The room was silent. At the podium, Malcolm frowned. The eminent mathematician was not accustomed to being told he had not thought through his ideas. "What's your point," he said.
Levine appeared indifferent to the tension in the room. "Just this," he said. "During the Cretaceous, Dinosauria were widely distributed across the planet, We have found their remains on every continent, and in every climatic zone - even in the Antarctic. Now. If their extinction was really the result of their behavior, and not the consequence of a Catastrophe, or a disease, or a change in plant life, or any of the other broad-scale explanations that have been proposed, then it seems to me highly unlikely that they all changed their behavior at the same time, everywhere. And that in turn means that there may well be some remnants of these animals still alive on the earth. Why couldn't you look for them?"
"You could," Malcolm said coldly, "if that amused you. And if you had no more compelling use for your time."
"No, no," Levine said earnestly. "I'm quite serious. What if the dinosaurs did not become extinct? What if they still exist? Somewhere in an isolated spot on the planet."
"You're talking about a Lost World," Malcolm said, and heads in the room nodded knowingly. Scientists at the Institute had developed a shorthand for referring to common evolutionary scenarios. They spoke of the Field of Bullets, the Gambler's Ruin, the Game of Life, the Lost World, the Red Queen, and Black Noise. These were well-defined ways of thinking about evolution. But they were all -
"No," Levine said stubbornly. "I am speaking literally."
"Then you're badly deluded," Malcolm said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. He turned away from the audience, and walked slowly to the blackboard. "Now, if we consider the implications of the edge of chaos, we may begin by asking ourselves, what is the minimal unit of life? Most contemporary definitions of life would include the presence of DNA, but there are two examples which suggest to us that this definition is too narrow. If you consider viruses and so-called prions, it is clear that life may in fact exist without DNA…"
At the back of the room, Levine stared for a moment. Then, reluctantiv he sat down, and began to make notes.
The Lost World Hypothesis
The lecture ended, Malcolm hobbled across the open courtyard of the Institute, shortly after noon. Walking beside him was Sarah Harding, a young field biologist visiting from Africa. Malcolm had known her for several years, since he had been asked to serve as an Outside reader for her doctoral thesis at Berkeley.
Crossing the courtyard in the hot summer sun, they made an unlikely pair: Malcolm dressed in black, stooped and ascetic, leaning on his cane; Harding compact and muscular, looking young and energetic in shorts and a tee shirt, her short black hair pushed up on her forehead with sunglasses. Her field of study was African predators, lions and hyenias. She was scheduled to return to Nairobi the next day.
The two had been close since Malcolm's surgery. Harding had been on a sabbatical year in Austin, and had helped nurse Malcolm back to health, after his many operations. For a while it seemed as if a romance had blossomed, and that Malcolm, a confirmed bachelor, would settle down. But then Harding had gone back to Africa, and Malcolm had gone to Santa Fe. Whatever their former relationship had been, they were now just friends.
They discussed the questions that had come at the end of his lecture. From Malcolm's point of view, there had been only the predictable objections: that mass extinctions were important; that human beings owed their existence to the Cretaceous extinction, which had wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed the mammals to take over. As one questioner had pompously phrased it, "The Cretaceous allowed our own sentient awareness to arise on the planet."
Malcom's reply was immediate: "What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told -and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may, well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question."
Now, walking across the courtyard, Sarah Harding laughed. "They didn't care for that."
I admit it's discouraging," he said. "But it can't be helped." He shook his head. "These are some of the best scientists in the country, and still…no interesting ideas. By the way, what's the story on that guy who interrupted me?"