Posted on 08/09/2010 8:53:02 AM PDT by Scythian
It's time to abandon Earth, warned the world's most famous theoretical physicist.
In an interview with website Big Think, Stephen Hawking warned that the long-term future of the planet is in outer space.
"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," he said.
"I see great dangers for the human race," Hawking said. "There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go. The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
And they could describe an asteroid strike. You always have to consider the audience when interpreting the Bible. How would you describe the computer in front of you to one of the apostles? It’s something they don’t have the words or concepts for at the most basic level. You’d run into the same kind of problem with astrological events, the word “asteroid” didn’t come into being until the late 18th century, which makes it a pretty tough thing to describe to 1st century person. Fire from heaven melting everything would cut it.
I was thinking the opposite: I'd help the liberals abandon earth. Send them all off to the moon!!!! Leave me behind!
Isn't Alice already up there?
Maybe, maybe not. We don’t even know when it’s going to happen. Maybe the events of Revelation are scheduled AFTER the next ice age.
“The people that God was giving those words to didn’t really have much of a handle on the physical universe outside of earth...
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The Bible says that Paul and John were directly given that ‘handle.’
“...so discussing non-earthly things to them directly would be pointless.”
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Wow! The Bible discusses nonearthly things in great depth and fair detail, as explained by him who spoke it all into existance. Beats Sci-Fi all to HELL.
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“For one thing they didn’t have the language to write it down, it’s hard to describe an asteroid strike to a people that are still 1700 years away from even having a word for it.”
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John, writing in Revelation, gives an excellent description of mass asteroid strikes, and the people’s reaction thereto.
You should try reading it; its all there.
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"No one is blinder than he who will not see" -- John 9:40-41
only the meek shall inherit the Earth...
It would be in our best interest to find a 2nd place to settle. Asteroids enough are a big enough threat. If the sun goes really goofy, that could cause problems. Those could happen any day.
Over the next 10’s of thousands of years we might be facing nasty ice ages and so on. Again, we could survive those but it would still be nice to have a backup. If (big if) we keep advancing at close to our current rate it should be fairly trivial after 500 years to at least have long term space stations somewhere in our sun’s orbit. After 1000-5000 we should be able to find other worlds to move to outside. The Kepler mission is showing that Earth sized planets are within the goldilocks zone in surprising numbers. Those should be able to be terraformed, at least some of them.
I wouldn’t panic of course, but in general he’s 100% correct for a variety of real reasons.
Humans could survive beyond many animals because - if there was an event that devastated plant life - herbivores would have no alternate food source. Humans could still eat many of the animals before they died off, thus extending their lifespan. Additionally, humans could rely on canned/stored food which would be unavailable to the animals. Finally, assuming the sea initially still had fish in it, humans could eat that while land-based animals would not have access to that food source.
Years passed in that movie before the father found himself on The Road. The mother had time to give birth and the boy had time to grow up a bit. The planet was slowly dying and food obviously became increasingly scarce. It would seem to me that many, many cold winters decimated the fauna over successive years. Resourceful humans kept going as long as possible, though, until some finally resorted to cannibalism.
But the movie was very disturbing. I still think about it - the possibility of it. Is this what the world would look like after a super-volcano blew (Yellowstone Caldera?), or after a major meteorite hit, or in a nuclear winter?
I suppose some survivors might find a way somewhere, but they’d be extremely isolated pockets. That one group who had some way to generate enough power for heat and possibly an indoor greenhouse might survive. But their resources would be limited enough that the earth would need to start to recover before they could grow beyond a small population.
Scary stuff.
You’re being very clever in your deliberate misreading of what I wrote.
I guess he did not get the NASA no more memo!
The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitisers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow and "led full, rich and happy lives until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone".
I think I would designate the B Ark for Congress. I think the risk of virulent disease in the world would actually decrease.
Edwin Krupp, the director of Griffith Observatory for the last 36 years once noted that after he gave a talk about the Sun and the future of the solar system, a woman approached him and said “pardon me Dr. Krupp, but did you say that the Sun would become a red giant and destroy the Earth in 4 million years?” Dr Krupp replied that “no, the Sun would become a red giant in 4 billion years.” To which the woman replied, “THANK GOD, I thought you said 4 MILLION years.”
I’ve always found that to be quite humorous.
For the scientifically inclined out there, the Sun will toast the Earch MUCH sooner than 4 billion years, long before it becomes a red giant. But for the general public, Krupp was just making a point about the red giant phase of a star.
“You’re being very clever in your deliberate misreading of what I wrote.
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Not trying to; can you expand?
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>>Hawking is right. We need to spread beyond the Earth if for no other reason than to have a backup population to rebuild after the inevitable cosmic collision or global disaster.<<
I don’t really care if people’s bodies live on.
Personally, it doesn’t matter to me at all if the human race dies out. We did what we were supposed to do and if God takes us, oh well.
And I’m sure not looking to pay bucks for it.
The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. ..................................................... I think we’ll have enough time to get things in order before then. Man will do more destruction to himself before that time comes. As the earth’s population grows the chance of destruction increases without the help of God. The ancients probably had it right, but I see a large asteroid smacking into us, not an angry god.
Luddites are the ones who are unproductive. They ignore and ridicule advances in science and close their minds to new ideas.
All of our eggs are in the only ‘basket’ that exists WRT ability to support human life.
All of our eggs are in the only 'basket' we currently know to exist!
If we don't explore, look for and even build those other baskets then we are doomed to eventual extinction.
“but I see a large asteroid smacking into us, not an angry god.”
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Then you’re willingly blind.
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Does Mr. Hawking realize that you could fit the entire population of the world within Jacksonville, Florida’s borders?
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