Michael Ragland  wrote or quoted:

> Isn't it fair to expect widespread genetic engineering of people over a 
> gradual period of time (certainly not millions of years) could lead to 
> a speciation event?

Species boundaries will become less distinct in the future.

As it becomes increasingly possible to steal "subroutines" from one 
organism and transfer them to another one, this will happen increasingly.

In other words, species boundaries will become increasingly weaker
barriers to gene transfer.

The genomes of living systems will become more modular in the process.

Even with cloned human strains (instant new species!), specialised humans 
are most likely to arise via the use of additional synthetic chromosomes.  
They are likely to share their basic genome - and differ only in an 
identifyable subset of their genes.  Failure to remain attached to
the human gene pool will normally not make much sense, since - among
other things - that cuts you off from a big source of disease
resistance genes - and puts you in much more direct competition with
everyone else in the world.

IMO, it would take a *major* geographic division to stop human gene 
sharing.

Migration to another star system /might/ be enough - but probably not
not even that would put a stop to human gene trade.

So: I see species doing more merging, and not doing so much dividing.

If today, McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Sony are analogous to species,
then the future situation will be like if a big multinational took
over these companies behind the scenes and got them to work together
cooperatively.
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