Humanity will change. Or be replaced. Or go extinct. An exploration of the many potential posthuman offspring of humankind, from the biological to the artificial.
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C. M. Kosemen YouTube: / cmkosemen.
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What do you imagine when I say the future of human evolution?
Charles Darwin and his followers postulated that random accidental mutations of small effect plus natural selection over long periods would provide sufficient hereditary variation to explain biological diversity. Research since the middle of the twentieth century has unexpectedly shown that living organisms possess many different means of altering their genomes biologically, and these processes have been validated by DNA sequence analysis. In addition, the biological process of interspecific hybridization has become recognized as a major source of rapid speciation and genome amplification. Thus, it is time to shift our basic concept of evolutionary variation from the traditional model of slow change from non-biological sources to a fully biological model of rapid genome reorganization stimulated by challenges to reproduction.
Introduction
In Western society prior to the Enlightenment, there was little disagreement about the origins of biological diversity: it resulted from divine creation of an unchanging panorama of plant and animal species, as explained in Genesis. No thought was given to the idea that living organisms could change their fundamental natures. Even a scientist dedicated to analyzing the nature and classification of life forms, Carl Linnaeus (1707−1778), and one who documented the extinction of fossil organisms, Georges Cuvier (1769−1832), both believed in the fixity of species.
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The Future of Humanity Institute announced last week that they have shut down. Located at the University of Oxford in the UK prior to its demise, the institute was one of the few places worldwide studying the risk of human extinction and a few other controversial research areas. Let’s have a look at the events leading to the institute’s closure.
Continue reading “Institute for Extinction Risk Shuts Down: What We Know” »
How optimistic.
First, a little background. With 200 billion trillion (ish) stars in the universe and 13.7 billion years that have elapsed since it all began, you might be wondering where all the alien civilizations are at. This is the basic question behind the Fermi paradox, the tension between our suspicions of the potential for life in the universe (given planets found in habitable zones, etc) and the fact that we have only found one planet with an intelligent (ish) species inhabiting it.
One solution, or at least a way of thinking about the problem, is known as the Great Filter. Proposed by Robin Hanson of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, the argument goes that given the lack of observed technologically advanced alien civilizations, there must be a great barrier to the development of life or civilization that prevents them from getting to a stage where they are making big, detectable impacts on their environment that we can witness from Earth.
Continue reading “New Solution To The Fermi Paradox Suggests The Great Filter Is Nearly Upon Us” »
Millions of years ago, animals adapted to become warm-blooded amid huge climactic changes. Now scientists hope these clues from the past could help us understand what lies ahead by Tiffany Cassidy.
Discussions about asteroid 2024 GJ2 near miss with Earth on 11 Apr 24, and asteroids Apophis, Bennu, potential impacts and more!
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As the infrared space telescope continues its long-duration survey of the universe, it is creating a unique resource for future astronomers to make new discoveries.
Continue reading “NASA’s NEOWISE Unveils Hidden Universe of Near-Earth Objects” »
Artificial Intelligence is making its presence felt in thousands of different ways. It helps scientists make sense of vast troves of data; it helps detect financial fraud; it drives our cars; it feeds us music suggestions; its chatbots drive us crazy. And it’s only getting started.
Are we capable of understanding how quickly AI will continue to develop? And if the answer is no, does that constitute the Great Filter?
The Fermi Paradox is the discrepancy between the apparent high likelihood of advanced civilizations existing and the total lack of evidence that they do exist. Many solutions have been proposed for why the discrepancy exists. One of the ideas is the ‘Great Filter.’
The Koreas each launched their first spy satellites last year — North Korea in November and South Korea in December — amid heightened animosities. They said their satellites would boost their abilities to monitor each other and enhance their own missile attack capabilities.
South Korea’s second spy satellite was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday evening local time, which was Monday morning in Seoul.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it confirmed the satellite entered orbit and communicated with an overseas ground station after separation from a rocket.
