leer en español The Lucretius Problem is believing the worst thing that has happened is the worst thing that can happen. In the present age, a ridiculous assumption. This conundrum belongs to Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman philosopher born a century before Christ who believed in evolution – things can only get better – and thought the earth was infinite, not a sphere. With its myriad deities, Lucretius believed that ‘the nature of the gods is an utter lack of interest in humans and their affairs.’ He taught his students that Nature is constantly experimenting, killing off the weak and promoting organisms that have the best chance of survival. Lucretius wrote: ‘Anyone who has not seen a great river before will think upon seeing one for the first time that none could ever be larger. With all things, the largest – whatever it is – that a man has ever seen, he views as prodigious. Even though all things along with heaven, earth and the oceans are nothing compared to the total s...