Monday, 1 June 2020

Evolutionary Failures Become Evolutionary Stages

Poul Anderson, The Boat Of A Million Years (London, 1991), XIX, 33, p. 599.

This is quite a good list which I might have quoted before:

fish that failed to compete in the sea were forced onto land;

ancestors of reptiles were forced out of swamps;

birds were forced into the air;

mammals were forced to avoid dinosaurs;

apes were forced out of the trees;

Phoenicians, holding a small strip of land, took to the sea;

those who were uncomfortable in Europe went to America or Australia;

those uncomfortable in the Solar System travel between the stars, joining the misfits from other advanced civilizations.

Civilizations become cybernetic and their misfits are organic.

I like the Phoenicians' return to the sea and, of course, sea is a prelude to space.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And as civilization becomes ever more homogenized on Earth (despite continuing differences, such as those speaking differing tongues), I expect there to be more and more misfits. And if these misfits can't find an outlet, we will see more and more personal and social unhappiness, with all that can mean in increased political instability. Unless an outlet can be found which can be found for lessening such strains. A new frontier, first in the Solar System and then other stars, is what we need!

Ad astra! Sean