Will the Sun set on the human race?: Can Homo sapiens survive - or is it doomed to extinction, a fate known to have overtaken up to 99 per cent of all life forms?
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Can Homo sapiens survive? The elders' deliberations at the conference, organised by Manning Clark House, a cultural and academic centre in Canberra, were about science and ethics. Can science save us from ourselves, or is it the root of the problem?
"Will the unintended products of the science and technology revolution of the past 200 years, greatly intensified during the past 60 years, lead to the extinction of the human species?" asked Australian virologist Frank Fenner in the opening address.
Fenner definitely qualifies as an elder of science. Not because he's advanced in years (though he is 90), but because he has been a true warrior of science. He is one of the world's foremost microbiologists, having carried out pioneering work on malaria, tuberculosis and myxomatosis (and being one of only three people to inject themselves with the rabbit-controlling myxoma virus to demonstrate its safety to humans).
In a stellar career, he is perhaps best known for his pivotal role in the successful campaign to eradicate smallpox from the planet. How many people can claim they were instrumental in defeating a global scourge? Indeed, such is the prestige of the man that this particular gathering of elders was held in his honour.
And is he worried? He sure is. "How did humans, in the past 100 years, multiply from some 1.7 billion to over 6 billion now and, if there are not awful disasters, will reach 9 billion within the next 50 years?" Fenner asked.
"The answer, I fear, is that the fantastic advances in science and technology in general, and medical science in particular, reinforced by religious beliefs, are responsible for the idea that the human species is unique – not only in being different in kind from all other animals, because of its acquisition of culture, but in being excluded from Darwinian natural selection. As a person whose life's work has been to advance medical science, thus driving the population explosion and the continuing increase in life expectancy, this is not a comfortable thought."
But it's more than just an issue of science increasing our population. It's also a matter of our technology allowing us to consume the planet's resources at an ever-accelerating rate, he said. Fenner went on to talk about the world's 'growth fetish' as an ideology in which economic growth must go on spiralling upward forever, heedless of what the planet can actually support. "We must radically change our behaviour," he implored.
"We must overcome the growth fetish and somehow use our current affluence to attack poverty. And we don't have much time."
The measure of human rationality
"they were either ignored … or they spoke up too late." or they were dealing with phenomena outside the current limits of their knowledge, ethics and reason. And that same process can be observed unfolding at this very moment.
Survival of the Human species
is our extinction really such a bad thing ?
we are merely the leaseholders of the Planet, and like any itinerant tenant that insists on constantly trying their hand at home improvements to the detriment of the entire building we will be duly evicted.
Once we are gone,the Earth will heal itself and another genus will be handed a new
tenancy agreement and invited to make something with the available resources, the third such tenant since the original leaseholders, the Dinosaurs, failed to make much more of it than was given them.
Homo Sapien or killer ape, which ever description you prefer, has made it this far despite himself and his baser instincts rule his heart, which are to kill and destroy, we just can't help ourselves, even our pitiful invention, the Sky Fairies, (aka religion), has in all its guises, failed to assuage us of our self destructive instincts.
Eternity beckons for our children, and yet even at the end we will pray to the sky fairies for guidance and forgiveness. "God Help us"
Time to move on....
Well i guess scifi is near Jump in our Ftl ships and pollute some other planet ....
It's an evolution our next step is it just some impossible evolution? What about already looking at the stars for new liveable planets how about some crazy projects about traveling faster then light?
Well guess what no matter what we will find a way lol trust me a chance to destroy another planet damn right .Its our instinct and im pertty sure if we see another type of species were gonna kick them out and conquer whatever is there. Yup thats us Humans .
survival of the human species.
I love this question. We humans have done what no other creature has been able to do on this planet. we have trancended evolution even though we are still a part of it. If the question is will we still look and have the same genetic makeup as today a million years from now, the answer has to be no. but barring a total cataclysmic event on the planet, humans will be around for a long time. what we need to do is ensure our survival by moving beyond our border of this blue marble and that, will definitly will ensure our survival. even if 99 percentof the population dies off that still leaves alot of people.lr vero beach florida
Human Survival...?????????????????
..."I am not sure which weapons world war III will be fought with, but world war IV, will be fought with rocks and sticks"
...Albert Einstein.
...2 more generations at most...
..."Raupauch cautioned: "We have just two more generations, at most, to fix the problem with our climate systems."...
So folks, if we are already up to gen-"Y".
Can anyone tell me what comes after "Z" ...????????
ON A COLD AUTUMNAL .......
O nosso mundo está mudando, e se os seres humanos, num futuro próximo, nao fazer nada em relação aos desmatamento, clima, efeito estufa, estaremos todos condenados num período de curto tempo... a florestas amazonas vai virar um deserto, as terras vão ficar cada vez mais estéril para a agricultura, num futuro próximo, não mais de 25 anos, o planeta terra vai ter sérias dificuldade de relacionamento com a natureza.
O homens do nosso planeta terra, não esta pensando na preservação, sim em como lucrar no desmatamento, em uso irracional da natureza, nos dias de hoje qualquer pessoas sempre comentam, o clima não esta como era a 25 anos atras. Temos que fazer algo agora, é já... para que as concequencias não chegue a todos...
boom and bust
the economic buble is good anlog to human race. Sustainable existance is a colonization of space. But that has a problem of limiting the gene pool and hence evolution. No doubt our selfish gene will kick in and we will devolve (or evolve) to dolphins and leave the planet by our own means."So long and thanks for all the fish" - ( Douglas Adams 1978).
Respect the digital watch and now ipod bla bla...
:-) Nick