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Zack Lynch is author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World (St. Martin's Press, July 2009).
He is the founder and executive director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization (NIO) and co-founder of NeuroInsights. He serves on the advisory boards of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies, Science Progress, and SocialText, a social software company. Please send newsworthy items or feedback - to Zack Lynch.
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September 4, 2003

Enabling Enhancement?

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Posted by Zack Lynch

I'd like to return to an interesting point brought up by Pat Kane in To the Victor, the Paradoxes:



"What is the difference between performance-enhancing and performance-enabling drugs - the steroids that propel a runner slightly faster, the corticosteroids that stop a pro-footballers joints seizing up?"


Depending on your dictionary, the following definitions might help a bit:




  • Enhancement: To make greater, as in value, beauty, or effectiveness; augment.


  • Enablement: The act of enabling, or the state of being enabled; ability...To clarify more...


  • Enable: To supply with the means, knowledge, or opportunity; make able

How will popular conceptions of the phrases "performance enhancement" and "performance enablement" influence the way people perceive future uses of neurotechnology?


In the minds of many, performance enhancement carries feelings of artificiality, lacking of achievement, being a perversion of medicine, and even being an unnatural shortcut, while performance enablement projects images of empowerment, lifting the bottom up, and even fairness. (For an extremely informative discussion read: Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications.)


For example, will a college student who uses a cogniceutical to improve memory retention be viewed as unfairly enhancing her performance or will her use of a cogniceutical, which enables her to do the same work in a shorter period of time, be seen as an intelligent use of humanity's latest set of tools? 


Is there really a difference or is this just a question for marketing?

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