Birthright

“I suppose so.”

“Our idea, however, reflects the needs we seem to feel. What qualities, in your opinion, might a superman reasonably be expected to possess?” “First of all, an intellectual capacity far beyond our own. And,” Rojers went on, scratching his head thoughtfully, “a number of ESP qualities: telepathy, telekinesis, and the like. And, as his brain power increased, his physical performance would diminish proportionately, since he'd have less need of his body. But hell, that's basic. We all know that.” “Not quite all of us,” said Herban with a small smile. “Our aborigine would disagree ... always assuming he had the intelligence to follow your argument. Otherwise, he'd probably interrupt you in midsentence and throw you into a handy cooking pot. And the really interesting part of it is that for all his lack of intelligence and sophistication, he'd be right and you'd be wrong.” “You don't sound like you're kidding,” said Rojers dubiously, “and yet it has to be a joke.” “Oh, it's a joke, all right,” said Herban. “But it's on us. You see, Man has evolved mentally as far as he's ever going to. From a standpoint of intellect,Homo sapiens andHomo superior are one and the same. I'll qualify that in a moment, but it's essentially correct as it stands.” Rojers was staring in disbelief, making no move to interrupt with a protest, so Herban took another long puff on his cigar and continued. “What, my bright young man, is the most basic cause of natural evolution?”

“Environmental need,” said Rojers mechanically. “Correct. Which is the precise reason why we're not about to create a mental superman. Man has never used much more than thirty percent of his potential intellect; as long as the remaining seventy percent is there, waiting to be tapped, there is absolutely no cause for any evolutionary process which would increase our basic intelligence. Ditto for telepathy. Man originally had no need for it, because he had the power of speech. Then, as he became separated from his companions by distances too great for speech to carry, he made use of radio waves, video, radar, sonar, and a dozen other media for carrying his words and images. Why, then, is there any need for telepathy? There isn't. “Telekinesis? Ridiculous. We have machines that can literally destroy stars, that can move planets out of their orbits. What possible need can we have for the development of telekinesis? “Take every single trait of our hypothetical superman, and you'll find that there is absolutely no environmental need for it. Now, as I said before, I'll qualify the statement to this extent: Telepathy and even mild telekinesis can be induced under laboratory conditions, at least on occasion. But to do so we must so totally change the gene pattern and environment of the fetus and child that it is literally cut off from the world: no sensual receptors of any kind. In such cases, the brain will usually come out totally dulled or quite mad. On occasion, the insane brain will draw on some of its reserve potential and develop telepathic traits, but of course the mind is so irrational that any meaningful contact with it or training of it is quite impossible.

“On the other hand, it's not at all difficult to develop our aborigine's superman, because wecan control the physical environment and tamper with the DNA molecules. We turn them out every day in the incubators. We can create hairy supermen, giant supermen, three-eyed supermen, aquatic supermen, and