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Biology Nobelist: Natural selection will destroy us



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Veganwolf.com
The New Scientist February 28, 2011

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928015.400-biology
-nobelist-natural-selection-will-destroy-us.html

 

Biology Nobelist: Natural selection will destroy us

 

By Clint Witchalls

 

We have evolved traits that will lead to humanity's extinction, says

Christian de Duve - so we must learn to overcome them

 

We are the most successful species on the planet, but you think we

will ultimately pay the price for this success. Why?

 

The cost of our success is the exhaustion of natural resources,

leading to energy crises, climate change, pollution and the

destruction of our habitat. If you exhaust natural resources there

will be nothing left for your children. If we continue in the same

direction, humankind is headed for some frightful ordeals, if not

extinction.

 

 

You think that natural selection has worked against us. How?

 

 

Because it has no foresight. Natural selection has resulted in traits

such as group selfishness being coded in our genes. These were useful

to our ancestors under the conditions in which they lived, but have

become noxious to us today. What would help us preserve our natural

resources are genetic traits that let us sacrifice the present for

the sake of the future. You need wisdom to sacrifice something that

is immediately useful or advantageous for the sake of something that

will be important in the future. Natural selection doesn't do that;

it looks only at what is happening today. It doesn't care about your

grandchildren or grandchildren's grandchildren.

 

 

You call this short-sightedness "original sin". Why did you pick this

terminology?

 

 

I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent

selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and

invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It's an image. I

am not acting as an exegete - I don't interpret scripture.

 

 

How can humanity overcome this "original sin"?

 

 

We must act against natural selection and actively oppose some of our

key genetic traits.

 

 

One solution you propose is population control, but isn't this

ethically dubious?

 

 

It is a simple matter of figures. If you want this planet to continue

being habitable for everyone that lives here, you have to limit the

number of inhabitants. Hunters do it by killing off the old or sick

animals in a herd, but I don't think that's a very ethical way of

limiting the population. So what remains? Birth control. We have

access to practical, ethical and scientifically established methods

of birth control. So I think that is the most ethical way to reduce

our population.

 

 

You also advocate giving more power to women. Why?

 

 

Speaking as a biologist, I think women are less aggressive than men,

and they play a larger role in the early education of the young and

helping them overcome their genetic heirloom.

 

 

Are you optimistic about humankind's future?

 

I'm cautiously optimistic - very cautiously. I try to be optimistic

because I prefer to give a message of hope to young people, to say:

you can do something about it. But in the present, there is not much

evidence that this is happening.

 

 

Profile

 

Christian de Duve is professor emeritus at the Catholic University of

Louvain (UCL), Belgium and Rockefeller University, New York. In 1974

he co-won a Nobel prize for his work on cellular structure. His

latest book, Genetics of original sin, is published by Yale

University Press

 

 

 

 







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