The American astronomer and planetary scientist, Carl Sagan, gave a lecture in Glasgow back in 1985 where he stated, “by far most of the species of life that have ever existed are now extinct. Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”
In his 1961 book Fact and Fiction, British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man. “For the present, it is nuclear weapons that cause the gravest danger, but bacteriological or chemical weapons may, before long, offer even a greater threat.”