Without birds to feed on them, the insects would multiply catastrophically. The insects, not man or other proud species, are really the only ones fitted for survival in the nuclear age. The cockroach, a venerable and hardy species, will take over the habitats of the foolish humans, and compete only with other insects or bacteria.
The next decade will perhaps raise us a step above despair to a cleaner, clearer wisdom and biology cannot fail to help in this. As we become increasingly aware of the ethical problems raised by science and technology, the frontiers between the biological and social sciences are clearly of critical importance-in population density and problems of hunger, psychological stress, pollution of the air and water and exhaustion of irreplaceable resources.
We are like the explorers of a great continent, who have penetrated its margins in most points of the compass and have mapped the major mountain chains and rivers. There are still innumerable details to fill in, but the endless horizons no longer exist.
No parents will in that future time have the right to burden society with a malformed or mentally incompetent child.
The advances of biology during the past 20 years have been breathtaking, particularly in cracking the mystery of heredity. Nevertheless, the greatest and most difficult problems still lie ahead. The discoveries of the 1970's about the chemical roots of memory in nerve cells or the basis of learning, about the complex behavior of man and animals, the nature of growth, development, disease and aging will be at least as fundamental and spectacular as those of the recent past.
The races are in fact disappearing, although the process will require thousands of years at present rates
