"Darwinian Pool Room" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

. It was first published in the October 1950 issue of ''

Galaxy Science Fiction ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editi ...

'', edited by Horace L Gold, and reprinted in the 1975 collection '' Buy Jupiter and Other Stories''. The story was inspired by lunch-time discussions between the author and his colleagues at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. In 1989 Asimov noted, "I have always considered it among the least satisfactory stories I have ever written".Personal communication reported in N. Goldman, "Statistical estimation of evolutionary trees" (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1992

Plot summary

A group of

scientist A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...

s held a lunch-time discussion concerning the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

and

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of lifeforms on Earth, including the

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s. One of them concludes that the present

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...

may be coming to an end, that no one can tell what or who comes next, and if it is a part of the

divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine

purpose. Furthermore, he strongly hints that in creating both robots and nuclear weapons, humanity has created its own doom and successors.

References

External links

*
"Darwinian Pool Room"
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Short stories by Isaac Asimov 1950 short stories Cue sports literature Science fiction short stories Works originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction {{1950s-sf-story-stub