The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction [Hardcover]

This book is a strange mixture of four elements. The first presents main dangers to the survival of humanity, with preliminary references to the Carter "doomsday argument." The second deals with philosophical arguments on prolonging human history. The third takes up at greater length the doomsday argument. And the fourth suddenly jumps to a short excursus on nuclear deterrence.
The book up to page 153 is recommended to all who worry, with good causes, about the future of the human species. This part well presents main dangers facing the survival of humanity in the short and long term. Necessary measures needed for reducing the likelihood of termination of the human species are hinted at, including "politically incorrect" ones such as strong global governance (pp. 98, 146) with a huge police force (p. 106), limitations on science and technology (p. 90), and intrusive personal surveillance (p. 42). This is all the more noteworthy as most books dealing with dangers to humanity fail to draw realistic conclusions on what needs to be done.
The book fails to consider the main root cause of possible demise of humanity, namely the inadequacies of its moral, cognitive, emotional and institutional capacities, as limited by genetics and constrained cultural learning, for using well the unprecedented capabilities to shape its future supplied to the human species by science and technology.
Still, the cardinal message emanating from the first 153 pages is compelling: Extinction of humanity in the foreseeable future is a real possibility, but its likelihood can be much reduced if humanity adopts a range of countermeasures, including counter-conventional ones.
However I cannot in good conscience recommend the rest of the book. The philosophical position of the author in effect grants ontological standing to moral values, with some states of affairs being regarded as "in fact" good or bad. This misrepresents the very nature of values as depending ultimately on human choice, however influenced by genetics and environments, without which there cannot be deep moral responsibility.
The Carlson hypothesis, claiming that it is unlikely that we are born in the early history of humanity, to which much space is devoted, is a stimulating probabilistic speculation. But it is not sound, in part by ignoring that the chance of anyone of us being born at all is infinitesimal small. Indeed, all the probabilistic approach of the author permeating the book does not fit the fuzziness of the subject. Thus, stating that the probability of humanity being soon destroyed is 30 per cent (p.133) illustrates misplaced exactness. It would be much better to use an adjusted version of the scales of modal logic, such as "possible," likely," and "unlikely."
Discussing deterrence in one of my books (Israeli Statecraft, 2011, pp. 25-26, 182-183), let me limit my comment on the book's treatment of the subject to saying that this is much too serious an issue to be taken up apropos in the last few pages of the book).

Professor Yehezkel Dror
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem