The short answer, according to palaeontologist evolutionary biologist and Nicholas Longrich, is yes.
Everything goes extinct eventually. Fossil records prove that.
Longrich, a senior lecturer at the University of Bath, studies dinosaur fossils for a living. He’s curious about how and why the world is the way it. His specialty is macro-evolution — evolutionary patterns and processes, and the way they play out on a big-picture scale.
Longrich is intrigued by the idea that macro-evolution is more than just a series of micro-evolutions. The more complex evolution is, the longer it takes to evolve. The process of evolution itself has evolved, Longrich insists.
Despite headlines warning of imminent extinction for Homo sapiens, the truth is human beings will survive long after most other species have vanished, he believes.
There’s just one catch, he noted in an op-ed piece for The Conversation late last year.
Imminent extinction, whether by asteroid, climate catastrophe or any other means,, is not going to happen.
Or, if it does, it won’t play out the way most people expect.
Human beings are a strange species, Longrich says. Organisms that adapt to different climates fare better than specialized organisms during (relatively) localized catastrophes like hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and droughts.
Highly specialized mammals — mammals uniquely adapted to their habitat, like polar bears, penguins and pandas — are vulnerable to disruptions in the food chain.
Red foxes, which have adapted to different habitats and have expansive, and expanding, home ranges, are doing well. Arctic foxes, which are specifically suited to Arctic conditions, are not faring so well. Red foxes are bigger and stronger than Arctic foxes, and kill them when they can, because evolution has conditioned predators to see other predators as competition for food.
Humans are generalists when it comes to food. We’re carnivores, herbivores, piscivores and omnivores, depending on opportunity and circumstance.
Just because an academic makes a speculative, if reasoned, argument based on a lifelong study of biological evolution doesn’t make it true, but Longrich makes some intriguing points.
“Natural selection has created an animal capable of intelligent design, one that doesn’t blindly adapt to the environment, but constantly reshapes it to its needs,” he wrote.
Climate change can — and already is — affecting the entire planet, but Homo sapiens may yet find a way to adapt that doesn’t involve, say, Elon Musk spiriting who he considers the best and brightest into space, like something out of a 1950s science-fiction film.
So far, Longrich says, we’ve escaped every trap we’ve set for ourselves. For now.
‘I have seen the future, but I have no ideas what it looks like.’