"Human history is mainly the history of human customs, and we know very little of animal history from this point of view. Nevertheless animals do change their customs."—John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, British Geneticst, What is Life?, 1947

"Animals are changing, and I cannot tell you why."—Inusiq Nasalik, 88-year-old Inuit elder, September 6, 2004

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Last year I was asked to write an article for this magazine about the future of the human race, a topic on which my sporadic descents to the crushing mental depths of pop-rock culture crit had predictably made me the go-to guy. Nonetheless I undertook in all good faith to fulfill the assignment. The future of the human race is something we ought to take seriously, since despite all the fortunes spent on those giant space-monitoring radio dishes and the exploratory satellites and whatnot, there exists not a shred of conclusive evidence to contradict the rational assumption that away from this blue ball we live on, the universe is an infinity of unfeeling matter. So let's keep this thing going, is my take.

Pursuing insight, I spent a couple of days at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University in England. I called the woman I'd been told was the most farsighted person at FEMA. I talked to any self-identifying and not instantly, obviously insane futurologist who'd answer a query—Bill Lilly at the New School for Human Advancement was especially accommodating. I spoke with someone at the Vatican. The Vatican actually has a future expert, essentially a house Book of Revelation wonk. In short, I want you to know that I tried and tried, for months, to write about something other than what I've ended up writing on here, a tangent that came up early in the research but immediately screamed career killer and was repeatedly shunted aside by this reporter in favor of things like out-of-control nanotechnology of the near future (which, you'll be delighted to hear, is something they're fairly concerned ...