So the best scientists in the world were asked “If civilisation was destroyed, what scientific information would you pass on to the survivors?” - And all they could come up with was basically, choose the most precious bits of information that would hopefully allow the survivors to restore our great civilisation (and possibly repeat our mistakes)?<p>IMHO “If civilisation was destroyed,” given current environmental status (exhausting resources, pollution, rising sea levels and temperatures, almost 75% of species gone extinct in the last century), as well as our unsustainable economy, corrupted political leaders, and proliferated nuclear weapons (still) powerful enough to fully obliterate mankind (if not the whole of life on Earth), it would most likely be due to ourselves.<p>So the best bits of information I would pass on to survivors would be those that would allow them not to repeat our mistakes: &quot;take care of the environment, and don&#x27;t make war to each other; do this with the utmost diligence - keep in mind it&#x27;s a really tough job; so tough in fact, that we failed, and all of our advanced technology, with all of our wisdom, wasn&#x27;t enough to prevent our collapse.&quot;<p>Edit: I understand my answer is perhaps OT (in the sense that it&#x27;s not scientific information) but nevertheless if we want to maximise the survivors&#x27; chances...to survive, I would rather ensure they do not make our mistakes; because if we assume they&#x27;d have their own history and evolution (as a civilisation), just like we did, then we might assume as well, that they would make mostly similar discoveries, so there&#x27;s no point in telling them in advance what they are going (sooner or later) to find out by themselves anyway.