{"id":116631,"date":"2025-09-09T11:31:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=116631"},"modified":"2025-09-09T11:32:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T15:32:04","slug":"human-body-progress","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/biotech\/human-body-progress","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Olympians wouldn\u2019t qualify for today\u2019s Games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In May, former Olympian Kristian Gkolomeev swam the 50-meter freestyle in 20.89 seconds<\/a> \u2014 faster than any other person on Earth. However, swimming\u2019s governing bodies don\u2019t count it as a new world record because Gkolomeev took performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wasn\u2019t a scandalous revelation uncovered after the fact. Gkolomeev\u2019s swim took place during an event sponsored by the Enhanced Games, an organization that launched in 2024 with the goal of seeing what the human body can achieve if athletes are allowed to take full advantage of every scientific and technological aid available to them \u2014 including PEDs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials may not recognize Gkolomeev\u2019s record, but it deserves attention as emblematic of a new era in our relationship with the human body. While it was once an external symbol of our internal morality before transitioning into a natural wonder we could study and treat, it\u2019s now a platform to optimize and enhance \u2014 and there\u2019s seemingly no limit on how far we can push it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body as moral progress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the ancient world, what we knew about the human body was what we could see. A strong body was seen as a reflection of a strong moral character, and physical fitness was deemed an outward presentation of virtue. Weakness in the body, however, was taken to imply weakness of moral character. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Greeks developed the concept of gymnasia to this end, honing the physical body for battle and honor and holding Olympic contests to prove greatness and strength \u2014 the prize was a crown of wild olive leaves cut from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus, but the real reward was honor and glory. The Spartans\u2019 rigorous agoge system was a state-run program to mold physically perfect and morally disciplined citizens. Boys were encouraged to develop \u201cscarless\u201d bodies, and a warrior\u2019s physique was presented as a visible measure of his moral discipline, courage, and loyalty to the polis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Three
Wikipedia \/ Shakko (Sofia Bagdasarova)<\/figcaption>
A cast of the Doryphoros, an Ancient Greek sculpture depicting a idealized body\n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Military strength secured nations and conquered territories, and battle was fought physically on the field. A visceral presentation of strength required physically adept warriors, and warrior kings like Alexander the Great were depicted as ideal physical specimens. Plutarch described him as \u201cof a strong and active body.\u201d Ancient biographer Arrian proclaimed that \u201cAlexander was strong in body, a lover of toil, very brave, and with a mind as enduring as his body.\u201d Biographer Curtius Rufus, meanwhile, said, \u201cHe was conspicuous in his appearance; his body, though not tall, was so well-formed that it won admiration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inverse was also true. The Greeks ostracized the infirm, and Spartan children who could not live up to their training were shamed or cast aside. One Athenian statesman, Alcibiades, indulged so much in luxury that he was seen as soft, lacking in discipline and moral fiber. Another, Demosthenes, was mocked for his frail constitution and weak voice. To counter this, he famously trained his body and speech, running up hills while reciting verses with pebbles in his mouth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body as scientific progress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our perspective on the body shifted during the Renaissance, when anatomists like Andreas Vesalius performed the first dissections of the human body, allowing us to finally make accurate maps of the various organs in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As dissections became more popular, people gathered in public to peer inside the human body. Leonardo da Vinci participated in more than 30 dissections, commenting that \u201cthe human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.\u201d When William Harvey proved in 1628 that blood circulation worked like a pump-and-pipe system, Descartes, in his \u201cTreatise on Man,\u201d said, \u201cI suppose the body to be nothing else but a statue or machine \u2026 composed of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human body became something to be studied, like plants and animals. When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in 1859, it was a massive shift for humanity. The human body was no longer a physical reflection of our inner virtue, but the result of survival of the fittest \u2014 our bodies were engineered by millions of years of natural selection.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Wellcome Library, London<\/figcaption>
A woodcut depicting an anatomical dissection of a human cadaver by Andreas Vesalius\n<\/div><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This came with a dark side. Inspired by Darwin\u2019s theory, the eugenics movement sought to engineer evolution and \u201cperfect\u201d the human race. After a 1,500-year absence, the Olympics were revived in 1896, and it wasn\u2019t long before the Games were used as propaganda. The 1936 Olympic Games were held in Nazi Germany and intended as a demonstration of Aryan supremacy on the world stage. It didn\u2019t work \u2014 African American sprinter Jesse Owens stole the spotlight, winning four gold medals and undermining racial ideology on the world stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As our understanding of the body progressed, so, too, did our health and well-being. We developed anesthesia and antisepsis, antibiotics and vaccines. We discovered germ theory and invented the X-ray. We cured polio and created synthetic insulin. Prior to the 1900s, global life expectancy was less than 40 years, but advances in the 1900s saw it skyrocket<\/a> to the 60s, 70s, and 80s. If the ancient warrior\u2019s chiseled body was a reflection of their personal morality, the body of a 20th-century senior citizen was a symbol of their society\u2019s scientific progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body as technological progress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

By the 1950s, we reached a new shift. The first successful kidney transplant happened in 1954, with the pacemaker coming in 1958. Bionic limbs were next. Prosthetics became so advanced that, in 2012, sprinter Oscar Pistorius competed in the Summer Olympics despite having both of his legs amputated below the knee as a child. His carbon-fiber prosthetic legs were not just a one-to-one replacement for natural limbs, but seen by some as giving him an unfair advantage over other competitors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Countless other technologies have allowed athletes to make incremental improvements to their performance. In 2008, Speedo introduced the LZR Racer, a high-tech polyurethane and neoprene swimsuit that compressed the body, reduced drag, and trapped air for added buoyancy. These \u201csupersuits\u201d gave swimmers such a large performance boost that, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 25 new world records were set. The next year, at the World Aquatics Championships in Rome, swimmers smashed 43 world records in one meet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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