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Old 06-12-2010, 08:31 AM
 
3,650 posts, read 9,211,281 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by texdav View Post
The same way the diansaurs went and there is nothig we can do about it;so enjoy life.
The odds of another meteor that big are VERY small. Unless you're figuring we can last millions of years w/o exterminating ourselves, which is also IMO not exactly likely, to put it so mildly.

It'll be WW III, complete with pretty mushroom clouds from nukes. I just hope it's after I'm gone (preferably from old age but who knows).
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Old 01-08-2012, 08:08 PM
 
Location: Vancouver, B.C., Canada
11,155 posts, read 29,313,098 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
If it doesn't happen in the next 100 years, it never will. For once the human race begins space colonization in earnest, then it will become much more difficult to wipe us out. After all, an asteroid striking Earth won't do it if we have self-sustaining colonies elsewhere. It would be easy to quarantine outposts from a super bug.
well then I am onbaored lets go for it I say we go back to the moon since it is a resonable to do goal that makes the most sense to get us back out there with Mars being the goal before the end of this century.

the moon mission we can do and should do it because it is a goal I know we can reach and have reached mars is just to risky before we get good at going to going to the moon again.
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Old 01-08-2012, 08:18 PM
 
Location: Ohio
3,437 posts, read 6,073,834 times
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There will be a massive human depopulation due to some pandemic, most likely a disease like HIV or Ebola will become airborne like the common cold.
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Old 01-08-2012, 10:15 PM
 
Location: East Coast of the United States
27,560 posts, read 28,652,113 times
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Humans will evolve into another species eventually. Does that count as becoming extinct?
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Old 01-16-2012, 09:07 AM
 
50 posts, read 57,042 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrDezi View Post
Everything that has a beginning has an end. True? What will happen to the human race? How long will it live and what will cause its extinction? Explain your answer.


If you guess right, you'll get a price.
Human consciousness remains in a cycle of evolutionary development we are moving gradually towards ever higher and more complex states of Cosmic awareness.

Our cycle began in the infancy of the Stone-craft Age
(or possibly an earlier Wood-craft age - this will be conformed when the first petrified wood-worked relic is found) - when the first independent ego surfaced in an ex-hominid's consciousness

Since then consciousness has evolved though increasing complex states of social, spiritual and economic development - each of which can be measured by increasingly sophisticated measurements of Time and Space.

In the infancy of our Stone Age, Time and Space was measured relatively - day to day via the luck of the hunt
In the childhood of our Bronze Age - Time and Space was measured via seasonal planting and harvesting
In the puberty of the Iron Age, Time and Space was measured via the demands of conscientious industrial craftsmanship
In our teens of the Steel Age Time and Space was measured via telescope and microscope
In the young adulthood of the Nuclear age - Time and Space are again seen as relative

Ages of Terra-forming Mastership and transcendental Cosmic Sagehood lie ahead of us - when no more children will be born individually and our physical cycle will come to an end

In that final stage we will probably behave similar to bees
all connected by a collective state of Cosmic Consciousness
we will no longer be argumentative individuals and parasites feeding on the Mother planet
but pollinators of extreme creative genius
making honey
not money
with our Universal Consciousness connected to the Galactic Centers
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Old 01-19-2012, 05:04 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,554 posts, read 86,954,125 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
Humans will evolve into another species eventually. Does that count as becoming extinct?
One species does not evolve into another. It remains the same species, even though its characteristics may change over time, in order to become more capable of surviving in a changing or more competitive habitat.

One species may evolve in such a way that two or more isolated populations diverge as two separate species, but one of them would still carry the designation of the nominate species, like the Florida Scrub Jay.

There are only two ways a taxa can become extinct: when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions, or against superior competition.

Those conditions may change either by a single catastrophic event, or gradually at a rate faster than their capacity to adapt.

We have, of course nothing but idle guesswork to guide us on which of the causes of extinction will arise to spell our demise.

It is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct, and that ten million years is the average duration of a species extinction. Homo sapience has been around for about 2% of that lifetime, with 9.8 million years left to go, but then Homo sapiens is not an average species, having evolved the capacity to create or impede extirpating events, or anticipate and avoid them.

I would think that a pandemic of disease is the least likely scenario, because there are almost certain to be survivors who developed antibodies, escaped the sweep of contagion by isolation, or were immune in the first place.
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Old 01-24-2012, 04:23 PM
 
Location: Missouri, USA
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I bet we'll survive countless pandemics and nuclear wars, and maybe a comet or two (if cockroaches can do it, we can probably do it too. Our bodies aren't as sturdy as theirs, but we can build our own food and protection more easily). We'll make it to space before the sun becomes too hot to exist on earth, and we'll expand throughout the Milky Way before it and the Andromeda Galaxy likely collide. We'll be spread out enough to survive that. When our combined super- galaxy has moved far enough away from other galaxies that they cannot be seen through any light wavelength and our stars grow cold, we'll have had plenty of time to attain energy in other ways, perhaps manipulating matter at below the quantum level. (can't be sure. I don't know.) We may even survive through a possible universe-ending "Big Rip" where matter stretches and tears at the atomic level.

Although we will probably at some point genetically engineer ourselves to the extent that heredity is irrelevant, and that might make us view ourselves as a new species.

I'd think our biggest long term threat would be xenophibic, genocidal aliens. We may be able to adapt too quickly for everything else to be a threat to all of us.

Another long term danger could be, through genetic manipulation and the creation of artificially intelligent beings who are able to think and feel for themselves, losing distinction between living and non-living beings totally, followed by the deletion of much of our inefficient survival instincts through genetic manipulation, and deciding it's most convenient if we all cease to be, Nietze-nihilist scenario style, or perhaps a species-wide cult with a similar goal.

I bet aliens or philosophic concepts are our greatest long term threats. Nature's become a pushover.

Last edited by Clintone; 01-24-2012 at 05:04 PM..
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Old 01-24-2012, 10:04 PM
 
Location: East Coast of the United States
27,560 posts, read 28,652,113 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
One species does not evolve into another. It remains the same species, even though its characteristics may change over time, in order to become more capable of surviving in a changing or more competitive habitat.
If one species does not evolve into another, then how did our ancestors get from being single-celled organisms to what we are today?
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Old 01-25-2012, 06:39 AM
 
Location: Missouri, USA
5,671 posts, read 4,351,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
If one species does not evolve into another, then how did our ancestors get from being single-celled organisms to what we are today?
Presumably before our cells' ancestors became multi-celled organisms, our cells' single-celled ancestors split. One group stayed the same. The other changed. The group of cells which stayed the same never became our ancestors though. They either went extinct, stayed the same species, or multiplied into more cells which in turn were different from them, but they themselves never changed into another species.

Basically, our descendants evolve, and our ancestors had evolved. We do not...though we can do things like build antibodies to become more resistant to diseases during life/become better at math through practice/get calloused feet/grow larger muscles, etc. The genes we were born with enable us to do all of this though. The currently living are pretty much stuck the way they were built, as far a remaining the same species is concerned.

Does anyone more knowledgeble about such things view the above as basically correct? (I'm an English major.)

Although some species, including humans, are thought to have possibly evolved due to viruses or other microbes inserting their own genes into the other species. I'm not not sure about the specifics of how that works though.

Last edited by Clintone; 01-25-2012 at 07:12 AM..
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Old 01-26-2012, 12:38 PM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,766 posts, read 29,048,781 times
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somebody will eventually press down on the flush handle
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