ABSTRACT
Catastrophes such as the one that took place at the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary (in short, the K/T boundary) 65 million years ago wipe out large standing stocks of living creatures. These catastrophes are contingent upon the presence of natural ‘threats’, if one so wishes, of various kinds. These threats are well identified, but it seems that only those that happen on historical timescales, i.e. those that are experienced by mankind, undergo ample treatment and are considered worthy of intense scientific scrutiny (and proper funding). I do not consider here the disasters that mankind imposes upon himself, such as the Second World War, although the next major extinction event since the K/T boundary is likely to be contingent upon the ubiquitous presence of our species over the entire world (Ward 1993). A successful species does not tolerate the presence of a competitor. And animals, if not subjected to our use, are by definition competitors to mankind. Thus, as a purely hypothetical prediction: the next intelligent species will appear on Earth only when mankind totally disappears or is kept in cages or reserves where it poses no threat to the then prevailing intelligent species. A similar thing happened to mammals: they had already been there for over 120 million years during the reign of the dinosaurs, but only the disappearance of the dinosaurs made their successful evolution and proliferation possible.
