Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Would it be possible to distinguish the fall of a pre-human civilisation destroyed by industrial CO2, from a natural climate upheaval?
A New Study Suggests There Could Have Been Intelligent Life on Earth Before Humans
Looking for aliens across deep space is great, but have we looked hard enough in our own terrestrial backyard—here on Earth?
Becky Ferreira
Apr 17 2018, 1:13am
One author of the new study, leading climatologist Gavin Schmidt, wrote a work of fiction to explore its findings. Read ‘Under the Sun’, which we published at Terraform alongside the following piece.
The human yearning to connect with other intelligent life-forms runs deep, and it has become the driving force behind a dazzling range of scientific pursuits. From the SETI Institute’s radio sweeps of the sky, to the discovery of liquid water on neighboring worlds, to the thousands of exoplanets detected over the past two decades, there have been major gains in chasing one of the ultimate cosmic mysteries—whether or not we are alone in the universe.
…
Outside of some science fiction stories and a speculative paper by Penn State astronomer Jason Wright, little serious thought has been afforded to the possibility that we humans are not the first species to build an advanced civilization in the solar system’s history.
“It actually hasn’t been explored that much,” climatologist Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, told me over the phone. “It never gets brought up as a potential thing that you want to look for.”
So, Schmidt paired up with University of Rochester physicist Adam Frank to co-author a paper entitled “The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?” The hypothesis borrows its “Silurian” title from the fictional reptilian species depicted in the science fiction franchise Doctor Who—these scaly Silurians flourished on Earth many millions of years before the dawn of our own society.
…
“There’s lots of things that are going well for [human civilization], but there’s a big price that’s being paid in the ecology and biology,” Schmidt told me. He emphasized that many of these consequences can seem to be “out of sight, out of mind” due to conveniences like sewage infrastructure and garbage relocation. But when considered in totality, anthropogenic activities really add up, and impact the geological record. “All of the waste and footprint is being hidden from us, but it isn’t hidden from the planet,” he said.
It’s unlikely that any massive telltale structures would remain preserved through tens of millions of years of geological activity—that holds true for both human civilization and any potential “Silurian” precursors on Earth.
Instead, Schmidt and Frank propose searching for more subtle signals, such as byproducts of fossil fuel consumption, mass extinction events, plastic pollution, synthetic materials, disrupted sedimentation from agricultural development or deforestation, and radioactive isotopes potentially caused by nuclear detonations.
“You really have to dive into a lot of different fields and pull together exactly what you might see,” Schmidt said. “It involves chemistry, sedimentology, geology, and all these other things. It’s really fascinating.”
…
The abstract of the study;
The Silurian hypothesis: would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record?
Gavin A. Schmidt (a1) and Adam Frank (a2)
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550418000095Published online: 16 April 2018
If an industrial civilization had existed on Earth many millions of years prior to our own era, what traces would it have left and would they be detectable today? We summarize the likely geological fingerprint of the Anthropocene, and demonstrate that while clear, it will not differ greatly in many respects from other known events in the geological record. We then propose tests that could plausibly distinguish an industrial cause from an otherwise naturally occurring climate event.
Sadly the full study is paywalled, but I think we get the idea.
The previous referenced study was by Penn State Astronomer Jason T. Wright, which concluded that it might be easier to detect traces of any previous high tech civilisation by any technical artefacts they left on other planets or on Asteroids.
I’m skeptical of theories of past civilisations, because it is difficult to imagine an event or series of events which would completely finish off an established intelligent species, especially omnivores like humans, unless that species had a specific fragility which made it especially vulnerable.
Consider the hideous aftermath of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, plants dead or dying, rotting corpses littering the landscape, a bonanza for cockroaches and scavengers. If something similar happened today, the luckiest and most determined humans would more than likely survive; if all else fails, humans can eat cockroaches.
Schmidt has also written a short fictional account about the discovery of traces of a pre-human civilisation which destroyed itself through nuclear war.
If traces of artificial isotopes were discovered, as in Schmidt’s short story, such a discovery would not necessarily end the debate. The presence of artificial isotopes is not necessarily the fingerprint of the nuclear technology of an ancient pre-human civilisation. 1.7 billion years ago a natural nuclear reactor fired up in Africa, creating artificial isotopes as byproducts of an uncontrolled natural fission reaction.
UPDATE: Gavin Schmidt has posted about it on “RealClimate” here
Where are their mines? And why are ours so rich? Colour me skeptical …
What about the all those people who still believe in the global warming boogeyman?
