Human extinction.

[SkyBlueFlux]

People seem to take great enjoyment from prophesizing the doom of our species. The truth of it is, now that we have the level of self-awareness that we have, wiping out every last one of us is just not realistic. Meteors, nuclear war, climate change... all very devastating I'm sure but nowhere near capable of taking all of us out. The only events that could take out the whole planet (huge celestial objects bigger than the moon, the sun becoming a red giant) are all things that should give us plenty enough notice to rocket some of the species up into space, should worst comes to worst.

As Damocles said, I expect us to continue in some guise indefinitely. Now we've reached this level of intelligence it would take some terrible luck to stop us.

Still people like to imagine we'll all die in a hale of brimstone one day. People just love declaring how our species is a 'virus' and 'against nature' and how 'we will wipe ourselves out'. These are all just analogies and emotive words with little scientific value, besides, the best viruses don't get killed off by the first person they infect.

 

[tiggsywiggsywoo]

If my wife drops her guts like she did monday night again. I'd say 15 minutes max. Its like that zyclon b.

 

[Tricky Dickys Right Foot Shot]

To be fair when the sun goes supernova we will want to be a bit further away then the moon!!

Is it you who I had that supernova conversation with?

I don't think so.

 

[SWP's back]

A shift in the Earths magnetic field could be an extinction event, Scientists reckon that it could do a full tilt so the magnetic north becomes magnetic south. During this tilt which could take months even years the Earths ability to fend off solar radiation would be zero as the field could disappear completely.The radiation would be catastrophic for all life forms land based and in the oceans..Would it kill everyone?? who knows but it would be pretty grim, the power grids would be gone and we would be thrust into the dark ages. No power,communication,transport,fuel,food growth and definately no governmental rule..

Scary.

Read this.. very interesting.<a class="postlink" href="http://io9.com/395272/is-earths-magnetic-field-failing-us" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://io9.com/395272/is-earths-magneti ... failing-us</a>

Unfotunately (or fortunately) when the poles witch the magnetic field does not simply switch off.

Secondly, the poles have switched many many times before and done so without causing any extinction events in the flora and fauna of the planet.

-- Fri Sep 07, 2012 7:35 am --

It depends really.

Evolution doesn't just stop. Humans as they are now will evolve into something more suited to their natural environment, whatever that may be. If we classify all species after us that are our descendants as "humans", then we'll quite probably survive for the rest of time. We might spread ourselves out around the galaxy and have several divergent species, but as I said, these are ancestors that for the sake of this example we are calling "humans".

It is almost impossible to wipe out human life. We are far too well spread and biologically advanced to do so.

A nuclear war might wipe out a few hundred million. An asteroid might kill a few billion. But there's always some people left so the species continues. Even an out of control virus will have certain humans who are genetically resistant to it, just by the law of averages. Those will continue to survive and will pass the immunity on to their children.

People talk about the food chain, but humans will adapt to survive. It might mean that we will start eating more and more insects as our primary protein. It might mean that we start cannibalising each other. It matters not, we will survive in numbers somewhere.

Even if the worst possible climate change event happens, we will still survive somewhere. There's literally no realistic scenario that could cause a species wide extinction across the entire planet outside of the planet itself exploding and that would need another planet size object to hit it. Maybe we could poison the atmosphere but as it would be a slow event, when it started killing the elderly and the like the human species would adapt, either by changing behaviour or by invention.

I'm all for ideas here, as I can't think of a single thing that could possibly kill us all.

Our descendants will adapt to their new surroundings and rediscover the science that brought to where we are now. The future of "humanity" is definitely in space, whether that be us as a species or somebody quite like us, it is where we will end up when all said and done

Scientific Nonsense.

When the sun expands, it will swallow the solar system so we have to find another star and a planet capable of supporting life in that solar system

The nearest star is alpha centauri which is 2.4 light years away.

Do the arithmetic and overcome the laws of physics.

Evolution won't save the planet.

Evolution won't save the planet no, but it will save the species which is what this thread is about. And at no point did damocles say anything about living with OUR solar system.

And you really don't think that if our species (in whatever form) is still around in 4,000,000,000 years that we won't have been able to colonise other solar systems? Given the rate of advance in technology over the last 100 years (remember it's 100 years since we were first able to fly around 50 yards and it took less than 60 years to go from there to walking on the moon?)

You've not thought this through in the slightest have you Paul.

 

[Evo49]

If you believe the future of humankind is in space you would have to resolve the "Fermi Paradox", which states that given the scale and size of the known universe - advanced civilisations should already exist.

However we have no evidence whatsoever to believe this.

There are plenty of arguments as to why we haven't found any evidence so it'd be interesting to know peoples opinions...

 

[SWP's back]

If you believe the future of humankind is in space you would have to resolve the "Fermi Paradox", which states that given the scale and size of the known universe - advanced civilisations should already exist.

However we have no evidence whatsoever to believe this.

There are plenty of arguments as to why we haven't found any evidence so it'd be interesting to know peoples opinions...

You don't have to resolve the Fermi Paradox in the slightest to think that the future for humankind is space. And given the size and scale of the Universe then I am sure that advanced civilisations more than likely do exist. Given the fact there are hundreds billions of galaxies (in the known universe), each consisting hundreds of billions of stars, each one have the possibility of sustaining life.

I think it's arrogant to think we are the only ones that have been able to prosper.

 

[Evo49]

If you believe the future of humankind is in space you would have to resolve the "Fermi Paradox", which states that given the scale and size of the known universe - advanced civilisations should already exist.

However we have no evidence whatsoever to believe this.

There are plenty of arguments as to why we haven't found any evidence so it'd be interesting to know peoples opinions...

You don't have to resolve the Fermi Paradox in the slightest to think that the future for humankind is space. And given the size and scale of the Universe then I am sure that advanced civilisations more than likely do exist. Given the fact there are hundreds billions of galaxies (in the known universe), each consisting hundreds of billions of stars, each one have the possibility of sustaining life.

I think it's arrogant to think we are the only ones that have been able to prosper.

I'm not saying either way really - rather wondering why, assuming the universe could be full of life - and, given the timescales involved, some of it perhaps very highly advanced, that we don't have any evidence...

Could be the distances involved - or the likelihood of extinction events, or life exists but in a way we cannot recognize...anything really...

 

[markbmcfc]

This thread has the potential.

I love the scientific debates on this forum, hours of brilliant reading. Usually, Damocles sets the bar with his scientific hypothesis, only to be challenged by one brave soul, usually resulting in the former busting out graphs and all sorts, then SWP's Back wades in whenever he sees a comment that is too dumb to tolerate, it's brilliant.

Take it away chaps.

 

[Pigeonho]

This thread has the potential.

I love the scientific debates on this forum, hours of brilliant reading. Usually, Damocles sets the bar with his scientific hypothesis, only to be challenged by one brave soul, usually resulting in the former busting out graphs and all sorts, then SWP's Back wades in whenever he sees a comment that is too dumb to tolerate, it's brilliant.

Take it away chaps.

It is! I feel somewhat inadequate commenting after reading SWP's Back's input above! He made mincemeat out of 'Paul'.

What I will say though is that all the petty squabbles man-kind creates for itself, and all the striving we do to get to the top, well it can and will all be wiped out in a second. Makes it seem rather pointless in a way.

 

[Skashion]

To be fair when the sun goes supernova we will want to be a bit further away then the moon!!

Is it you who I had that supernova conversation with?

I don't think so.

The Sun won't go supernova. It's not big enough, as in enough mass.