S1 E8 | What Does It Mean to Be Human?

Over the course of this season, we’ve explored the science of changing our genetics, asking which characteristics we ought to change, and why. Who gets to decide? Left to our own devices, do we really understand what’s important about ourselves? If we use genetic editing to “improve” ourselves or our children, will it have the impact we think it will?

Guests appearing in the episode:


Shannon Evans

Shannon Evans is the author of Embracing Weakness: The Unlikely Secret to Changing the World, and writes the Everyday Ignatian column for Jesuits.org. Her passion is opening up deeper waters of contemplation so that our experience of the Divine grows further loving and curious rather than static and complacent. Shannon, her husband Eric, and their five children make their home in central Iowa. You can find Shannon at www.shannonkevans.com.

Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, PhD

Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., is a Dominican priest and a professor at Providence College, RI. His areas of expertise are the biology of cancer, aging, and programmed cell death, health care ethics and bioethics in the Catholic tradition, and philosophical and theological implications of modern evolutionary theory.

Special Thanks:

Lauren Klingman, Mackenzie Kim

“All Will Be Well” original track by Jessica Gerhardt

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