麻豆传媒

SPECIES don鈥檛 hang around forever. Homo sapiens has already notched up a mind-boggling 200,000 years on Earth. Is the end nigh? The geological statistics suggest not 鈥� the average mammal species celebrates its millionth birthday long before it begins to slip towards oblivion. But we are no average species, and there has long been a niggling fear that we have put ourselves on the fast track to self-annihilation.

The Fate of the Species purposefully scratches that itch. Here, Fred Guterl, executive editor of Scientific American, explores in stark detail some of the many ways in which our technological success could sow the seeds of our destruction. Guterl assumes the role of unapologetic pessimist well, walking us through a series of potential catastrophes in neat and punchy prose. It is compelling and unnerving reading.

But though his subtitle includes 鈥淲hy the human race may cause its own extinction鈥�, Guterl鈥檚 thought experiments never quite succeed in completely destroying humanity. Granted, he explains how our activities may contribute to the deaths of billions, by accident or design 鈥� but billions remain standing after each of Guterl鈥檚 disasters has run its course. At one point he admits that it will require nothing less than a perfect storm of technological factors to obliterate the human race.

And while the book buzzes with the very latest in potentially lethal threats 鈥� synthetic biology that may spawn a devastating virus, sophisticated malware that could take down our power grids 鈥� it is revealing that some familiar hazards from yesteryear are relegated to mere footnotes. Nanotechnology, we read, has lost its sinister sheen for an almost disappointingly mundane reason: research has yet to invent a way to deliver enough power to allow tiny machines to achieve their malevolent missions.

Maybe the threats outlined in The Fate of the Species will also lose their killer edge with time. Or maybe not. Either way, as Guterl concludes, humans will probably muddle through.