Our evolution

So, initially I had grown up in a rather disheartening area of the world, and area of the society within that world. At first my reaction was to hate and then to become a deviant of the society I was in. Eventually i was introduced to the sciences. An explanation of the world using empirical evidence and scientific method. Reasons for why people do things, reasons for the existence of life, how life came to be, as well as the concepts of astrophysics.

Although fairly interested in all of the above, more than anything I was attracted to the thought of Genetic manipulation. Initially because of a childhood fancy, a creation of Angels. Humans with wings to bring peace and heal the pain. This was a goal I had set for myself at a young age. I began research, not terribly thorough, but going in the general direction of education which would introduce me into mainstream medical doctoring, genomics, and biological engineering. My dream of angels had taken a backseat, a kind of joke I tell people when they care to inquire about my future aspirations. But that had changed. Drastically. Because I had changed. I began to think of other ways in which we, as humans, could use genetic engineering, not in my fanciful way of creating something 'new' out of an old idea, but rather advancing our evolution through our own hands. Grabbing our fate, as it were, and tying the ropes to the universe in ways that we see fit. With this in mind, backed by a childhood full of not-so-uncommon trauma, I began working towards my medical doctorate. Taking the social sciences as extra credits for my bachelors and generally getting things done. I can't say I'm a good student, I get above average marks, but it's something I'm working on.
What I have come to ask, with all of this basic overview of (my)life, is whether it's possible for us to grasp this dream of mine.
Originally, I simply thought, "Oh yes, it shouldn't be hard, I'm extremely intelligent, and I'll meet others who are like minded and we can help each other to this goal of controlled evolution" ..... But there's always been thoughts in the back of my mind doubting, not just my ability, but the ability of man as a whole, and, until I watched this ( A fascinatingly disturbing thought presented by Neil Tyson ) I was content with pushing everything to the back of my mind.

But now, I wonder, with these thoughts coming to the foreground having encountered empirical evidence to support them, are we really able to control something like this? Can we truly understand just what it is we are? Is it even possible for us to fully comprehend our existence, when we can barely make an objective and stable theory about reality? Is the foolish dream I had as a child simply that? Something to fancy but never to achieve? Or is it something, as I have gotten my mindset into, that I can only try and fail, in order to find out the truth of the matter?

The "one percent difference" Neil Tyson refers to is an extremely accurate representation of what this randomization and possibility for advancement in both the physical and mental realms can be limited to. So, do you believe we can overcome it? Or are we truly just another animal?

----Also, I'm aware of the philosophical stances that "what makes us human is the ability to try and overcome our problems" and I'd prefer we have a more diverse conversation that that.

We are just another animal. The difference is that our evolutionary niche was intelligence. As Stephen Hawking said, "We are standing on the shoulders of giants." I think that answers your question, but you might not know what that means, so I'll expound.

For a long time, thousands upon thousands of years, humans were pretty simplistic. We lived in travelling nomadic tribes. We had hunter gatherer societies, and we just tried to survive. Soon we learned how to irrigate. This allowed us to stay in one spot. People then began to form civilization. In civilization, you are your own goods. You produce something that the society needs in order to progress further. This can be your ability to offer sex, or social value, deeper understanding of the world, something to trade, be able to work a field, anything useful would allow you into civilization.

Science grew slowly for awhile, because we were working with languages that were written down, so we began to use the research and thoughts of previous peoples to help us understand a bit further than they did. After many many many more years, we began to be able to record FAAAAR more information in FAAAAR more compact ways. Be it by simplifying language, simplifying knowledge using math, or, in more recent times, being able to store a vast amount of data on disks. None of us start from the ground up when it comes to knowledge. We use the knowledge gained after thousands of years of introspection and investigation.

As such...we will continue to compound our knowledge exponentially, because everything we can learn will continue.

Plus, something Neil DeGrasse Tyson says kind of concerns me. He says to imagine a species whose DNA is 1% different from ours in the direction that ours is from Chimps.

...the thing about that is that evolution doesn't...have...a direction. So to imagine such a species seems...odd to me. It seems presumptuous. His worry about this other species' level of knowledge is...just...hypothetical. That's all it is.

I don't believe he meant it literally, only simplifying what he is stating for the audience. The common man would not understand large aspects of evolution. If you derive out of context that he's not saying knowledge is a given from evolution but comprehension and processing is. That the level of capabilities inherited from simply 1% difference creates such a drastic difference between us, who can build off knowledge, and chimps, who at most can learn a sub language. That a species that differs from another 1% difference from us, could have capabilities far greater than what we our capable of doing. May have comprehensible capabilities, at youth, greater than hawking, and by extension has more knowledge. He's not saying that it's a given, but that its a possibility, and that possibility is brought up when he looks at the contrast between us and chimps. That he envies the generation who will confirm the validity of this hypothesis, since he can only ever speculate.

Opps. Forgot to respond to the op.
Through what Niel Degrasse Tyson stated, I dont believe he is saying that we are limited to what we are, but that we are simply slower. That its not impossible to catch up, and that they may just be able to see things in a manner that we are unable to.

If we take history as an example, we once saw it logical to define the world as flat, anything otherwise was incomprehensible. We've come a long way from believing the moon was a light source. Simply because we do not understand what we don't at this time does not mean we never will. Neil did not intend to give rise to the idea that we have limits, but that its possible there's better. If anything this should give rise to the idea of artificially creating that "better". That a 1% deference can exist and create such a drastic (to us) difference, should be motivation to try making another %. We, at our current stage, our capable of creating micro universes. I'm fairly certain we can make artificial evolution at some point in our given future.

Though it is possible that most of what you do will never bear fruit in your life time, take for instance Einstein. But that should never be motivation to give up, but more motivation to try as hard as you can so that you can see it as soon as possible. I personally would have loved to be able to be part of the research team that does this, though id also like to pursue astrophysics, nanobots, electronic brains (GitS type scenario), full VR, microbiology, ect.