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I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

- Martin Rees
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Martin Rees
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There are strong reasons for believing that space goes on beyond the limits of our observational horizon. There are strong reasons because if you look in opposite directions, conditions are the same to within one part in 100,000. So if we are part of some finite structure then, if the gradient is so shallow, it is likely to go on much further.

When scientists are asked what they are working on, their response is seldom 'Finding the origin of the universe' or 'Seeking to cure cancer.' Usually, they will claim to be tackling a very specific problem - a small piece of the jigsaw that builds up the big picture.

To most people in the U.K., indeed throughout Western Europe, space exploration is primarily perceived as 'what NASA does'. This perception is - in many respects - a valid one. Superpower rivalry during the Cold War ramped up U.S. and Soviet space efforts to a scale that Western Europe had no motive to match.

The challenge of global warming should stimulate a whole raft of manifestly benign innovations - for conserving energy and generating it by 'clean' means (biofuels, innovative renewables, carbon sequestration, and nuclear fusion).

The Cern laboratory in Geneva was set up in 1955 to bring together European scientists who wished to pursue research into the nuclear and sub-nuclear world. Physicists then had greater clout than other scientists because the memory of their role in the Second World War was fresh in people's minds.

The advance of science spares us from irrational dread.

The stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture (though maybe not in the United States Bible Belt, nor in parts of the Islamic world). Most people are at ease with the idea that our present biosphere is the outcome of four billion years of Darwinian evolution.

There are lots of ideas which extend the Copernican principle one step further. We went from the solar system to the galaxy to zillions of galaxies and now to realising even that isn't all there is.

Some of the 'aha' insights that scientists strive for may have to await the emergence of post-human intellects.

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I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.

I think a few hundred years from now we'll start having the 'posthuman' era of different species.