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Beliefs about human extinction
Futures 41 (2009) 766–773
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Futures journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
Beliefs about human extinction Bruce Tonn * Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, McClung Tower, Room 1018, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
This paper presents the results of a web-based survey about futures issues. Among many questions, respondents were asked whether they believe humans will become extinct. Forty-five percent of the almost 600 respondents believe that humans will become extinct. Many of those holding this believe felt that humans could become extinct within 500– 1000 years. Others estimated extinction 5000 or more years into the future. A logistic regression model was estimated to explore the bases for this belief. It was found that people who describe themselves a secular are more likely to hold this belief than people who describe themselves as being Protestant. Older respondents and those who believe that humans have little control over their future also hold this belief. In addition, people who are more apt to think about the future and are better able to imagine potential futures tend to also believe that humans will become extinct. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Available online 10 July 2009
1. Introduction The world faces many major and possibly catastrophic risks. Most are well known. Included in this group are massive species extinction [1], global warming [2], highly contagious and deadly pathogens [3], and exhaustion of oil supplies [4]. Less well known risks include those posed by asteroids [5,6]. Exotic risks include those posed by runaway nano-replicators and high energy physics experiments that might cause a tear in local space-time [7]. In combination, at the very least these risks pose a major challenge to humankind [8] and some believe threaten the extinction of the human species [7,9] and life in general [10]. It can be argued that much needs to be done to ensure that humans survive into the distant future [11,12]. It can also be argued that humans need to be willing to take the actions required to improve the probability of our survival. In other words, people need to believe in survival [13,14]. This paper reports the results of an international web survey on how individuals think about the future. The focus on this paper is human extinction. More specifically, this paper explores how pervasive is the belief that humans will become extinct and what factors underlie this belief. People who do not believe that humans have a future may be less willing to support efforts to improve our ability to survive into the future. If a large number of people held such beliefs, then it is possible that these beliefs could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The next section presents a discussion about the types of factors that may underlie people’s beliefs in the inevitability of human extinction. The third section describes the survey methodology and the demographics of the almost 600 survey respondents. The fourth section presents the results. This section begins with descriptive statistics and concludes with the results of a logistic regression where the binary dependent variable was whether or not respondents believe that humans will become extinct.
* Tel.: +1 865 974 7041; fax: +1 865 974 7037. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0016-3287/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2009.07.001
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2. Approach What factors might underlie an individual’s belief that humans will become extinct? Four categories are proposed. These categories are not completely mutually exclusive but are distinct enough from each other to allow exploratory assessment. Life context. Where a person is in his or her life may influence the belief that humans will become extinct. For example, younger individuals have been found to be more optimistic about the future [15,16,17] and therefore may be less inclined to believe that humans will become extinct. On the other hand, older individuals may have learned from experience that humans have the ability to adapt and muddle through and may also be less inclined toward the belief that humans will become extinct. One’s gender may have an influence as well. It could be hypothesized that males worry less about the future than females, leading to the hypothesis that males would be less inclined than females to believe that humans will become extinct. People with higher incomes and more education may find life less precarious than poor people and therefore may be less inclined to believe that all will come to an end. Religion. This is an exceedingly complex influence on the belief that humans will become extinct. Overall, though, one could hypothesize that those who are religious and believe in God may believe that God is watching over humans and would not let us become extinct. On the other hand, those who are more secular may tend to believe that the future is in our hands, that we will not receive any help, and that, given the current state of the world, we will probably fail to keep ourselves alive. Other beliefs. One’s beliefs about how the world works and about the general state of the world may influence one’s belief about whether humans will become extinct. For example, people who believe that humans do have control over their futures may tend to believe that humans can avoid extinction more than those who believe that humans have no control. Some people may be inherently optimistic and others inherently pessimistic; the latter might be more prone to believe that humans will become extinct than the former. Those who believe that humans are responsibly dealing with environmental and social problems would probably be less inclined to believe that we will become extinct. Thinking about the future. Survey respondents were asked how frequently they think about the future, how much they worry about the future, and how clearly they can imagine the future. It can be hypothesized that the future is scarier for people who do not think much about the future and who cannot imagine the future at all. For those people, the future is probably very dark and these people may tend to believe that we will become extinct. Of course, it can be hypothesized that worriers will also hold this belief. Prior to analyzing the survey results, no strong hypotheses were developed with respect to which types of influences may more strongly influence one’s belief about human extinction. 3. Survey methodology Survey data were collected for this research via a web-based survey. A web-based survey was chosen for reasons of cost and convenience. Additionally, using the web offered the opportunity to include people from all over the world through the implementation of a network sample of convenience. To initiate the solicitation of survey respondents, the survey implementers sent the web address of the survey to their primary e-mail correspondents and to various list serves. Those receiving the requests to complete the survey were then asked to pass the request along to others. There were no restrictions placed on who could answer this survey. This methodology was successful at generating a large number of respondents in a fairly short period of time: 572 people completed the survey from January to April 2004. Additionally, it is apparent that numerous secondary and tertiary contacts completed the survey. The network sample using a web-based approach, while cost and time efficient, does have drawbacks. First, the survey was limited to those with e-mail and web access. Second, because the sample was not random in the classical sense, it cannot be said, for example, that X% of the population of the United States views the word ‘future’ in some particular way. It can only be said what percentage of the sample held such views. Lastly, the sample is biased based upon the composition of the primary contacts. The composition of the primary contacts, in combination with the demographics of the typical Internet user, led to a sample dominated by U.S. citizens and people with higher than average incomes and educations (see Table 1), although it can be argued that the sample is typical of webusers [18,19]. On the other hand, Table 1 indicates that the sample is diverse with respect to sex, age, religion, domestic status, and households with children. A substantial number of students and others who do not work full-time also completed the survey. 4. Results 4.1. Descriptive statistics Table 2 presents the results for the question ‘‘Do you believe that humankind will become extinct?’’ Forty-five percent of the almost 600 respondents answered yes. Although no expectations had been developed before the survey was administered about what the percentage of affirmative answers there might be, this result seems surprisingly high to the
