、满足和高度自尊的生活。

但我们有理由怀疑，如果我们求助于生物技术来满足人类最深层的欲望，生活是否真的会更好。有句老话:对一个拿着锤子的人来说，一切东西看起来都像钉子。对于一个用生物技术武装起来的社会来说，人类生活的活动可能看起来比实际上更易于改进。或者我们可能会想象自己比实际更聪明。或者我们可能更容易得到我们想要的东西，但却意识到它比我们真正想要的要少得多。

Throughout the report -- which I haven't yet read in its entirety and won't by airtime -- one finds a constant back and forth between an optimistic assessment and cautionary notes. I think both the optimism and the caution seem reasonable enough. But in this pre-show post, I want to begin by questioning what seems implicit in the cautionary notes of this report -- what we might call the 'wisdom' of nature argument against investing too much hope or energy into the drive for biological enhancement.

论证大致是这样的——尽管我还没有在任何地方看到它的详细概述。人类是进化而来的自然生物，经过千百万年的自然选择而形成。经过长期的试错过程，自然选择为我们提供了一套惊人的适应能力。我们集体缺乏智慧来修补进化的微调，以服务于我们的集体利益和促进正义。更好的办法是尊重地接受进化所提供给我们的自然。我们应该对自然有一种敬畏，而不是试图改变它。这样说并不是说我们不能战胜疾病。这些都是那种性质的不完美。这并不是说我们不应该试图改善外部环境，如贫穷、营养不良等，它们阻止我们充分认识我们的本性。但是，试图改善自然本身所承担的责任超出了我们所有人的准备范围。

如果你是一个更有神论的倾向，简单地把谈论进化论换成谈论神赋予的自然，你可以运行一个类似的论点。

Now natural selection is a really cool thing. No doubt, human "nature" is one of its most amazing products. I don't doubt, either, that if we are to tinker with human nature, we should do so gingerly, with a sense of awe and wonder at natural selection's amazing powers of design.

Nonetheless, I find myself entirely unmoved by appeals to the "wisdom" of nature. What reallyis自然,毕竟?我们谈论自然世界，自然秩序，自然物体，自然过程，自然规律，等等。但这些都是非常不同的仔细考虑它们的差异是很重要的。

也许我们所说的自然最基本的方面是自然的基本法则。在某种意义上，我们可以说自然规律“支配”自然界的一切。如果真有自然法则这样的东西“支配”着“自然”宇宙的运行——我想，“自然”宇宙包括了宇宙中的一切——那么就没有什么能违反这些法则。大自然的法则像绝对的君主一样统治着宇宙，在大自然的管辖范围内行使着绝对的统治。

(I'm not sure that I accept this approach to natural law, by the way. One thing it assumes is that even in an "empty universe" that contained no "facts" there could still be determinate "laws" "governing" that universe. I'm not sure this makes sense, but that's a deep issue better left for another day and another post.)

Back to the idea of absolute, inviolable laws of nature. If there are such things, then nothing we do can possibly violate those laws. We can exploit them in creating technological and social innovations. But we can't violate them -- ever. So if the "wisdom" of nature resides in, say, the beauty, power, simplicity and elegance of nature's fundamental laws, then biotechnology and human intervention into certain law-governed processes doesn't violate the wisdom of nature. They reallyexploit大自然的智慧。事实上，大自然的智慧就在那里等着人们去开发。你可能会认为人类真正的奇迹在于我们比其他任何自然产物都更善于利用自然本身。

The defender of the wisdom of nature will probably insist that I've missed the point. It isn't thelawsthemselves, or at least notonlythe laws, that manifest the wisdom of nature. Rather, it's something like the combination of natural laws, natural objects, and natural processes that manifest the wisdom of nature. This is a little tricky, however. If you mean by a natural process one that is governed by the laws of nature, then because of the monarchical character of those laws, every process is a natural one. And if you mean by natural objects, objects produced by processes governed by the laws of nature, then every object is a natural object.

当然，我仍然没有抓住重点，自然智慧的捍卫者无疑会说。但那是因为辩护人到目前为止还没有把她的观点讲清楚。她真正想说的并不是“自然”本身的智慧。术语“nautre”有太多不同的用途，在这里没有多大用处。她真正想说的是我们所谓的“给予”的智慧。给定是我们在这个世界上发现的，在我们做任何事情之前。给定的与制造的、发明的形成对比。所构造的。我们被赋予了一系列的生理能力，而这些能力并不是我们所能做到的。有一个系统，一个事物的秩序，我们只是发现或遇到。 At least there was once upon a time. By this stage in human history, hardly anything on the planet earth is present to us merely as it was antecedently given to our progenitors. We have left our fingerprints everywhere, mixed our labor with everything, invented new processes that exploit nature's laws, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill, in a breathtaking variety of ways that might sometimes make the Architect of Nature proud and sometimes make that Architect angry.

是否有这样一种天赋的智慧，我们只应该虔诚地向它低头，而不应该对它修修补补，至少在某些限度内是这样的?我认为，这一定是自然智慧型论证背后的真正问题。

But now that I've finally isolated the question, I'll have to punt on answering it, at least for the nonce. Maybe we'll get to it on the air in about three hours from now. If we don't, I promise to come back to it in my post -show post, after I have been illuminated by John Perry and Sam Barondes.

For now, I gotta go, as Ian Shoales likes to say.