Do you think that evolution will carry on for millions of years to come and a new species of animals will dominate the

Question: Do you think that evolution will carry on for millions of years to come and a new species of animals will dominate the world once Humans are wiped out, or do you think that before this happens, the 'end' of the world will come and all living species will die. Is 'the end of the world' just an excuse for those who are scared? (hope this question isn't too bias) Thanks
- Keywords:
  dominate,
  evolution,
  excuse,
  humans,
  millions,
  scared,
  wiped
Asked by skittles to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 24 Jun 2011.
- Ian van der Linde answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  Evolution is an ongoing process, and both we and other animals will continue to evolve providing there are “selection pressures”, i.e., providing that some characteristics make some people more likely to stay alive and have children than other people. Because animals are so diverse, it is unlikely that one single catastrophic event (like an asteroid strike, plague or nuclear war) would kill every different kind of animal at the same time. Some would surive and would continue to evolve to become better at living in the new environment that had been created. If the human species died out, other animals would eventually evolve intelligence equivalent to ours, providing that being intelligent gave them an advantage over the other animals that they were competing with.
- Rhys Phillips answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  Yes we will keep evolving. I’m not sure if/when humans will be wiped out at any time though. So if another species of animals dominate it would need to be one that developed further than we have in terms of intelligence. Given how long this process takes, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see this happening ourselves.
  
  Interesting idea about the end of the world being an excuse for scared people – I don’t really know what is behind the stories of the world about to end that people come up with.
- Helen Fletcher answered on 24 Jun 2011:
  
  Evolution is not a choice, anything that has babies undergoes evolution whether they like or or not! The way of life for all things, from humans to bacteria is always changing in some way or other. It maybe the climate, the type of food that is available, the diseases they are infected with or things that are trying to eat them. With each change some individuals in a species will be better able to live in the new conditions, they will take over and the species will have evolved to the new environment. If this doesn’t happen and the changes that occurred bad enough, then the species will die out and become extinct. This applies to humans just as it does to all other living things. Having said that we do have quite an advantage over most other species as we are able cope with quite big changes to out environment using technology rather than having to rely on evolution to dig us out of the hole. So for example if a new deadly disease comes along, a species of monkey might have to evolve immunity to that disease to survive, whereas we might be able to come up with a drug or vaccine. However, somethings, like climate change might well be beyond our ability to cope with using technology, so there are no guarantees of survival even for us. What you can be sure of though is that, what ever happens, one way or another, evolution is always going on in the background.
- Helen Fletcher answered on 24 Jun 2011:
  
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