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Table 1 Demographics of Survey Respondents. Sex (%) Male Female
45.7 54.3
Age Mean Median Std. Min Max
40.0 37.0 14.1 13 83
Race/ethnicity (%) Caucasian Black Asian Hispanic Indian Arab Multiple
87.3 1.5 3.7 3.4 1.1 0.2 2.8
Country (%) U.S. Western Europe Eastern Europe Other
75 9.0 4.0 12.0
Domestic status (%) Single Married Co-habitating Divorced Widowed Other
26.9 55.8 8.1 6.9 1.9 0.4
Number of children (%) 0 1 2 3 4+
48.3 15.4 19.6 10.0 5.8
Number of grandchildren (%) 0 1 2 3 4+
85.5 3.0 3.5 2.1 4.7
Household income (%) Very poor Poor Middle class Upper middle class Upper class
0.9 6.0 58.6 31.5 3.0
Employment status (%) Work full-time Work part-time Unemployed Student Retired Other
58.8 8.1 4.9 19.2 6.0 0.5
Education (%) Less than High School High School Associate or Vocational Degree Some College College Degree Some Post-Degree Post College Degree
1.2 3.3 3.5 15.7 21.5 10.2 44.5
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Table 1 (Continued ) Religion (%) Christian Judaism Asian Traditional Pagan or New Age Secular or non-religious Other
54.7 2.8 4.0 7.6 27.2 3.7
Table 2 ‘‘Do You Believe That Humankind Will Become Extinct?’’ (%). Yes
No
Overall
45.1
54.9
Males Females
46.1 44.3
53.9 55.7
<30 years old 30–50 years old >50 years old
62.3 42.6 31.2
37.7 57.4 68.8
Christian Judaism Asian Traditional Pagan and New Age Secular and non-religious Other
37.7 25.0 60.9 51.2 59.7 33.3
62.3 75.0 39.1 48.8 40.3 66.7
author. Contrary to initial expectations, males were slightly more likely to believe that humans will become extinct than females. Also contrary to expectation, younger persons also tend to hold this believe, almost overwhelmingly. However, older persons, again almost overwhelmingly, tend to believe otherwise. Results broken out by religious affiliation are just as striking. Christians and Jews overwhelmingly do not believe that humans will become extinct but secular and non-religious people strongly believe otherwise. These results support initial hypotheses. A very large percentage of people who follow traditional Asian religions (e.g., Buddhism) also believe that humans will become extinct. Table 3 presents results of answers to the question ‘‘About what time will humankind become extinct?’’ While few believe that humans will become extinct within 100 years, a fair number who held this belief stated that humans will probably become extinct between 500 and 1000 years from now. It can be interpreted that these respondents believe that our current problems will do us in. A slightly larger number of people believe that humans will become extinct much farther into the future, even over one million years into the future. It can be interpreted that these people believe that humans will naturally go the way of most other species that have ever inhabited the earth. These interpretations are represented in Table 4, which reports the answers to the question ‘‘Why do you think that humankind will become extinct?’’ Environmental degradation, depletion of earth’s resources, war/politics/greed are among the answers that fit into the first interpretation and all species eventually become extinct, evolution, and other species will
Table 3 ‘‘About What Time will Humankind Become Extinct?’’ (%). Unsure when 10 years 50 years 100 years 500 years 1000 years 5000 years 10,000 years 100,000 years 1,000,000 years >1,000,000 years
35.3 0.0 0.8 2.3 11.3 15.0 9.0 6.0 7.9 5.3 7.1
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Table 4 ‘‘Why do you Think That Humankind Will Become Extinct?’’ (%). Religious reasons Environmental degradation All species eventually become extinct Evolution Other species will gain control Depletion of earth’s resources Overpopulation Global-scale natural disaster Climate change Epidemic illness or disease War/politics/greed Human self-destruction No idea No answer
3.8 6.8 7.0 3.0 0.7 5.1 1.4 2.8 2.3 0.5 5.6 4.2 0.3 56.5
gain control fit with the second interpretation. For a comprehensive summary of the results of this survey see Tonn et al. [20] and for a rigorous statistical assessment of the cognitive aspects of thinking about the future see Tonn and Conrad [21]. 4.2. Logistic regression model The above descriptive statistics suggest that there are strong differences of opinion on whether humans will become extinct and that these differences may be explainable by religious beliefs and by one’s life context. As noted above, other beliefs and how one thinks about the future may also influence one’s belief about the future of humankind. Regression models are typically specified and estimated to ascertain the strength of influence of a set of independent variables over a dependent variable, holding all other variables constant. In this case, a regression model could provide insights about the influence of variables in the four categories presented above on the key dependent variable, whether one believes that humans will become extinct. Because this dependent variable is binary (yes or no), a logistic regression model was estimated instead of the more common multiple regression model, which is appropriate for ratio scale dependent variables. A large number of independent variables were tested through logistic regression analysis. Variables with significance levels greater than 0.30 were dropped from the model. Variables with significance levels less than 0.10 were generally retained in the model. Variables with significance levels between 0.30 and 0.10 were retained in the model only if their inclusion increased the explanatory power of the model. Table 5 presents descriptive statistics for the independent variables that were retained in the model and not already reported in Table 1. The results of the logistic regression are presented in Table 6. The final model contains 14 independent variables. Overall the model is highly statistically significant and explains a fair amount of the variance in the data. The model correctly predicts 61% of respondents who said yes to the question about human extinction and 75% who said no. Life context variables. Only one life context variable remained in the final model, the age variable. The older the respondent, the less likely the respondent believes that humans will become extinct. This variable is highly significant and is consistent both with a prior hypothesis and the results presented in Table 2. Table 5 Descriptive statistics of other exogenous variables. Variable description Humankind has complete control over its future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) I am an optimist concerning the future of humankind (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) Humankind’s future will be radically different from today (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) Protestant (1 = yes, 0 = no) Humankind dealing with environmental concernsa (4 = very responsibly, 16 = not at all, responsibly) Humankind dealing with social concernsb (6 = very responsibly, 24 = not at all responsibly) Secular (1 = yes, 0 = no) How frequently do you think about the futurec (1 = very frequently, 4 = not at all) When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? (years) How clearly can you imagine the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very clearly, 4 = not at all clear) How actively should humanity plan for the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very actively, 4 = not at all actively) There are many paths open to me for my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) I am an optimist concerning my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) a
Mean
Std.
