"Nature cannot be destroyed. Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but in so doing opened the way forward for mammals. Today, humankind is driving many [if not all] species into extinction and might even annihilate itself. But other organisms are doing quite well. Rats and cockroaches, for example, are in their heyday. These tenacious creatures would probably creep out from beneath the smoking rubble of a nuclear Armageddon, ready and able to spread their DNA. Perhaps 65 million years from now, intelligent rats will look back gratefully on the decimation wrought by humankind, just as we today can thank that dinosaur-busting asteroid."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), Chapter 18: "A Permanent Revolution"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Extinction
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Extinction
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