We are still looking for signs of intelligent life, HERE and NOW on THIS planet!
Warhorse, I used to have a jellyfish fossil from the Cambrian (500 mya) in my collection. How can you have delicate jellyfish fossils in the geologic record and not see their artifacts preserved somewhere in the geologic sedimentary record? Same goes for BigFoot, where’s an actual trace? There are three different TV programs dedicated to finding one of them, but so far….
That was my first thought. There would be evidence of coal mines, and our current coal deposits would be depleted. As a second thought, we find plenty of remains of Neanderthals because they BURIED their dead, and didn’t just leave their bodies to be destroyed by predators or by the elements. There would be a relatively large number of fossils from buried intelligent species- unless they cremated their dead and scattered the ashes.
If there was a race of intelligent dinosaurs, where are the bones. Not just of the intelligent species themselves, but all the pre-cursor species?
Next-thing you know Gavin will get caught up in shape-shifting aliens occupying high govt positions. When science is founded in faith upon authority and you are the authority, anything you preach is gospel.
But they left the planet remember the Voth?
Let’s give Gavin some credit- he has learned what the word “hypothesis” means. Evidently his day job (where he has to unlearn the meaning of “hypothesis”) leaves him with time on his hands. How long before his hypothesis becomes a theory, when he discovers the evidence of past Sulariazations in tree rings?
Paul, tree rings usually refer to his look-alike buddy, Mickey. Surely Mann can find just one tree core to match his Ozbud’s fantasies.
Wait! How could this be made into a frightening cause for advocating world government?
A civilization (human or otherwise) on earth earlier than the Holocene? Where would you look?
Suppose it had just bare bones technology – bow & arrow, plowshare, & other basic tools – living in the Eemian. Then, over time, an ice age occurred. Where the ice sheets scoured, there easily could be little or no record left of their presence, especially after 100,000+ years.
The growth of the ice sheets would have meant sea levels fell drastically, so many could have moved into what today is hundreds of feet below sea level. Near the lower sea shore, they could have fished for food. The ones who were south of the ice sheets (eg in Central America) might have stayed put and continued to be primitive cultures.
As the ice sheets started to recede, flooding their 100,000 year habitat, some would have moved to safety uphill to what is now just above sea level – into equatorial Africa and Central America. The pioneers might have presented a barrier to those who followed (or wanted to follow), and loss of (now submerged) crop lands & war might have left only the pioneers, and those in a primitive state.
So, if you want to seek prior peoples and civilizations on earth, I expect that you’d want to look in Equatorial Africa, Central America, or several hundred feet down into the oceans (Atlantis anyone?).
That any previous advanced civilization may have ever existed on this planet is but the sheerest nonsense. Granted fossilization is normally a fortuitous event but in many instances of depositional environments it is all but inevitable. Any ancient city in such an environment (very often a culturally attractive site) would be today a veritable lagerstatte. It is true that most human made or modified materials won’t last 400 million years (exceptions may be glass, stone, etc,) but even if the actual material does not survive a cast or permineralized replacement may. In other the iron girder will be corroded or dissolved away but a nearly perfect cast of it might last a billion years. I have a carboniferous period tree trunk (>300ma) sitting on a shelf next to me. The wood is all gone but it is unquestionably a tree trunk. Where are all the stone arrowheads and spear points lost by these intelligent beings during their ascendency to high civilization? Since the article dealt with the Silurian period in particular let us take a closer look at it.
“The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, 419.2 Mya” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian
“A significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed and bony fish. Multi-cellular life also began to appear on land in the form of small, bryophyte-like and vascular plants that grew beside lakes, streams, and coastlines, and terrestrial arthropods are also first found on land during the Silurian. However, terrestrial life would not greatly diversify and affect the landscape until the Devonian.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian
What was the Silurian like? Well without widespread land plants and their root systems to bind soil (rock particles) any primitive soils would no doubt have soon been washed down to the sea. This , at least during most of the Silurian, would have meant that the landscape would have been mainly bare rock with but a few simple plants mainly in low spots where soil and water might collect exploited by a few adventurous arthropods. That would have been a pretty dismal place for any advanced life to eek out a living. So let’s turn to the sea. What we have here are the most primitive bony fish, arthropods like trilobites and eurypterids, and cephalopods. Surprisingly the cephalopods may have had at this time the better chance to have evolved higher intelligence but the fossil record, which is pretty robust for the Silurian, fails to provide any evidence of any advanced life forms.