2.84 2.30 1.99 0.31
0.943 0.856 0.823 0.464
15.2 0.27 2.2 14.79 3.78 2.69 1.66 1.72
4.19 0.446 0.549 21.3 0.577 1.108 0.724 0.697
This variable is constructed from four environmental concerns: global warming, water quality, water quantity, and biodiversity. This variable is constructed from six social concerns: education, quality of life, peace and security, spirituality, economics, and politics. c This variable represents the mean for how frequently a respondent thinks about the future for seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future. b
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Table 6 Logistic regression model: Do you believe that humankind will become extinct? (1 = yes, 2 = no) [Nagelkerke R2 = 0.248; Sig. < 0.0001]. Variable
Parameter estimatePr > jtj
Humankind has complete control over its future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.382 I am an optimist concerning the future of humankind (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.324 Humankind’s future will be radically different from today (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.180 Protestant (1 = yes, 0 = no) 0.468 a Humankind dealing with environmental concerns (4 = very responsibly, 16 = not at all responsibly) 0.144 Humankind dealing with social concernsb (6 = very responsibly, 24 = not at all responsibly) 0.097 Secular (1 = yes, 0 = no) 0.483 0.512 How frequently do you think about the futurec (1 = very frequently, 4 = not at all) When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? (years)0.016 How clearly can you imagine the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very clearly, 4 = not at all clear) 0.314 How actively should humanity plan for the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very actively, 4 = not at all actively) 0.112 Age (years) 0.024 There are many paths open to me for my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.394 I am an optimist concerning my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.353 Constant 0.746
0.001 0.019 0.172 0.060 0.004 0.011 0.052 0.014 0.012 0.085 0.249 0.005 0.028 0.056 0.454
a
This variable is constructed from four environmental concerns: global warming, water quality, water quantity, and biodiversity. This variable is constructed from six social concerns: education, quality of life, peace and security, spirituality, economics, and politics. This variable represents the mean for how frequently a respondent thinks about the future for seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future. b c
All other life context variables were highly insignificant. These variables include gender, income, education, number of children, number of grandchildren, and country/region of residence. These results suggest that except for age, one’s life circumstances do not influence one’s beliefs about the future of humankind and also suggest that one’s beliefs might not change as one’s life circumstances change, with the exception of growing older. Religion variables. Two religion variables were retained in the model. One is a dummy variable for whether the respondent is a Protestant or not. Protestants tend to not believe that humans will become extinct. Other dummy variables for whether the respondent is Christian or not or is Catholic or not were tried in the model and were found to be highly insignificant. Protestants, and especially evangelicals in the Southern United States, believe in a highly active God. It can be hypothesized that this belief underlies their belief that humans will not become extinct because God will not allow that to happen. A more targeted survey is needed to probe this hypothesis in more depth. The other religion variable is a dummy variable for whether the respondent is secular, which also includes respondents who are non-religious. Respondents who fall into this category tend to believe that humans will become extinct. Both of these variables are significant, and are consistent with prior hypotheses and results presented in Table 2. These variables, as a set, appear to have more influence on the dependent variable than the life context variables, but as is shown below, maybe less influential than other beliefs. Other beliefs variables. Respondents were asked numerous questions about their own future, humankind’s future, and how responsibly humans are dealing with environmental and social problems. The results suggest that one’s beliefs about control over the future, tendency toward optimism, and assessment of humankind’s dealing with problems all influence whether or not they believe that humans will become extinct. Respondents who believe that humankind has complete control over its future tend to belief that we will not become extinct. This is the most significant independent variable in the model. This is a hopeful result, not a fatalist viewpoint. Unfortunately, referring to Table 5, most respondents tend to believe that humankind does not have control over its own future. In contrast, respondents who believe that there are many paths open for their futures tend to believe humans will become extinct. Maybe this question taps into respondent’s uncertainty about the future. The more open paths, the more uncertainty there is. And the more uncertainty about one’s own life may translate into grander uncertainties about the future of humankind. Optimists tend to believe that humans will survive. Respondents who are optimistic about the future of humankind and respondents who are optimistic about their own lives both believe in the future of humankind. Environmental variables weigh more heavily on the minds of respondents than social variables. As environmental concerns increase, belief in human extinction increases. In contrast, as social concerns increase, belief in human extinction decreases. This result might be explained by the fact that Protestants have more concerns about these social issues than other respondents but overwhelmingly believe that humans will not become extinct. Thinking about the future variables. Respondents were asked how frequently they thought about the future, how much they worried about the future, and how clearly they are able to imagine the future over seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future for the first two variables and to over 1000 years for the last variable. Respondents were also asked the following question: When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? Lastly, respondents were asked how actively humankind should plan for the future with respect to numerous time periods. The final logistic regression model retained four thinking about the future variables.
