Now seems as good a time as any to talk about the end of the world.
Well, not the world exactly. More the end of human life. Unless we manage to literally destroy the planet that we stand on, as in literally blow it to smithereens, the world will continue without us.
A group of 50 Nobel prize winners were asked about the “biggest threat to mankind” by Times Higher Education. The laureates represent a quarter of living Nobel prize winners, covering a broad spectrum of disciplines.
The survey produced a list of 10 common predictions for the end of the world, and as you can imagine, they’re all pretty bad.
Topping the list of things likely to end humanity was population rise or environmental degradation, with 34% of those surveyed agreeing that this was the most likely thing to kill off mankind, followed by nuclear war with 23%.
The rest of the list, including infectious disease, ignorance, inequality and terrorism, all scored relatively lowly, which suggests that when it comes time for humans to go, it’ll either be because there’s too many of us, we ruin the environment, or we blow ourselves to hell. Excellent.
Here’s the list in full:
1) Population rise or environmental degradation: 34 per cent, 18 laureates
2) Nuclear war: 23 per cent, 12 laureates
3) Infectious disease or drug resistance: 8 per cent, 4 laureates
4) Selfishness, dishonesty and loss of humanity: 8 per cent, 4 laureates
5) Ignorant leaders: 6 per cent, 3 laureates
6) Artificial intelligence: 4 per cent, 2 laureates
7) Inequality: 4 per cent, 2 laureates
8) Fundamentalism or terrorism: 6 per cent, 3 laureates
9) Ignorance and distortion of truth: 6 per cent, 3 laureates
10) Drugs: 2 per cent, 1 laureate
