Bruno Maddox says : Let me begin by assuring you I have nothing but respect for Dr. Stephen Hawking, the noted physicist and raconteur.
... Which is why I was perplexed this past June when Stephen went public with his view that humanity is doomed to extinction unless it finds another planet to live on. "It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," he told an audience in China. "Life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
... What bothered me was that Stephen should be troubling himself with such low-hanging fruit in the first place. Anyone blessed with even basic cable knows there are very real threats to the future of human life on this planet: mega-tsunamis, supervolcanoes, Ultimate Fighting Championships. Saying that the long-term future of life on Earth is uncertain is like saying that the future of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance? is uncertain. It's rather obvious. And once you have your brain around that rather straightforward premise, it doesn't take much intellectual heavy lifting to figure out that if we were able to establish an extraterrestrial outpost or two, our odds would improve dramatically.
I expect that Steven Hawking made this pronouncement for the same reason I write many of my own blogs. To the well-informed, they may be obvious. However, there is much ignorance about science in our society. Having information available on cable TV doesn't mean people watch it. Just a few years ago, when tests showed that our children and adults have poor knowledge and understanding of science, some people were asking, with a straight face, why does it matter whether most of our citizens understand science. Even for those who may be interested, there is only so much time in the day. Eg., many people have full-time jobs and also families and yards to take care of. Many are working more than one job, or long hours. Also, many people get their "news" from sources which give false information on scientific matters. It may be hard for many to conceive of, but there are many people who have never heard of the greenhouse effect and global warming. Few people read my blogs, but when Steven Hawking makes a pronouncement, it gets a lot of press and people pay attention, and may learn about issues they would not hear of otherwise.
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