Deep Futures: Our Prospects For Survival

DEEP FUTURES DOUG COCKS DEEP FUTURES OUR PROSPECTS F O R S U R V I VA L M c G i l l - Q u e e n ’s U n ive r s i t y P re s s Montreal & Kingston • Ithaca UNSW PRESS University of New South Wales Press Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny to a very distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped shows that the greater number of species in each genus, and all the species in many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the c.ommon and widely spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups within each class, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to a secure future of great length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection … There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; … from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. CHARLES DARWIN, from the Conclusion to The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life, The Modern Library, New York, 1859, pp. 373–74 Certainly we must be able to project our contemplation ahead a short time, say a hundred million years. By that time our particular species, and all other currently extant mammalian species, will exist only as fossil records. All indications of man’s tenure on earth will have vanished from the surface. Man’s occupation of the earth’s surface leaves no permanent scars, although it certainly upsets local ecological conditions to the extreme. The conditions that will eventually prevail, after man’s inevitable extinction, will be very different in detail than they would have been without him. The scars of human occupation persist for centuries, perhaps for millennia, depending upon climate conditions and the vigour of the replacing biota. But it is probable that in most areas the passage of a few millennia will eradicate the obvious scars. In time a region will resume its suitable ecological aspect again, even though the component organisms may occur in different proportions or indeed may actually be different. The effect of man’s existence for a few million years, in the last analysis, will not be of any intrinsic consequence. AC SMITH, ‘Systematics and Appreciation of Reality’, Taxon, 1969, 18: 5–19 If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which bus you catch. ANON © Doug Cocks 2003 First published 2003 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publisher. A UNSW Press book Published in North America by McGill-Queen’s University Press www.mqup.ca and in the rest of the world by University of New South Wales Press Ltd University of New South Wales Sydney NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA www.unswpress.com.au National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Cocks, Doug, 1937Deep futures : our prospects for survival / Doug Cocks. Includes bibliographical references and index.