Science: David Attenborough warns humans have stopped evolving

The veteran natural history broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough, warned that future generations face less happy and healthy lives as resources become increasingly stretched and natural wonders disappear. For this reason he thinks that it is irresponsible to have a large family in today’s overcrowded world.

Sir David spoke ahead of his new two-part documentary David Attenborough’s Rise Of Animals: Triumph Of The Vertebrates, which will start on September 20 on BBC2.

Sir David, who has two children, added: ‘If you were able to persuade people that it is irresponsible to have large families in this day and age, and if material wealth and material conditions are such that people value their materialistic life and don’t suffer as a consequence, then that’s all to the good.’

‘But I’m not particularly optimistic about the future. I think we’re lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse.’

'I’m luckier than my grandfather, who didn’t move more than five miles from the village in which he was born. I have all kinds of pleasures and luxuries that I appreciate and I’m very, very fortunate. I think that applies to the majority of people – in this country, at any rate.’

‘But I think that in another 100 years people will look back at a world that was less crowded, full of natural wonders, and healthier.’

But he said he didn’t think humans faced extinction in an increasingly overcrowded world.

He told the Radio Times: ‘We’re very clever and extremely resourceful, and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I’m sure.’

‘But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question. We may reduce in numbers – that would actually be a help, though the chances of it happening within the next century is very small. I should think it’s impossible, in fact.’

And he said that humans have become so advanced that they have stopped evolving.

He explained: ‘If natural selection, as proposed by Darwin, is the main mechanism of evolution... then we’ve stopped natural selection.’

‘We stopped natural selection as soon as we started being able to rear 95-99 per cent of our babies.’

Sir David, who was fitted with a pacemaker in June, said he has no plans to retire.

‘I don’t ever want to stop work. Sure, something’s going to wear out some time and I won’t be able to do it, but while I can – and people want me to, and people look at the result – I’m delighted to work,’ he said.

‘If I was earning my money by hewing coal I would be very glad indeed to stop. But I’m not; I’m swanning around the world looking at the most fabulously interesting things. Such good fortune.’