Human extinction is almost certainly starting at the end of this century, says scientist


Mankind has walked the Earth for millions of years, but our time is almost up. While many believe that humanity is currently at its peak, scientists believe that mankind's top form is spiralling towards total human extinction.

What is the most likely cause of human extinction?

According to palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist Henry Gee, humans are doomed to go extinct. In an opinion piece on Scientific American, Gee argued that the current trajectory of homo sapiens is complete eradication.

Earlier reports from teams of scientists declared that the current civilisation is soon set to collapse. That report, based on a re-do of a 1973 MIT study, claimed that industrial and societal collapse is proved for the second decade of the 2000s.

In his piece,  Gee argues that humanity will not face a slow decline in population. Instead Gee believes that “the human population is set not just for shrinkage but collapse — and soon.”

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What is the most likely cause of human extinction

Gee’s article claims that humanity has reached its “extinction debt”. This means that human extinction is an inevitability due to events in our species’ past. Gee argues that increased pollution and daily stress combined with lack of genetic variation will result in eradication.

“There comes a time in the progress of any species, even ones that seem to be thriving, when extinction will be inevitable, no matter what they might do to avert it,” he wrote. “The species most at risk are those that dominate particular habitat patches at the expense of others, who tend to migrate elsewhere, and are therefore spread more thinly.”

“Humans occupy more or less the whole planet, and with our sequestration of a large wedge of the productivity of this planetwide habitat patch, we are dominant within it.”

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How can we stop human extinction?

Gee believes that there's nothing we can do to stop humanity's demise. In fact, the scientist believes that we’re already “a dead species walking”. However, there are other scientists who believe it is completely possible to stop or delay the extinction process.

For example, the aforementioned report regarding societal collapse claimed that there is a way to keep humanity going. That report claims that if mankind as a collective decides that world improvement is important, our species could thrive.

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