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The most significant variable is the one related to respondent’s interpretation of the word future. As interpretations of this word increase, respondents tend to believe humankind will become extinct. In concert with this result, respondents who think more about the future across all time horizons tend to also believe that humans will become extinct. From previous research [20], it is known that seculars think more about the future than Christians and from above we know that seculars tend to think that humans will become extinct. Beyond this interpretation, one might surmise that people who are more futures-oriented may see more risks and may that understand grand patterns of geologic history work against the long-term survival of most species. In contrast with the thinking about the future variable, respondents who have much more difficulty imagining the distant future than other respondents tend to believe that humans will become extinct. Lastly, those who support planning for humankind’s distant future tend to believe that humans will become extinct, although this variable is not significant. It was somewhat surprising the variables that capture how much respondents worry about the future were all highly insignificant. Overall, as a set, the other belief variables appear to have the most influence on one’s belief about the future of humankind. However, the thinking about the future variables and religion variables also appear to have strong influences. Beliefs about the future of humanity depend not so much on who you are but depend upon a rich and complex array of beliefs, which themselves could be more or less influenced by how dedicated people are to thinking and imagining the future. 5. Conclusions A surprising number of respondents believe that humans will become extinct. Many believe that this event could take place in the next several centuries. Others believe that the event will happen many thousands of years into the future. It can be argued that the former believe that today’s problems will do us in whereas the latter believe that extinction is the natural fate of all species of earth-life. Important influences on whether one believes that humans will become extinct or not appear to include one’s age, religion, other beliefs (e.g., whether humans have control over their future or not), and how much and how clearly individuals think about the future. Older individuals, Protestants, and people who do not think much about the future tend to believe that we will not become extinct. Younger individuals, seculars, and people who do think about the future think otherwise. It is interesting that it is not known with any certainty which group of respondents is more likely to be correct. It is the opinion of the author that the probability of human extinction is probably fairly low, maybe one chance in tens of millions to tens of billions, given humans’ abilities to adapt and survive. However, it would be useful as a future research exercise to estimate ranges of probabilities of human extinction for various time periods both for the use of policy makers and to allow researchers to assess the accuracy of respondents’ perceptions of this risk. It is not clear whether respondents who believe that humans will become extinct support efforts to improve the probability of our survival less than respondents who believe otherwise. However, there is one hint that this might be the case because sign of the coefficient of planning for the future variable in the logistic regression suggests that people who support long-term planning also believe that humans will become extinct. One can hope that these combinations of beliefs would lead to a self-defeating prophecy. Evaluation of the logistic regression results implies that a very complex set of factors underlies individuals’ beliefs about human extinction. More research is needed, for example, to clarify the relationships of religious beliefs to this belief. For example, do people who believe in the Second Coming and in heaven also believe that humans will not become extinct because they will live on in other realms? It can be assumed that the futures community desires citizens to care about the future of humans and other species on earth. This research suggests that individuals’ beliefs influence beliefs about extinction more than life circumstances. The results also suggest that thinking and imagining the future also play an important role. Taken together, this research suggests that education about the future and systems and training in futures thinking could prove exceedingly beneficial. However, much more research is needed to clarify which sets of beliefs to target educational programs.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Fred Conrad and Angela Hemrick for helping to implement this survey. I would like to thank Don MacGregor and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the draft of the manuscript. References [1] R. Leakey, R. Lewin, The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind, Doubleday, New York, 1995. [2] Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report—Summary for Policy Makers, http://www.ipcc.ch (assessed November 23, 2005), 2001. [3] L. Garrett, The next pandemic? Foreign Affairs 84 (4) (2005) 3–23. [4] K. Deffeyes, Hubbert’s peak: the impending world oil shortage and the critical need for energy efficiency now, in: Presented at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy Summer Study in Buildings, Pacific Grove, CA, August 18, 2002.
