"Future Perfect" draws on a colloquium held at St. Deniol's library in Hawarden, Wales, in June 2005, and focuses attention on the current possibilities inherent in medical science and the challenges that this raises for an understanding of human identity. The essays included offer philosophical and scientific debates as to how far there can be any claim for the existence of human nature as such. Do the biotechnological interventions that now appear on the horizon of medical science undermine any understanding of what it means to be human in what some philosophers have entitled a post-human future? On the other hand, are such interventions an inevitable aspect of human creativity; one might even say the essence of being human? Examples of possible interventions have come from the field of neuroscience as well as genetics and cosmetic surgery. A more holistic approach to the range of real possibilities in medical practice is aimed to prevent spurious speculation about the future that have tended to dominate public debates about genetics.;The book brings together an international body of medical experts alongside philosophers, sociologists, theologians and ethicists in order to discuss these vital issues. The ensuing discussion will allow public debate to be more informed about the actual possibilities inherent in medical science, alongside a sophisticated treatment of ethical and theological issues. The result is a focused collection of essays that raises new and challenging questions.