The rate of biological evolution in humans is about a bit a year, compared to 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing on the order of a hundred billion bits of information, Stephen Hawking says.

This means we are now entering a new phase of evolution — “self designed evolution” — in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA, and during the next century, discover how to “modify both intelligence and instincts like aggression.”