What Comes After Homo Sapiens?

Popular science at its best, What Comes After Homo Sapiens? presents "the Simborg Hypothesis," the startling theory that another human species will emerge in the next two centuries. Dr. Simborg notes that in our evolutionary history two or more human species coexisting is the norm rather than the exception. Furthermore, our tools to alter our genes, our environment, and our technology are unprecedented, and increasingly effective. Dr. Simborg is a physician, board certified in internal medicine and an expert in medical informatics. He theorizes that we will soon see a new human species that will coexist with us. It will be a much different kind of coexistence than what we know of our coexistence with the Neanderthals. What Comes After Homo Sapiens? addresses fundamental questions such as • How exactly do we differ from our closest evolutionary relatives, living and extinct? • How will we know when the new humans have split off into a new species? • When will that happen and what will that new species be like? • What are the chances that Homo sapiens will become extinct? Dr. Simborg surveys the history of our evolution and explains key concepts about genetic engineering, speciation, artificial intelligence and neuroscience creating in What Comes After Homo Sapiens? a de facto multi-disciplinary primer. Building on a foundation of anthropology, genomics, paleontology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, "the Simborg Hypothesis" answers the existential question: What Comes after Homo Sapiens?

Life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago. We have had two momentous evolutionary events since then: the emergence of Eukarya about 2 billion years ago (the basis of all plants and animals) and the enlargement in size and capability of the human brain, which began about 2 million years ago. Otherwise humans have had a remarkably stable evolutionary process. But now, two technologies, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, are converging rapidly to create a third momentous event: the creation of the next human species. • There are over seven billion people alive today, consisting of many variations in physical, mental, cultural and genetic characteristics. We occupy virtually every livable land-based niche on earth. Yet we are all one species, Homo sapiens. • All Homo sapiens can freely interbreed with each other and have normal offspring. This is the essence of what we call a species. • We are also all humans, a term that can expand to include multiple species as it has in the past. Humans were formed through the forces of evolution. The evolutionary process involves changes in our genetic makeup interacting with the environment. Darwin called this natural selection and it has been going on for billions of years. It never stopped. Before humans emerged, we shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Although there is some uncertainty concerning the exact path, our species developed in Africa through many stages of what we call human, and eventually Homo sapiens spread throughout the world. A second human species, which I’m calling Homo nouveau, will soon coexist with us. Although this seems astonishing, having more than one human species living simultaneously with other human species was the usual case for millions of years. The astonishing part is how it will happen for Homo nouveau. —Don Simborg

Dr. Simborg is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and former faculty member at both the Johns Hopkins and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine. He is the founder of two electronic medical records companies and was a founding member of the American College of Medical Informatics. He and his wife, Madeleine, have two children and four grandchildren and live in California.