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[5] M. Gerrard, Risks of hazardous waste sites versus asteroid and comet impacts: accounting for the discrepancies in U.S. resource allocation, Risk Analysis 20 (6) (2000) 895–904. [6] D. Rabinowitz, E. Helin, K. Lawrence, S. Pravdo, A reduced estimate of the number of kilometre-sized near-earth asteroids, Nature 403 (2000) 165–166. [7] M. Rees, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future in This Century—On Earth and Beyond, Basic Books, New York, 2003. [8] M. Leggett, An indicative costed plan for the mitigation of global risks, Futures 38 (2006) 778–809. [9] J. Leslie, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, Routledge, New York, 1996. [10] E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2002. [11] P. Seidel, Survival Research, World Futures 59 (3/4) (2003) 129–133. [12] B. Tonn, Research society: science and technology for the ages, Futures 36 (2004) 335–346. [13] J. Alcock, Belief and survival, World Futures 59 (3/4) (2003) 189–200. [14] D. Myers, The social psychology of sustainability, World Futures 59 (3/4) (2003) 201–211. [15] J. Gidley, Prospective youth visions through imaginative education, Futures 30 (5) (1998) 395–408. [16] D. Hicks, A lesson for the future: young people’s hopes and fears for tomorrow, Futures 28 (1) (1996) 1–13. [17] A. Rubin, The images of the future of young Finnish people (Sarja/Series D-2: 1998), The Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Turku, Finland, 1998. [18] B. Tonn, A. Hemrick, Impacts of the use of e-mail and the Internet on personal trip-making behavior, Social Science Computer Review 22 (2) (2004) 1–11. [19] Georgia Tech. University, GVU’s WWW User Surveys http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/user_surveys (accessed October 4, 2004). [20] B. Tonn, F. Conrad, A. Hemrick, Cognitive representations of the future: survey results, Futures 38 (2006) 810–829. [21] B. Tonn, F. Conrad, Thinking about the future: a psychological analysis, Social Behavior and Personality 35 (9) (2007) 889–902.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Futures journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/futures
Beliefs about human extinction Bruce Tonn * Department of Political Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, McClung Tower, Room 1018, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
This paper presents the results of a web-based survey about futures issues. Among many questions, respondents were asked whether they believe humans will become extinct. Forty-five percent of the almost 600 respondents believe that humans will become extinct. Many of those holding this believe felt that humans could become extinct within 500– 1000 years. Others estimated extinction 5000 or more years into the future. A logistic regression model was estimated to explore the bases for this belief. It was found that people who describe themselves a secular are more likely to hold this belief than people who describe themselves as being Protestant. Older respondents and those who believe that humans have little control over their future also hold this belief. In addition, people who are more apt to think about the future and are better able to imagine potential futures tend to also believe that humans will become extinct. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Available online 10 July 2009
1. Introduction The world faces many major and possibly catastrophic risks. Most are well known. Included in this group are massive species extinction [1], global warming [2], highly contagious and deadly pathogens [3], and exhaustion of oil supplies [4]. Less well known risks include those posed by asteroids [5,6]. Exotic risks include those posed by runaway nano-replicators and high energy physics experiments that might cause a tear in local space-time [7]. In combination, at the very least these risks pose a major challenge to humankind [8] and some believe threaten the extinction of the human species [7,9] and life in general [10]. It can be argued that much needs to be done to ensure that humans survive into the distant future [11,12]. It can also be argued that humans need to be willing to take the actions required to improve the probability of our survival. In other words, people need to believe in survival [13,14]. This paper reports the results of an international web survey on how individuals think about the future. The focus on this paper is human extinction. More specifically, this paper explores how pervasive is the belief that humans will become extinct and what factors underlie this belief. People who do not believe that humans have a future may be less willing to support efforts to improve our ability to survive into the future. If a large number of people held such beliefs, then it is possible that these beliefs could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The next section presents a discussion about the types of factors that may underlie people’s beliefs in the inevitability of human extinction. The third section describes the survey methodology and the demographics of the almost 600 survey respondents. The fourth section presents the results. This section begins with descriptive statistics and concludes with the results of a logistic regression where the binary dependent variable was whether or not respondents believe that humans will become extinct.
* Tel.: +1 865 974 7041; fax: +1 865 974 7037. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0016-3287/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures.2009.07.001
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2. Approach What factors might underlie an individual’s belief that humans will become extinct? Four categories are proposed. These categories are not completely mutually exclusive but are distinct enough from each other to allow exploratory assessment. Life context. Where a person is in his or her life may influence the belief that humans will become extinct. For example, younger individuals have been found to be more optimistic about the future [15,16,17] and therefore may be less inclined to believe that humans will become extinct. On the other hand, older individuals may have learned from experience that humans have the ability to adapt and muddle through and may also be less inclined toward the belief that humans will become extinct. One’s gender may have an influence as well. It could be hypothesized that males worry less about the future than females, leading to the hypothesis that males would be less inclined than females to believe that humans will become extinct. People with higher incomes and more education may find life less precarious than poor people and therefore may be less inclined to believe that all will come to an end. Religion. This is an exceedingly complex influence on the belief that humans will become extinct. Overall, though, one could hypothesize that those who are religious and believe in God may believe that God is watching over humans and would not let us become extinct. On the other hand, those who are more secular may tend to believe that the future is in our hands, that we will not receive any help, and that, given the current state of the world, we will probably fail to keep ourselves alive. Other beliefs. One’s beliefs about how the world works and about the general state of the world may influence one’s belief about whether humans will become extinct. For example, people who believe that humans do have control over their futures may tend to believe that humans can avoid extinction more than those who believe that humans have no control. Some people may be inherently optimistic and others inherently pessimistic; the latter might be more prone to believe that humans will become extinct than the former. Those who believe that humans are responsibly dealing with environmental and social problems would probably be less inclined to believe that we will become extinct. Thinking about the future. Survey respondents were asked how frequently they think about the future, how much they worry about the future, and how clearly they can imagine the future. It can be hypothesized that the future is scarier for people who do not think much about the future and who cannot imagine the future at all. For those people, the future is probably very dark and these people may tend to believe that we will become extinct. Of course, it can be hypothesized that worriers will also hold this belief. Prior to analyzing the survey results, no strong hypotheses were developed with respect to which types of influences may more strongly influence one’s belief about human extinction. 