J. B. Ss. HALDANE 
What, then, can we hope for, ten thousand years hence, 
if things go as well as I can imagine them going? Do not 
take what follows as a probability, but as a fairly optimistic 
suggestion of possibilities. When I write “will” I 
mean, “‘may, with what—to my ignorance—seems reasonable 
luck”’. 
Man will still be polytypic, but less so than now. He will be 
much more polymorphic, though I hope that the lowest 50 per 
cent of present mankind for any achievement will be repre- 
sented by only 5 per cent in our descendants. I do not think 
there will be universal racial fusion. For most countries will 
fairly soon fill up, and will welcome tourists, but hardly immi- 
grants. I do not believe in racial equality, though of course 
there is plenty of overlap; but I have no idea who surpasses 
whom in what. To take a simple example, a few communities, 
for example of Nilotic negroes, have remained at the stage of 
primitive communism, with no government. One such tribe 
includes a group of men whose whole function is to stop quar- 
rels, not to administer justice. Perhaps these people behaved, on 
the whole, so decently that no government was needed. If so 
they may be better qualified to rule the British than the British 
were to rule them. When opportunities are nearly equalized, 
some races are found to produce far more superior people at 
some particular function than others. Thus in the United States 
people of both sexes with tropical African ancestry excel in 
sprinting. The opportunities for intellectual pursuits have not, 
of course, ever been equalized anywhere. The only tropical 
African who has yet made a major scientific discovery is Pascal 
Lissouba, who has discovered a new genetical phenomenon. 
My guess is that tropical Africans include more potential bio- 
logists than potential physicists. However, I think the intellec- 
tual élite of the world will be of very mixed racial origins, per- 
haps with a median colour about that of northern Indians today. 
This is because in science at any rate racial origins and ancestral 
traditions impose no appreciable barrier. I get on far better 
with intelligent Indians or Japanese than with Europeans whose 
interests differ from my own. 
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