Into the Mystic: The Possibility of Human Extinction

Type :

Presentation

Pages :

11 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

06/23/2008

Category :

Political science

Sub category :

Social sciences

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Summary :

Humble Beginnings.
Prerequisites.
1. Evolution.
2. Speciation.
3. Diversity.
4. Extinction.
Ancestry.
Signs of Aggression.
1. A Series of Unfortunate Events.
2. Dominance.
3. Superiority.
4. Serendipity.
The Brink of Extinction.
1. Cause and Effect .
2. Mass Extinction: The Big Five.
3. Existential Risks.
4. Scenarios.
5. Popular Culture.
A Matter of Opinion and the Importance of Being Earnest.
The Sixth Extinction.
1. Energy and Resource.

Abstract

Evolution: In order to understand the next twelve pages of this paper, it is necessary to review the basics of biological evolution and its constituents. Evolution is much more than just change over time. For example, a caterpillar changes into a butterfly and the Earth's tectonic plates move, but they are not considered biological evolution because they do not involve inheritance. "Biological evolution...is descent with modification" (Caldwell). That is to say, it involves genetic change that affects organisms down to the amino acids of DNA. There are two types of evolution: small-scale and large-scale. The former consists of certain genes in a population and its frequency while the latter encompasses the theory of common descent in which a variety of species is said to have the same, common ancestor. For example, a child who inherits blue eyes from his or her mother and blond hair from his or her father falls under the category small-scale evolution because it is within a species that the changes in genetics occur. However, if a variety of species including moths, centipedes, and spiders is found to have a lineage tracing back to the first arthropod, this is referred to as large-scale evolution (Caldwell). "Evolutionary change is driven by one thing and one thing only: the failure of a specific population to pass its genetic code down to the next generation" (Feldman). Evolution is a continuous succession of these changes and can only be mapped after something has evolved. Professor David DeGusta of paleoanthropology at Stanford University claims, "As long as organisms pass on some of their characteristics through some kind of heredity there is going to be evolution. And unless survival and reproduction are random, there will be a 'direction' to that evolutionary change". What accounts for this direction is the different species that branch to and from a continuous succession of lineages. The root of all biological evolution finds its origins in speciation.