The End of Evolution

"This too shall pass." - King Solomon

When in high school a very well-read friend once told me of an author who postulated that "god" would be the end product of evolution. How elegantly poetic and ironic, I thought - God as an effect of the material universe rather than its cause. I am not quite ready to subscribe to that particular theory of course, being agnostic both about god and evolution by natural selection, but it has made me think about the subject from time to time. Where is evolution going? What's at then end of the road?

For the sake of considering the question you may take it that I am not agnostic about EBNS but that I am a card carrying devotee.

I do have an answer - speculative, to be sure, but possessing that simplicity that appeals to me and my "draw me a picture" mind. So here goes, evolution will have an end product, assuming:

1. There is enough time. By this I mean assuming the planet is not prematurely destroyed by a meteorite or other calamity and assuming that the "real" god doesn't finally recognize his experiment with this "life" business as being the catastrophic failure it is and decide to just put an end the whole thing once and for all.
2. Viruses remain as they are - unconquered, rapidly and endlessly mutating.
3. There is potentially at least one form of virus that would be lethal to each species.
4. Humans do not manage to build a gadget that allows us to travel faster than the speed of light so do not manage to get off this mudball when things begin to get dodgey.

If these assumptions prove true, methinks the final product of the evolution of life will be no life. Eventually viruses will mutate to forms that will be lethal to species after species until there are no species, and therefore no host cells, left in which the viruses themselves can replicate.

That's it. No lenghty exegesis with countless citations. No punch line. Just my notion in a nutshell.

This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a sniffle.