3. Survey methodology Survey data were collected for this research via a web-based survey. A web-based survey was chosen for reasons of cost and convenience. Additionally, using the web offered the opportunity to include people from all over the world through the implementation of a network sample of convenience. To initiate the solicitation of survey respondents, the survey implementers sent the web address of the survey to their primary e-mail correspondents and to various list serves. Those receiving the requests to complete the survey were then asked to pass the request along to others. There were no restrictions placed on who could answer this survey. This methodology was successful at generating a large number of respondents in a fairly short period of time: 572 people completed the survey from January to April 2004. Additionally, it is apparent that numerous secondary and tertiary contacts completed the survey. The network sample using a web-based approach, while cost and time efficient, does have drawbacks. First, the survey was limited to those with e-mail and web access. Second, because the sample was not random in the classical sense, it cannot be said, for example, that X% of the population of the United States views the word ‘future’ in some particular way. It can only be said what percentage of the sample held such views. Lastly, the sample is biased based upon the composition of the primary contacts. The composition of the primary contacts, in combination with the demographics of the typical Internet user, led to a sample dominated by U.S. citizens and people with higher than average incomes and educations (see Table 1), although it can be argued that the sample is typical of webusers [18,19]. On the other hand, Table 1 indicates that the sample is diverse with respect to sex, age, religion, domestic status, and households with children. A substantial number of students and others who do not work full-time also completed the survey. 4. Results 4.1. Descriptive statistics Table 2 presents the results for the question ‘‘Do you believe that humankind will become extinct?’’ Forty-five percent of the almost 600 respondents answered yes. Although no expectations had been developed before the survey was administered about what the percentage of affirmative answers there might be, this result seems surprisingly high to the
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Table 1 Demographics of Survey Respondents. Sex (%) Male Female
45.7 54.3
Age Mean Median Std. Min Max
40.0 37.0 14.1 13 83
Race/ethnicity (%) Caucasian Black Asian Hispanic Indian Arab Multiple
87.3 1.5 3.7 3.4 1.1 0.2 2.8
Country (%) U.S. Western Europe Eastern Europe Other
75 9.0 4.0 12.0
Domestic status (%) Single Married Co-habitating Divorced Widowed Other
26.9 55.8 8.1 6.9 1.9 0.4
Number of children (%) 0 1 2 3 4+
48.3 15.4 19.6 10.0 5.8
Number of grandchildren (%) 0 1 2 3 4+
85.5 3.0 3.5 2.1 4.7
Household income (%) Very poor Poor Middle class Upper middle class Upper class
0.9 6.0 58.6 31.5 3.0
Employment status (%) Work full-time Work part-time Unemployed Student Retired Other
58.8 8.1 4.9 19.2 6.0 0.5
Education (%) Less than High School High School Associate or Vocational Degree Some College College Degree Some Post-Degree Post College Degree
1.2 3.3 3.5 15.7 21.5 10.2 44.5
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Table 1 (Continued ) Religion (%) Christian Judaism Asian Traditional Pagan or New Age Secular or non-religious Other
54.7 2.8 4.0 7.6 27.2 3.7
Table 2 ‘‘Do You Believe That Humankind Will Become Extinct?’’ (%). Yes
No
Overall
45.1
54.9
Males Females
46.1 44.3
53.9 55.7
<30 years old 30–50 years old >50 years old
62.3 42.6 31.2
37.7 57.4 68.8
Christian Judaism Asian Traditional Pagan and New Age Secular and non-religious Other
37.7 25.0 60.9 51.2 59.7 33.3
62.3 75.0 39.1 48.8 40.3 66.7
author. Contrary to initial expectations, males were slightly more likely to believe that humans will become extinct than females. Also contrary to expectation, younger persons also tend to hold this believe, almost overwhelmingly. However, older persons, again almost overwhelmingly, tend to believe otherwise. Results broken out by religious affiliation are just as striking. Christians and Jews overwhelmingly do not believe that humans will become extinct but secular and non-religious people strongly believe otherwise. These results support initial hypotheses. A very large percentage of people who follow traditional Asian religions (e.g., Buddhism) also believe that humans will become extinct. Table 3 presents results of answers to the question ‘‘About what time will humankind become extinct?’’ While few believe that humans will become extinct within 100 years, a fair number who held this belief stated that humans will probably become extinct between 500 and 1000 years from now. It can be interpreted that these respondents believe that our current problems will do us in. A slightly larger number of people believe that humans will become extinct much farther into the future, even over one million years into the future. It can be interpreted that these people believe that humans will naturally go the way of most other species that have ever inhabited the earth. These interpretations are represented in Table 4, which reports the answers to the question ‘‘Why do you think that humankind will become extinct?’’ Environmental degradation, depletion of earth’s resources, war/politics/greed are among the answers that fit into the first interpretation and all species eventually become extinct, evolution, and other species will
Table 3 ‘‘About What Time will Humankind Become Extinct?’’ (%). Unsure when 10 years 50 years 100 years 500 years 1000 years 5000 years 10,000 years 100,000 years 1,000,000 years >1,000,000 years
35.3 0.0 0.8 2.3 11.3 15.0 9.0 6.0 7.9 5.3 7.1
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Table 4 ‘‘Why do you Think That Humankind Will Become Extinct?’’ (%). Religious reasons Environmental degradation All species eventually become extinct Evolution Other species will gain control Depletion of earth’s resources Overpopulation Global-scale natural disaster Climate change Epidemic illness or disease War/politics/greed Human self-destruction No idea No answer
3.8 6.8 7.0 3.0 0.7 5.1 1.4 2.8 2.3 0.5 5.6 4.2 0.3 56.5
