Darwin and the End of Evolution
Ecologist Shahid Naeem
November 9, 6–7 p.m.

For three and a half billion years, species have originated and subsequently suffered extinction, yielding as many as one hundred-million different kinds of plants, animals, and microorganisms. With every origination, each species, no matter how small or short lived, contributed to the transformation of Earth’s sterile surface to the life-sustaining Biosphere we live in today. While Darwin’s evolutionary theory provided tremendous insight into origination and extinction, it saw no direction or end to the process, suggesting that although every species influences the environment, the habitability of Biosphere is just an accident and not shaped by evolution. The evolution of our species and the mass extinction we are causing, however, suggests to some that perhaps humans were the direction and end of evolution–the production of a single species that would come to dominate the Earth. If this is true, what happens to the habitability of the biosphere? We will consider Darwin, the end of evolution, and the future of humanity over drinks at the café.