We are the most powerful species in the known universe, and with great power comes great responsibility. We ask the experts what our role should be

“WE COULD be the universe’s sole repository of wisdom, scientific insight and technology. Threats to our future are threats to the existence of self-awareness. That ups the ante: we have a responsibility to preserve life on Earth and our own civilisation. We have powers no other species has had before, we’re changing the world, but as yet not in any sustainable way: it’s random and unthought-out.”

David Grinspoon Planetary Science Institute Tucson, Arizona

“We’ve no grounds for assuming that novel human-induced catastrophes are improbable. Indeed, we have zero grounds for confidence that we can survive the worst that future technologies could bring in their wake. Our planet, though tiny, could be cosmically important. And the mission of the first interstellar voyagers from Earth could resonate through the entire galaxy – and perhaps beyond.”


Martin Rees UK Astronomer Royal

“There’s a big difference between having one successful civilisation and having none. If you want us to eventually colonise the stars, we need to minimise the catastrophic events that could disrupt civilisation now: getting a reasonable response to climate change, limiting nuclear weapons and improving surveillance for pandemics over resourcing space programmes. We must make sure nothing disrupts civilisation.”

Nick Beckstead Formerly of the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford

“Unlike any other organism on the planet, we have foresight, we understand what’s happening, and we have science and technology. The pieces are there, we just have to realise what we’ve got to do. The most important thing is to see Earth as a very, very extraordinary place that needs guardians. That’s a role we should take for ourselves – in a way, you could say we’d be looking after the entire universe.”

David Waltham Geophysicist and author of Lucky Planet

“While it’s tempting to anthropomorphise the universe as something to which we owe good behaviour, I suspect such fealty is merely a way to chastise ourselves for the perceived sins of contemporary society. The cosmos is three times the age of our planet. It has workings and, I’m sure, intelligence of types we are incapable of imagining. The crises faced by humanity today are important to us, but they will eventually prove no more significant than a thin bed of sediment in the deep stratigraphy of the universe.”

Seth Shostak Director of the Center for SETI Research, Mountain View, California

“We know precious little about our place in the universe, except for one thing: we, and any existing cohort of civilisations, will appear as “first born” to anyone living in our universe a 100 billion years from now. So, in the sense of timing, our place in the universe is special. And we have potential, like children: free of responsibilities and growing up to see where life takes us. We might grow up and write the early history of the universe – or not.”

Dimitar D. Sasselov Astronomer and director of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative

Read more: “The human universe: Exploring our place in space”

This article appeared in print under the headline “The universe is ours”