gain control fit with the second interpretation. For a comprehensive summary of the results of this survey see Tonn et al. [20] and for a rigorous statistical assessment of the cognitive aspects of thinking about the future see Tonn and Conrad [21]. 4.2. Logistic regression model The above descriptive statistics suggest that there are strong differences of opinion on whether humans will become extinct and that these differences may be explainable by religious beliefs and by one’s life context. As noted above, other beliefs and how one thinks about the future may also influence one’s belief about the future of humankind. Regression models are typically specified and estimated to ascertain the strength of influence of a set of independent variables over a dependent variable, holding all other variables constant. In this case, a regression model could provide insights about the influence of variables in the four categories presented above on the key dependent variable, whether one believes that humans will become extinct. Because this dependent variable is binary (yes or no), a logistic regression model was estimated instead of the more common multiple regression model, which is appropriate for ratio scale dependent variables. A large number of independent variables were tested through logistic regression analysis. Variables with significance levels greater than 0.30 were dropped from the model. Variables with significance levels less than 0.10 were generally retained in the model. Variables with significance levels between 0.30 and 0.10 were retained in the model only if their inclusion increased the explanatory power of the model. Table 5 presents descriptive statistics for the independent variables that were retained in the model and not already reported in Table 1. The results of the logistic regression are presented in Table 6. The final model contains 14 independent variables. Overall the model is highly statistically significant and explains a fair amount of the variance in the data. The model correctly predicts 61% of respondents who said yes to the question about human extinction and 75% who said no. Life context variables. Only one life context variable remained in the final model, the age variable. The older the respondent, the less likely the respondent believes that humans will become extinct. This variable is highly significant and is consistent both with a prior hypothesis and the results presented in Table 2. Table 5 Descriptive statistics of other exogenous variables. Variable description Humankind has complete control over its future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) I am an optimist concerning the future of humankind (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) Humankind’s future will be radically different from today (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) Protestant (1 = yes, 0 = no) Humankind dealing with environmental concernsa (4 = very responsibly, 16 = not at all, responsibly) Humankind dealing with social concernsb (6 = very responsibly, 24 = not at all responsibly) Secular (1 = yes, 0 = no) How frequently do you think about the futurec (1 = very frequently, 4 = not at all) When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? (years) How clearly can you imagine the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very clearly, 4 = not at all clear) How actively should humanity plan for the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very actively, 4 = not at all actively) There are many paths open to me for my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) I am an optimist concerning my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) a
Mean
Std.
2.84 2.30 1.99 0.31
0.943 0.856 0.823 0.464
15.2 0.27 2.2 14.79 3.78 2.69 1.66 1.72
4.19 0.446 0.549 21.3 0.577 1.108 0.724 0.697
This variable is constructed from four environmental concerns: global warming, water quality, water quantity, and biodiversity. This variable is constructed from six social concerns: education, quality of life, peace and security, spirituality, economics, and politics. c This variable represents the mean for how frequently a respondent thinks about the future for seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future. b
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Table 6 Logistic regression model: Do you believe that humankind will become extinct? (1 = yes, 2 = no) [Nagelkerke R2 = 0.248; Sig. < 0.0001]. Variable
Parameter estimatePr > jtj
Humankind has complete control over its future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.382 I am an optimist concerning the future of humankind (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.324 Humankind’s future will be radically different from today (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.180 Protestant (1 = yes, 0 = no) 0.468 a Humankind dealing with environmental concerns (4 = very responsibly, 16 = not at all responsibly) 0.144 Humankind dealing with social concernsb (6 = very responsibly, 24 = not at all responsibly) 0.097 Secular (1 = yes, 0 = no) 0.483 0.512 How frequently do you think about the futurec (1 = very frequently, 4 = not at all) When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? (years)0.016 How clearly can you imagine the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very clearly, 4 = not at all clear) 0.314 How actively should humanity plan for the future over 1000 years from now? (1 = very actively, 4 = not at all actively) 0.112 Age (years) 0.024 There are many paths open to me for my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.394 I am an optimist concerning my future (1 = strongly agree, 4 = strongly disagree) 0.353 Constant 0.746
0.001 0.019 0.172 0.060 0.004 0.011 0.052 0.014 0.012 0.085 0.249 0.005 0.028 0.056 0.454
a
This variable is constructed from four environmental concerns: global warming, water quality, water quantity, and biodiversity. This variable is constructed from six social concerns: education, quality of life, peace and security, spirituality, economics, and politics. This variable represents the mean for how frequently a respondent thinks about the future for seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future. b c
All other life context variables were highly insignificant. These variables include gender, income, education, number of children, number of grandchildren, and country/region of residence. These results suggest that except for age, one’s life circumstances do not influence one’s beliefs about the future of humankind and also suggest that one’s beliefs might not change as one’s life circumstances change, with the exception of growing older. Religion variables. Two religion variables were retained in the model. One is a dummy variable for whether the respondent is a Protestant or not. Protestants tend to not believe that humans will become extinct. Other dummy variables for whether the respondent is Christian or not or is Catholic or not were tried in the model and were found to be highly insignificant. Protestants, and especially evangelicals in the Southern United States, believe in a highly active God. It can be hypothesized that this belief underlies their belief that humans will not become extinct because God will not allow that to happen. A more targeted survey is needed to probe this hypothesis in more depth. The other religion variable is a dummy variable for whether the respondent is secular, which also includes respondents who are non-religious. Respondents who fall into this category tend to believe that humans will become extinct. Both of these variables are significant, and are consistent with prior hypotheses