Horizon

by Barry Lopez

The difference between what is today the flickering hint of speciation on the horizon for H. sapiens and an event we can look back on, the survival of H. sapiens and the eclipse of H. neanderthalensis, is that with any future divergence in Homo, geography might not play the strong role it traditionally has. Two increasingly different groups of H. sapiens, one with a high degree of technological competence, the other far less able to manage psychologically in this realm, might come to represent distinct populations not because they are separated by geographic space, once a requirement for speciation, but because they are divided by electronic space: they will have ceased to communicate effectively with each other. The psychological space between them might rapidly become too great to bridge, leaving both groups isolated on either side of a chasm, and neither group in a superior position.