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Will cancer or climate change be the end to humanity?

Someday the human race as we know it will not exist.

As proven through time, history has a tendancy of repeating itself. Simply put, we haven't always existed so at some point we too will become extinct.

I recently watched an intriguing documentary about the earth, its formation and evolution through time. The science of our universe as depicted in the series 'Cosmos' is fascinating - even if regurgitated information from grade school geography and science. The show strives to bring the relevance of the past to the future and how we continue to be affected.

http://www.cosmosontv.com/

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/57608648-223/cosmos-fox-science-sunday.html.csp

It definately got me excited about science and the fact it airs on Fox and produced by Family Guy's Seth McFarlane does not make it any less credible.

After watching, I questioned life as we see it today... and how that in billions of years from now the world will be a very different place. Will trees exist? Who will walk the earth then? Will Argentina and South Africa become one? So many unknowns and theories beyond my comprehension. Mind-boggling stuff!

However, I continue to think about it... and what will cause the end of our evolutionary life? So many theories are at play here, similar to the unexplained extinction of  dinosaurs.

"As dinosaur science began to alter this hypothesis, producing a new view of dinosaurs as successful and viable organisms, many of these extinction theories became less tenable. New information from fossil localities suggested that many other organisms, most unrelated to dinosaurs, had also gone extinct at the same time. New theories were required to explain these new discoveries and newly understood facts. A favored theory was that tectonically induced climate change interfered with food chains, disrupting them enough to cause widespread extinction among many different organisms."
- Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

Are there clues from Darwin's theory of evolution, or how about Thomas Malthus' theory of population. Will there be a malthusian check that will cripple humans to the point of extinction? Could that be disease - cancer?

Or will it be a combination of climate change, war and disase or simply we become a product of being evolved for too long?

Just food for thought. It really doesn't matter in my lifetime as I will be long gone by that time. And I will never discount my religious belief that God has a plan and whatever that may be, will happen.

But it's fascinating to think about.

I just came across this article today (May 29). "World on brink of another mass extinction"
http://on.thestar.com/1o1teJ9

Before we become extinct, we will kill off plant and animal species first unless we do something now.


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