and results presented in Table 2. These variables, as a set, appear to have more influence on the dependent variable than the life context variables, but as is shown below, maybe less influential than other beliefs. Other beliefs variables. Respondents were asked numerous questions about their own future, humankind’s future, and how responsibly humans are dealing with environmental and social problems. The results suggest that one’s beliefs about control over the future, tendency toward optimism, and assessment of humankind’s dealing with problems all influence whether or not they believe that humans will become extinct. Respondents who believe that humankind has complete control over its future tend to belief that we will not become extinct. This is the most significant independent variable in the model. This is a hopeful result, not a fatalist viewpoint. Unfortunately, referring to Table 5, most respondents tend to believe that humankind does not have control over its own future. In contrast, respondents who believe that there are many paths open for their futures tend to believe humans will become extinct. Maybe this question taps into respondent’s uncertainty about the future. The more open paths, the more uncertainty there is. And the more uncertainty about one’s own life may translate into grander uncertainties about the future of humankind. Optimists tend to believe that humans will survive. Respondents who are optimistic about the future of humankind and respondents who are optimistic about their own lives both believe in the future of humankind. Environmental variables weigh more heavily on the minds of respondents than social variables. As environmental concerns increase, belief in human extinction increases. In contrast, as social concerns increase, belief in human extinction decreases. This result might be explained by the fact that Protestants have more concerns about these social issues than other respondents but overwhelmingly believe that humans will not become extinct. Thinking about the future variables. Respondents were asked how frequently they thought about the future, how much they worried about the future, and how clearly they are able to imagine the future over seven different time periods, ranging from 1 day to 1 year to 20 years into the future for the first two variables and to over 1000 years for the last variable. Respondents were also asked the following question: When you hear someone use the word future, approximately how many years into the future does this mean to you? Lastly, respondents were asked how actively humankind should plan for the future with respect to numerous time periods. The final logistic regression model retained four thinking about the future variables.
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The most significant variable is the one related to respondent’s interpretation of the word future. As interpretations of this word increase, respondents tend to believe humankind will become extinct. In concert with this result, respondents who think more about the future across all time horizons tend to also believe that humans will become extinct. From previous research [20], it is known that seculars think more about the future than Christians and from above we know that seculars tend to think that humans will become extinct. Beyond this interpretation, one might surmise that people who are more futures-oriented may see more risks and may that understand grand patterns of geologic history work against the long-term survival of most species. In contrast with the thinking about the future variable, respondents who have much more difficulty imagining the distant future than other respondents tend to believe that humans will become extinct. Lastly, those who support planning for humankind’s distant future tend to believe that humans will become extinct, although this variable is not significant. It was somewhat surprising the variables that capture how much respondents worry about the future were all highly insignificant. Overall, as a set, the other belief variables appear to have the most influence on one’s belief about the future of humankind. However, the thinking about the future variables and religion variables also appear to have strong influences. Beliefs about the future of humanity depend not so much on who you are but depend upon a rich and complex array of beliefs, which themselves could be more or less influenced by how dedicated people are to thinking and imagining the future. 5. Conclusions A surprising number of respondents believe that humans will become extinct. Many believe that this event could take place in the next several centuries. Others believe that the event will happen many thousands of years into the future. It can be argued that the former believe that today’s problems will do us in whereas the latter believe that extinction is the natural fate of all species of earth-life. Important influences on whether one believes that humans will become extinct or not appear to include one’s age, religion, other beliefs (e.g., whether humans have control over their future or not), and how much and how clearly individuals think about the future. Older individuals, Protestants, and people who do not think much about the future tend to believe that we will not become extinct. Younger individuals, seculars, and people who do think about the future think otherwise. It is interesting that it is not known with any certainty which group of respondents is more likely to be correct. It is the opinion of the author that the probability of human extinction is probably fairly low, maybe one chance in tens of millions to tens of billions, given humans’ abilities to adapt and survive. However, it would be useful as a future research exercise to estimate ranges of probabilities of human extinction for various time periods both for the use of policy makers and to allow researchers to assess the accuracy of respondents’ perceptions of this risk. It is not clear whether respondents who believe that humans will become extinct support efforts to improve the probability of our survival less than respondents who believe otherwise. However, there is one hint that this might be the case because sign of the coefficient of planning for the future variable in the logistic regression suggests that people who support long-term planning also believe that humans will become extinct. One can hope that these combinations of beliefs would lead to a self-defeating prophecy. Evaluation of the logistic regression results implies that a very complex set of factors underlies individuals’ beliefs about human extinction. More research is needed, for example, to clarify the relationships of religious beliefs to this belief. For example, do people who believe in the Second Coming and in heaven also believe that humans will not become extinct because they will live on in other realms? It can be assumed that the futures community desires citizens to care about the future of humans and other species on earth. This research suggests that individuals’ beliefs influence beliefs about extinction more than life circumstances. The results also suggest that thinking and imagining the future also play an important role. Taken together, this research suggests that education about the future and systems and training in futures thinking could prove exceedingly beneficial. However, much more research is needed to clarify which sets of beliefs to target educational programs.
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