Aggression should be weeded out of the human race and replaced by empathy, according to renowned physicist professor Stephen Hawking.
The celebrity scientist also said he believes the future of the human race depended on space travel.
Prof Hawking made the comments while escorting an American visitor around London's Science Museum as part of a "Guest of Honour" prize.
Adaeze Uyanwah, 24, from the US won the tour after producing a blog and video describing a "perfect day" in the UK capital.
She asked Prof Hawking what human shortcomings he would alter, and which virtues he would enhance if this was possible.
"The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory, or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.
"A major nuclear war would be the end of civilisation, and maybe the end of the human race. The quality I would most like to magnify is empathy. It brings us together in a peaceful, loving state."
The professor added that human space exploration was "life insurance" for the human race and must continue.
"Sending humans to the moon changed the future of the human race in ways that we don't yet understand," he said.
"It hasn't solved any of our immediate problems on planet Earth, but it has given us new perspectives on them and caused us to look both outward and inward.
"I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonising other planets."
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