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What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.
For many technological debacles, Rees places much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the scientists who participate in perfecting environmental destruction, biological menaces, and ever-more powerful weapons. So is there any hope for humanity? Rees is vaguely optimistic on this point, offering solutions that would require a level of worldwide cooperation humans have yet to exhibit. If the daily news isn't enough to make you want to crawl under a rock, this book will do the trick. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BROUGHT US THE BOMB, and the nuclear threat will never leave us; the short-term threat from terrorism is high on the public and political agenda; inequalities in wealth and welfare get ever wider. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A critical next fraction of a second,
By
This review is from: Our Final Hour (Hardcover)
If we compress our solar system's entire lifecycle in a single year, the 20th century would present only a third of a second. In Martin Rees' more or less pessimistic outlook the next fraction of a second is crucial for the future of mankind.With worst case scenarios he warns for threats without enemies (cosmological catastrophes) as well as for man-made threats (environmental degradation, nuclear weapons, bio-terror, robotics or nanotechnology). He concedes that the technological future in our century is brilliant, where some mind-boggling artefacts like implants of computers in the human brain or the achievement of immortality should not be plainly dismissed. But there are darker sides at our scientific progress, making Huxley's 'Brave New World' a distinct possibility via designer drugs and genetic interventions. This book deals also with demography, cosmological travel and space emigration, the future growth of the human (or new) twig(s) and (for the author a key challenge) the search for alien life. Martin Rees did a tour-de-force by selecting and combining concisely vastly different fields in a small and easy understandable book. With excellent notes, this work, like all his other books, is a must read for all those interested in the fate of mankind. Carl Djerassi's autobiography 'The Pill, Pygmy Chimps and Degas' gives a lively picture of the political infightings in the organization of the here mentioned Pugwash conferences.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Important, but less focused than the title implies,
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This review is from: Our Final Hour (Hardcover)
"The theme of this book," Martin Rees writes, "is that humanity is more at risk than at any earlier phase in its history." Natural risks such as colliding with an asteroid have not changed; they are the baseline. What is new is the power that science has given small numbers of people - possibly as few as one - to endanger the entire species. Our destiny depends increasingly on choices that we make ourselves. These are important themes that should have been developed in more detail. Unfortunately, some of this relatively short book is taken up with futurist padding separated from the main point.Rees begins with familiar threats from nuclear and biological weapons, noting Fred Ikle's view that only an oppressive police state could assure total government control over novel tools of mass destruction. Rees then turns to the implications of genetic engineering, including the creation of new forms of life that could feed off other materials in our environment. Thanks to genetic engineering, the nature of humans could begin to change within this century; human character and physique will soon be malleable. The potential threats may remind some readers of Frank Herbert's novel The White Plague, in which a lone scientist creates a spectacular method of revenge. Rees is most effective when he describes the potential implications of scientific experiments, particularly in particle physics. He notes that some experiments are designed to generate conditions more extreme than ever occur naturally. Here readers will learn about the possible human creation of black holes and strangelets. Errors and unpredictable outcomes are a growing cause for worry; calculations of risk are based on probability rather than certainty. Rees tells us that one person's act of irrationality, or even one person's error, could do us all in. That should motivate a circumspect attitude toward technical innovations that pose even a small threat of catastrophic failure, though putting effective brakes on a field of research would require international consensus. Rees speculates that the abandonment of privacy may be the minimal price for maintaining security. Rees is particularly critical of American attitudes toward science and technology. Commenting that there are some who have a tenuous hold on rationality, he states that "their numbers may grow in the US." Later in the book, he writes that in the US "bizarre beliefs seem almost part of the mainstream." The United States is hardly the only source of irrational people. Rees then turns to more conventional futurism, discussing the search for extraterrestrial life and human expansion into the solar system. He implicitly advocates that humans should establish colonies beyond the Earth to assure that the species will survive a disaster on its home planet.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Just A Catalog of News Events,
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This review is from: Our Final Hour (Hardcover)
Most of the book is simply a short summary of news events of the past few years, with a few 'shock and awe' highly unlikely events thrown in to amaze the reader. Rees argues that humanities days are numbered, but a good third of the book is dedicated to discussions of alien life, mankind's travel to the stars, and the future of science - all these activities with time spans much greater than the next 50-100 years that he predicts our 50% probability lies. Save your money- and simply listen to the news.
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