I was watching a programme a while ago, I think called "Life After People"
It's basic conclusion was that, if all humans suddenly vanished from the Earth, it would only take at most, 200,000 years before any alien civilisation visiting would not be able to find a single trace of our ever having existed in the first place.
Everything, even the hardest of our stone structures would have been reclaimed by the environment.
My question is therefore this.
After 65 to perhaps over 100 million years, had there been a dinosaur civilisation on a par with maybe the ancient Egyptians, what evidence would be left today and how easy would it be to find it and identify it correctly?
Is it simply human arrogance to assume that we are the first 'peoples' of the Earth?
"Is it simply human arrogance to assume that we are the first 'peoples' of the Earth?"
No, the fossil evidence and current Evolutionary theory rules out this possibility. Yes, perhaps buildings would be reclaimed by the environment, but human remains would have been fossilized. Seeing as we have fossils that are some billions of years old, I hardly think 200,000 years is enough for everything to disappear, bones and all.
If you take the "vanishing" as literal vanishing then there is only one explanation: That these "peoples" didn't evolve on Earth, but colonized the planet and then left for some reason.
It's not arrogance, merely conclusive analysis.
I agree that their fossils would be left but that's about it.
Even now paleontologists are discovering new species of dinosaur and supposing that this civilisation was small and confined to just one part of the globe, a region which is now perhaps under water or ice.
Unlikely as it is I still feel that the possibility remains.
We have mapped about 5% of the oceon. At the end of the last Ice Age 100 of thousands of miles of land went under. Even today most of our cities are located around the coast. I think it is highly possible that another civilisation could have existed before the Ice Age.
Yeah, the possibility is there, but it isn't arrogant to assume we were the first people given the evidence.
Yeah, the possibility is there, but it isn't arrogant to assume we were the first people given the evidence.
I hereby withdraw the aforementioned statement.
I agree with you Adrian, we must first use the evidence we have and biuld from there.
I disagree.
The fact that human beings exist is all the evidence that I need to lead me to the conclusion that we are not the first is a distinct possibility.
If I had the time and the money I'd be straight out there trying to find the evidence to support (or disprove) my ideas.
If we only ever worked from evidence we had and never worked from a hunch or an idea or sheer speculative thinking then we wouldn't be where we are today.
However, we must never fall in love with our theories and be willing to give them up if they fall apart, but we will have learnt something by doing so.
I consider that speculative thinking about undiscovered civilisations whithout having the lightest clue are paralel to discussing about let's say the transport problems of the angels in Heaven.
Let's presume that there existed a previous similar to human civilsation some hundred of milions of years ago ,so what?
Does it have any importance from the point of view of science of to day?
Would we have one winy tyny piece of fossil then may be it would have had any importance.
But whithout it all speculation on this subject is a matter of science fiction not worthy to be linked to real science
Let's say that there is a similar civilisation to humans somewhere out there in the galaxy. So what? I think S.E.T.I. would have something to say about that!
Let's say the hypothetical Higgs Boson particle really exists. So What? The people at C.E.R.N. would have something to say about that!
Should all the paleontologists all hang up their tools because any discovery they make can have no importance to science today?
Should the archaeologists all go home and stop trying find earlier and earlier examples of human civilisation because, well, who cares?
The difference between speculating about a pre-human culture and wondering how angels get to heaven is so vast that I'm surprised you had the gaul to use it as an example.
I concede that given the mechanism that evolution uses the chances of there ever having been a species even approaching that of human intelligence are very, very remote. However, many theories, speculative at the time, proposed by scientists have also been pilloried and ridiculed by their peers but are now excepted as fact. The formation of the moon and the discovery of the solar winds spring to mind.
Presumably then your attitude is that no theory is worth bothering with unless there is at least some form of evidence to start with. This is not my view of science. My view is that you start with a theory and then try to gather any evidence that either adds to or detracts from it.
An interesting theory, no matter how outlandish, is worth at least a modicum of investigation because who knows where it might lead. Unless of course it can never be proved, such as angels and heaven and their transport problems.
The attitude, "So What?" has no place in science.