ABSTRACT

Originally published in 1960, The Future of Man is a chronicle of Professor Medwar’s Reith lectures of 1959. The book outlines his predictions about the future estate of man, with the ‘process of foretelling, rather than with what is actually foretold’. He asks, can we predict the future size of populations? What is the evidence and theoretical background for the belief that human intelligence is declining? Could human beings become uniformly excellent or is inborn diversity and inequality a necessary part of the texture of human populations? The lectures tried to answer these questions and attempts to end with a definition of the biological standing of man. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, biologists and natural historians.

chapter |2 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|16 pages

The Fallibility of Prediction

chapter 2|15 pages

The Meaning of Fitness

chapter 3|15 pages

The Limits of Improvement

chapter 4|15 pages

The Genetic System of Man

chapter 5|16 pages

Intelligence and Fertility

chapter 6|16 pages

The Future of Man