Haim and Jeul 1

(Earth)

Haim: What is extinction?

Jeul: Extinction is when a life form dies off forever. Not just one or two or a lot of them, but all of them.

H: How does that happen?

J: They meet a threat that they can’t outmaneuver with behavior or outnumber with reproductive strategies.

Has extinction ever gotten a life form?

Of course. Extinction is the destiny of all life forms. That, or being a transitional form.

What’s a transitional form?

A transitional form is a kind of living thing that is a member of a group of living things that is becoming something other than what they already are. I mean, they are evolving.

There are only two ways? Being a dead life form or a transitional life form?

I meant that if your offspring aren’t suited to the world, which changes, then they die.

And I meant that there are only two kinds of creature. There are ones that are changing and then there are the ones that are not changing; they’re dying. So if a bunch of life forms are stuck in one shape then they are dying?

Okay. That’s right.

What if the world isn’t changing?

But it is.

But we’re pretty good at making the world how we want to make it. We grow food, we live in homes, and we cooperate to make sure that our babies grow up.

Even if we manage our relationship with the world very well, it still changes in surprising ways. Sometimes we do not do things according to the program. Sometimes things out of our control happen. Others make war against us, others enslave us, disasters occur.

Extinction can’t get us?

Naturally it can.

How terrible!

Well, I imagine that when you’re dead, you don’t mind being dead very much.

But, why should it happen to us?

Why shouldn’t it?

Because we are positively smart life forms, aren’t we?

We are; but don’t we die?

Yes, but not all of us, not forever.

Won’t there eventually be no more babies?

I don’t see it!

Sometime. Something will eventually happen.

H: What could happen? There are so very many of us.

J: A meteor might do the job. A disease. Perhaps we will kill ourselves off in warfare.

Haim: We must try to prevent that then.

Jeul: Don’t pout about it. It won’t happen anytime soon.