Stephen Hawking Places His Bet On What Will Cause the Apocalypse

Apocalypse watchers, if you were anticipating an ape uprising or Armageddon-style asteroid bringing about the end of days, you may want to heed Stephen Hawking’s hot tip.

The legendary theoretical physicist reckons the good money is on humanity ending existence all on our own, suggesting that our ancient, ingrained, primordial “aggression” will likely cause a civilisation-terminating nuclear war.

Speaking at London’s Science Museum, Dr. Hawking dropped this mood-killing prediction on the “lucky” competition winner he was charged with giving an exclusive tour.

“The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression… It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”

It’s not all bad though.

Dr. Hawking says if aggression could be replaced by “empathy” - the one human trait he’d like to enhance - we might be alright.

“It brings us together in a peaceful loving state.”

Then again, if aggression wins out and we destroy the planet, we could always go live on the moon.

Dr. Hawking calls it our “life insurance.”

“I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonising other planets.”

Then, to lighten the mood, Dr. Hawking discussed the performance of Eddie Redmayne in his biopic The Theory of Everything, for which the young actor won an Oscar yesterday.

“Unfortunately, Eddie did not inherit my good looks.”

This guy, with the zingers.