Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection. But many tend to think that humans are still somehow the culmination of that. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch that sun’s demise 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then do exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoeba.

Sir Martin Rees (via sixtyforty)