Maybe what attracts Gavin Schmidt to the Silurian is all that CO2. 4500ppm.
John,
I suggest that ‘The Silurians’ – being one [of many] antagonists encountered by Doctor Who in her [previously his] peregrinations through the space-time continuum – had a name chosen because it was not too hard, and not too easy.
Cambrians – insulted the (modern) Welsh;
Ordovices – too difficult;
Devonian – applauded by the Cornish, if applied to black-hat baddies!
I don’t think the [BBC] fiction of Doctor Who really expected to find a prior civilisation.
Gavin Schmidt – I don’t know.
Perhaps Novellas appeal more now the wheels are – slowly – coming off CAGW [and its latest Nomen Dubum, “Climate Restoration”].
Auto – a modest fan of The Doctor
[and a huge fan of the Daleks, whose original plans to conquer the Universe had a crimp put in it – because, being wheeled, they couldn’t climb stairs!]
Auto,
You are a master of dry humor.
I’m not worthy.
You rule.
Auto,
The Ordovices and Silures were also Welsh tribes, the former in the north and latter in the southeast.
As you may know, the Ordovician Period was created in order to settle the feud between advocates of the Cambrian and Silurian “systems”.
Do we know how common the permineralized replacement occurs when a relic decays over time? Does it occur only in special cases where the right mineral composition, lack of erosion, and upheaval are present? What I’m trying to say is, just because we discover fossilized remains, should we always expect to see them from that far back in history? Could it be that there was a period of time in the past where the local conditions were so austere that the remains of the alleged Siurians could have been completely erased? Pinning our expectations on the evidence that did stand the test of time does not mean that some bit of evidence will always remain.
One’s nurtured Religious beliefs, more often than not, prevents their use of common sense thinking, logical reasoning and/or intelligent deductions on matters or subjects that are deemed directly contrary to what their Religious doctrine teaches them. (See last paragraph below)
Via his lead statement, Eric Worrall asks:
It is not only possible, but pretty much factually confirmed by those persons who have not intentionally averted their eyes and their mind to all of the historical evidence that has been discovered that could only have been constructed by or via the direction of a far more intelligent earth residing species than modern humans are capable of.
Three (3) of the most famous examples of the aforesaid “historical evidence” is: 1) The Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt, …… 2) the stonework of Machu Picchu, Peru ……. and 3) the stone ruins of Puma Punku, Bolivia.
If modern human professors, researchers, investigators and/or explorers would “cease n’ desist” (quit) attributing the constructing and use of the aforesaid “historical evidence” as being for the purpose of conducting acts of “Religious fanaticism” …… then the literal and/or scientific truths of their construction might be resolved.
Samuel,
Talk about religious belief!
The structures which you cite were clearly built by people no more intelligent than those now living.
Samual, the construction of all of those things is well explained without any need to invoke aliens or advanced ancient societies.
I’m most familiar with Machu Picchu. Construction materials there came from the same plateau on which the city was built. The rock quarry is still visible nearby, so, the Incas had no trouble obtaining stone blocks. In fact, most rocks are smaller than those used at Sacsayhuamán on the outskirts of Cuzco, and Ollantaytambo, some 45 miles NW.
Just as with their invention of freeze-drying food, the Inca engineers and stonemasons benefited from the local climate. The rocks were probably cut suing the wooden wedge technique, in which holes were drilled and wet wooden wedges inserted into them. When the wet wooden wedges froze, the expanding ice created fissures in the rock. Smoothing the blocks would have been laborious, but doesn’t require aliens or people of superior intelligence.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140325094806.htm
MarkW – April 17, 2018 at 5:13 pm
Shur nuff, MarkW, just like Chimp “well explained it” via his great words of wisdom, to wit:
Chimp – April 17, 2018 at 5:27 pm
Yes SIREEEEEE, that hard granite rock that was used at Machu Picchu and Puma Punku was soft enough to “cut like butter”.
Yup, how could I be so stupid as to not believe the experts that only simple copper or bronze chisels and wooden hammers was all that was needed by the locals for carving out granite things such as this, to wit:
And MarkW, …. Chimp, …… please tell me how the Egyptians managed to cut all the white limestone that once covered all 4 sides of the Great Pyramid?
And the Egyptians never constructed anything that they didn’t decorate by putting their “name” all over it.
