My father so appropriately put it that we are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species.

If you want to become a fossil, you need to die somewhere where your bones will be rapidly buried. You then hope that the Earth moves in such a way as to bring the bones back up to the surface.

I think when you work on fossils, and you realize that a species is there, and it's abundant for quite a long period of time, and then at some point it's no longer there - and so, when you look at that bigger picture, yes, you realize that either you change and adapt, or, as a species, you go extinct.

Who are we? That is the big question. And essentially we are just an upright-walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape.

My father so appropriately put it that we are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species.

Its important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know thats a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future.

What is it that really makes us, us? It's our collective intelligence. It's our ability to write things down, our language and our consciousness.