When the 2020 Nobel Prize went to the inventors of the gene editing tool CRISPR, it underlined a newfound ability to alter nature. But as biologist Beth Shapiro explains, humans have been reshaping the natural world since before the last ice age, from breeding dogs to engineering bacteria that pumps out insulin. Indeed, she argues, resetting the course of species evolution, including our own, is an essential aspect of being human. The question then, says Shapiro, is not "should we meddle with nature," but rather, "how can we meddle better?"

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