Here ya go, ….. MarkW, …… Chimp, ……. chew on this awhile, …. to wit:
A Logical Perspective On the Origins of Homo sapiens sapiens
A genetically created, biological procreating, environmentally nurtured humanoid
The Origins of Homo sapiens sapiens, otherwise known as humanoids or humans, has been a controversial subject for eons and eons. Or to be more exact, ever since any particular isolated group of humans became sufficiently nurtured by their environment to begin questioning their own origins or existence.
There are three (3) schools of thought concerning the origins of humans. The 1st one is based in/on Religious beliefs that the heavens, the earth and everything upon the earth is the product of a Creator, a God. The 2nd one is based in/on Science that the universe and the earth is the product of the “Big Bang” and that all life forms past and present is the product of Evolution of the Species via “natural selection and decent with modification”. The 3rd one, on which the following commentary is predicated, is based in/on the logical possibility of a group of intelligent alien explorers migrating to planet earth and via DNA modifications of members of a now extinct species of ape, thereby biologically creating humans in their present form to serve the “will and needs” of said alien explorers.
The intelligent entity responsible for the DNA modifications of an extant species of the hominidae family (great apes) that resulted in the origin of the genus Homo are, for unknown reasons, long gone from the earth, leaving only two (2) factual records of them ever being here. One of said records is the fossils of several now extinct species of Homo with us humans being the only surviving member of the Homo lineage.
The other record being the hundreds of archeological “clues” that pretty much dictates that a highly intelligent entity with the necessary resources were responsible for their construction. We know this to be a fact because many of said historical sites have been, and still are, being researched and/or investigated to determine the means and methods of exactly how they were constructed. We do not know the actual answers to these queries.
The per said, personality of a few of the aforementioned historical construction sites would defy the abilities of present day humans to recreate, even with their access to current technology and tools. Thus, said constructions give reasons and purpose as to why an intelligent entity, or group of alien explorers of this planet, would have need for the creating of a “labor force” that could be nurtured to perform whatever type of work or service that they wanted them to perform.
The alien explorers would also have had the means and methods to “cull” the procreating humanoid population so as to only retain the humanoids with the most desirable attributes to serve their intended purpose(s). Even in present times, this is still a standard practice in animal husbandry, as well as in the “selective” breeding of other species of animals. Also, selected individuals of various animal species are being nurtured by their owners or caregivers, beginning soon after their birth, to perform or serve whatever “labor force” purpose their caregiver chooses.
We humans have now become what we were originally created to be.
The intelligent entity or alien explorers, given their absence, were no longer directing and/or controlling the nurturing of the humanoid population. Thus, all humanoids born after said aliens “vanished” became totally dependent upon their environment to nurture them and all newborn humans became almost totally dependent upon their parent(s) or guardians for their care and nurturing if they were to become social members of their family unit, tribe, group or culture.
The reason for said “vanishing” of the alien explores could be one of several reasons. One possibility is that they simply decided to “go back home” from whence they came. But the highly probable reason is that their humanoid “labor force” rebelled against their control and authority and destroyed them. And in doing so, the humanoids also destroyed everything that reminded them of their per say enslavement by the alien explorers except for the now present remains of ancient stone-work construction, etc. This would explain why there has never been found any tools, or records of tools, that would have been required to perform the aforesaid construction.
We are what our environment nurtures us to be.
Upon gaining their freedom from their enslavers, small groups of the now human population wandered off in all directions to fend for themselves. And in doing so, these now isolated groups were dependent upon their new environments to nurture them with the means to survive. As they learned new and better survival traits from their environments they became quite successful as hunter-gathers at finding sufficient food resources for their survival.
As the population of these groups increased the need for social rules and guidance became necessary for their survival. Thus a leader was either chosen or the strongest member of the group took control and rules of social conduct were established by proxy or by the individual leaders themselves. In the latter situation the rules of conduct could change each time a new leader took control.
A need for religious beliefs arises.
As the individuals within these groups became more intelligent and knowledgeable of their environment they began to question those things they were subjected to that they didn’t understand, including thunder, lightning, the seasons and their own origins. And when such questions arise in social groups of humans their leader(s) were queried for an answer to them. But their leaders no longer had any memories of, or the access to any of the alien explorers that originally created humans, to nurture them on their origins, or any historical records that would explain things to them. Therefore the leaders and/or oldest members of these isolated groups were forced to use their imagination to create acceptable “reasons” for said origins in order to appease the curiosity of the individuals in said group.
