Will humans be extinct in 100 years?

Humans extinct? No. But probably a major thinning out in progress.
Hard pressed and unhappy compared to now? For all but the very very rich, yes.

Why? Because of short sighted greed on the part of the developed world, and the developing world jealously wishing to have a piece of the action.

But do not blame the Chinese or the Indians. Look closer in the back yard and sitting room at all those ‘essentuals’ western society ‘cannot live without’.

No, humans will not be extinct. Perhaps (hopefully) those visionless folks who meditate on man’s mistakes and forget his adaptability. As someone famously quoted “Those who say something can’t be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it.” The irony is that someone probably mirrored Fenner’s reasoning in the last century regarding smallpox, disease and our survival.

Get Real!

And the world is coming to an end! — TOMORROW!!!

People have been making dire statements like these for at least 50 years. By most of their predictions, based on most of the very same arguments, we should have been extinct about 30 years ago!

Barring some unforseen and uncontrollable disaster (a meteor hitting the Earth, some crazy in the Mid-East nuking us, etc), it does not seem likely.

Extinction is very unlikely. A very basic study of the part of biology that deals with population dynamics reveals consistent evidence demonstrating normal rises and falls. Like all populations, we are due for a crash, which could be quite severe. It’s been postponed through advances in agriculture and medical science, but even as the most clever, complex and adaptive organism on the planet, our habitat can only support so many people. Not extinct, but much reduced at some point.

You mean when (if) the human population of the Earth gets down to ten million, the decline won’t stop? When it’s down to ten thousand they won’t be able to reverse the conditions that killed off the other seven billion? Will the aboriginals living in the New Guinea highlands, out of touch with all other humanity, get the message that they are supposed to go extinct and follow along? Are we sure we will catch all the outliers, including the ones we don’t even know about now? People on nuclear submarines - when will their time come? Will the Chinese colony on the Moon be included? Wait - you did say The Earth. Are those extra terrestrials allowed to come back? Professor Fenner brought up an interesting point, but I think when things get bad enough, we will make whatever changes are necessary for our survival. The Western way of life, with our Escalades and air-conditioned McMansions and mobile handheld broadband devices may become extinct, but Homo Sapiens will still be around.

Short of destruction of the whole biosphere, no. Not by asteroid, ice age, or even BP.

If any of these dire circumstances were true Humans may indeed be in trouble. However each of the threats mentioned have been debunked. This is just one more case of a person seeking significance and magnifying the significance of each piece of data to bolster there own fears. Humans are often mistakenly evaluated as just another animal species having there intelligence discounted.

Scientists are among the least likely to know when the end of times will occur since they base their predictions on observation alone. They may however have a good notion as to the nature of the plagues that will be endured leading to the end.

We will become like China and enforce a child-producing limit…hopefully soon. *illegals and their 6 kids per family to assume welfare…it’s horrible!

We just need to produce more clean ways of living…back to fruits and veggies and gardening. Everyone should be asked to consume at least 25% of home-grown foods… Water should be derived from solar-run purification systems that acquire dew and humidity.

Or else we’re in troulble with a near 10% compounding growth rate…

I do not think that will be an extinction; however I think that our population will decrease depending of the damage that we had done to our planet.

Remember that all the resources are limited. We are animals and we follow the patterns of any other species. In stress conditions animal population is decreased by epidemics, reduced reproduction cycles. So eventually, we will be diminished proportionally to the available resources (water, fertile ground, breathable air. Did you notice that there are not laptops, cell phones, artificial “food” in this equation, or any human development?). Actually, water is becoming a major problem. Look Texans trying to make money of this natural resource, trying to control where the water goes and asking for “retribution” for profit lost. Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico are using also the water from Rio Grande. Actually, it is being hold in dams (old and new ones). Will Texans will get what they are asking for?

People are smart. Ice age, Black Death, two ‘world’ wars. Long term trend would indicate homo sapiens sapiens is a highly adaptable and resilient species. Populations self-regulate in the face of scarce resource; historically man has trimmed numbers and adapted resource dependancy. Is the Earth likely to run out of air, water or sunlight in the next 100 years? If the answer is no then humans will persist. Will life for humankind change any more radically when compared with say the period between AD1910 and AD 2010? Get over yourself Professor.

Extinct, NO. Need to be significantly pruned, YES. Will we do so intelligently, NO. Will we be thinned, PROBABLY. How and by whom or what, TAKE A GUESS and you might be right. When non-renewble and non-recyclable resources become sufficiently depleted, those who can not adapt or scrounge or steal by guile or force, will suffer the same fate as other living things when stressed. The question is who (or what) survives. Sufficiently depleted knowledge resevoirs could quickly crash civilization and only the brutes would be left to fight it out.

Extinction? I don’t think so. We’re an adaptable lot; we seem to be able to overcome great adversity pretty much universally. I personnally believe we have grown too dependent on technology, and our ability to create technology. However that has proven to be a viable method for fighting the trials thrown at the human race and so I have few doubts that we will continue to develop new and creative technologies to extend our species’ reign on this planet (and perhaps others).

