Gattaca The film Gattaca takes place in a future where non-genetically enhanced humans are considered “invalid.” Captain America In the movies and comics, Captain America is a genetically-enhanced superhuman created to fight in America’s wars.Not only is enhancement unquestionably part of today’s cultural zeitgeist, questions about humanity’s quest to move beyond natural limits go back to our earliest myths and stories.The ancient Greeks told of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods, and Daedalus, the skilled craftsman, who made wings for himself and his son, Icarus.In the opening chapters of Genesis, the Hebrew Bible depicts a successful incident of human enhancement, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because the Serpent told them it would make them “like God.”

Of course, while Adam and Eve gained a new awareness and self-understanding, their actions also led to their expulsion from paradise and entry into a much harder world full of pain, shame and toil.