OUR WORST ENEMY IS OURSELVES!
Of course some worldwide disaster could happen, coming to us anywhere from star crash to infective protein, but the chances are heavily against it – less than one chance in a million, I would surmise, for trouble with astronomical bodies, less than one in a thousand for serious difficulties with climate, volcanoes, worldwide floods, or desiccation, and perhaps less than one chance in a hundred for planet-wide incurable diseases… In other words, man seems to have a healthy prospect, a long security from stars, climate, and terminating germs. But wait! I have not named the real danger, and it is bleakly ominous, as everyone in these days agrees. The danger is man himself. He is his own worst enemy. He is acquiring tools and studying techniques which might solve the problem of attaining complete elimination of Homo from the planet Earth. From The View from a Distant Star, by Harlow Shapley, published by Basic Books, 1963
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