Absolutely not… that is, unless the wacko leftist environmentalists succeed in convincing enough of the species , that we are a blight on the planet, and that we should collectively not exist.
Seriously, it is unfortunate that this may be yet another example of a noted “scientist” that poses some theory of extreme apocalypse, that never even remotely approaches reality (cite the 30-year plus ago predictions regarding the “population bomb”, or the coming of the next ice-age?). Yet these same individuals (or groups) continue to be listened to and sought out for their “wisdom”. Now, it’s global warming ( oh, excuse me,… climate change)….
The fact is that the unique aspect of man (politically incorrect , I know… get over it) is the ability to adapt not only TO his environment, but to alter his environment to his benefit and ultimate survival. By that, I mean our reasoning and intellect allow us to recognize problems and figure out ways to address them.

No. As much as the tree huggers spread their fear mongering about apocalyptic ends to the human race, I don’t believe them. Short of humanity engaging in an all out nuclear war, there will probably be a few survivors in the remotest end of the earth that will survive.

Predicting the “End of the World” is certainly not recent. It has been going on for thousands of years. The primary difference between those through the ages and the more recent ones is the injection of some very modest element, however limited, of scientific evidence. Achieving the breadth of data and knowledge to make such a prediction in a serious way for them as well as for Prof. Fenner seems to soundly illustrate the saying that, “A little bit of knowledge is dangerous.” To predict the end of the human race requires so much data and knowledge, to me it is the height of arrogance to make the prediction in a serious way.

Who cares if everyone will be dead in 100 years… I really need a massage.

(A long and somewhat theological opinion follows. Please bear with me.)

Contrary to what many people think, science and faith are not incompatible. Far from it; God has given us a wonderful dual revelation of Himself - one in the Creation, and one in the Scriptures. When we understand both correctly, something beautiful happens.

A century or two ago, the dominant scientific concept of the universe was that it was eternal and stagnant. Yet the ancient Bible describes it as having a distinct beginning. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Ever since Edwin Hubble’s discovery of galactic red shift and an expanding universe, evidence of the universe beginning with a “Big Bang” has been piling up. This bolsters my faith.

At the other end of the time spectrum, astro-physicists’ theories are congealing around the idea that the mass, energy and dark matter content of the universe is such that the universe will not rebound, but will simply continue to expand and cool to a point of maximum entropy. This, too, agrees with Biblical testimony that the heavens are being stretched out and decaying. (Refer to Isaiah 45 and Romans 8.)

Regarding this universe that science and God both agree has a beginning and an ending, God declared that He formed it to be inhabited (Isaiah again), that it will wear out when He is done with it (Psalm 102), and most importantly, that mankind will persist until the end (Luke 21, among other ref’s). Once this universe has served His purposes, God intends to discard it and create a new one. Is the “End of the World” coming? Yes. Someday. Maybe soon, maybe later, but at its appointed time.

So, to answer the question, “Will man be extinct in 100 years?” my answer is: If this universe still exists, man will still be here. If we are not, then it is because God’s patience with our foolishness will have reached its limit, and He exclaim, “Today is the day!” By that time, there may be more of us, or there may be fewer - probably as a direct result of our historically proven propensity to kill one another - but we will not go quietly extinct.

I am not sure if 100 years is the right number, but I agree with the basic premise. The world’s population has tripled in my lifetime and I don’t see it slowing down. The world’s resources are already stretched pretty thin. There is still some hope that a major disaster will occur to cull the herd so to speak and buy us some extra time, but that is all it will do. Basic human nature is not changing so the end result will be the same.

In the greater scheme of things I see homo sapiens as another failed evolutionary experiment.

There needs to be a maybe with some of these questions.

Homo Sapiens left to their own devices can be expected to go for the lowest common denominator as a species, i.e., overpopulation, unbridled resource depletion, political convenience and corporate greed driving the big picture.

In the little picture, as individuals and very occasionally as institutions Homo Sapiens will act for the greater good of the species. Unfortunately these attempts will never be able to achieve lasting success, since the magnitude of the problems require united and consistent global action for many lifetimes.

If there is no Higher Power to intervene and exact the changes necessary the future is quite grim for Homo Sapiens and in fact for the planet Earth as well.

No. This sounds like another version of Malthusian economics, theorized by Robert Malthus in 1798. The truth about world population is that if every man, woman, and child on earth were given 1500 square feet of living space, the area would be slightly larger than the state of Texas. The earth has the resources to support ourkind for more centuries than one. The world population will begin to shrink, I believe, but not due to fewer resources, but rather due to misguided population control measures already resulting in shrinking populations in Europe. The real disaster will be the political implications of entitlement programs for growing proportions of elderly populations. But socialized medicine be the cure for that…

We made it for the last crazy 100 years, and there is no reason we can’t make for another 100, unless we blow each other up. There will be shortages of water, fuel, clean air, etc., but we will have the ability and knowledge to overcome these conditons, as we always have. This is another reason to continue our space explorations, and maybe even deep water exploration isn’t so far fetched.

Mulberry bush aside, would a monkey really chase a weasel?