Thus Gods and Goddesses were thought up to “explain the unexplainable”. And the isolation of the different groups of humans resulted in differences in their imagined “reasons”, otherwise known as “religious beliefs”. Our knowledge of said religious beliefs are recorded in both the archeological and historical records of past cultural groups, of which some are the root source of most all present day Religions.
A per say, ….. Religious belief decent with modifications, ….. from the polytheism worshipping of the past to the monotheism worshipping of the present.
Cheers
Well, Gavin Schmidt is used to writing fiction, so. .
Why hasn’t Trump fired that idiot?
Maybe he is getting ready to quit, and go on the History channel circuit.
If their races were reversed, he could easily bump Tyson for a TV spot. Perhaps he’d settle for an ABC prime-time show on climate doom at home.
Gavin would have saved a lot of time if he’d just gone to Snopes
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/smithsonian-barbie/
Alan,
Good question.
Unless Gavin has violated rules, such as blogging on the public dime, Trump can’t fire him. But he could ask Congress to shut down GISS and transfer Gavin to the North Pole.
South Pole would be better. Make him president for life of Marie Byrd land the only unclaimed land in the Antarctica and thus the only unclaimed land in the world. You arent allowed to do any commercial activity in Antarctica but science is allowed even pseudo science like CO2 climatology is allowed. Problem is he wouldnt last very long in Antarctica without grant money. The greenies organizations are rich they could fund him.
The Great Lakes would be more fitting at this time. They are praying for AGW right now.
Alan,
I considered that, but the research station at the South Pole is too comfy. A floating station at the North Pole would be lonelier. But Marie Byrd Land is a good suggestion.
Or he could collude with the Russians at Vostok Station, until recent observation of an even colder interior region, the coldest recorded place on the planet.
Argumentum ad hominen should be beneath us
is it really an ad hominen if it’s true?
Anything that takes away from the dignity of another person rather than arguing his/her ideas is unacceptable
If this takes away dignity, he did it too himself.
True – not just because it is impolite, but because it often indicates no valid argument against the man’s logic can be found. And there are lots of good arguments to use against his ideas.
Nevertheless, his intellect is an easy target.
The honorable thing is to sacrifice a bit of one’s own dignity to diminish others’.
Poo on them!
Funny, Art Bell just passed away, and he would have had Gav on his radio show in a New York minute. But he’d have to use his full name, though (inside joke).
This subject has been around for decades and I do know it’s been talked about within scientific circles. As much as I dislike Schmidt, I have to agree that the possibility needs to be explored, despite the low degree of likelihood anything will be found.
“it is difficult to imagine an event or series of events which would completely finish off an established intelligent species”
But it’s really not. There are many reasons why a technological civilization can go extinct. This is called, the great filter. It’s spoken of quite often in SETI research.
As long as the taxpayer doesn’t have to fund it.
And within those scientific circles, anyone who proposed looking for historical artifacts based on the Bible would be considered a religious zealot. Looking for paleo-civilizations that validate the cult of technological self-destruction, however, is completely mainstream.
Another perpetually pessimistic alarmist. Is there anything these guys are optimistic about. Except their paycheck from spreading alarm. (Which, hopefully, is of limited duration.)
I see this less as an example of alarmism than as a transparent effort to open up a whole new, profitable, vein of research funding where you never actually have to produce tangible results.
NASA’s Gavin Schmidt is the last surviving Silurian and is writing his memoirs.
Silurians … what about the Devonians … and let’s not forget about the Ordovicians [ sorry ….. my fault … bad geo humor :)) ]
Someday, he will be referred to as “Doctor Who.” As in “Who was that fruitcake PhD again? I can’t seem to recall his name…”
‘… called him Mr. Smith
They got him on conspiracy, they were never sure who with’
I would expect, at the very least, that there would be geochemical anomalies in rocks corresponding to the locations of cities. Some of the more chemically resistant ceramics and metal alloys might persist as xenoliths, even in in igneous rocks. There is a classic study of a zircon-rich layer in sediments being traceable through a granitic body, which has been used as an argument for granites being the result of extreme metamorphism rather than melting. If they had ocean-going ships, there might be fossil casts of sunken vessels preserved in deep-water shales or limestones. There have been spheroidal pockets discovered in Scandinavian limestones of Devonian age. While most of the silicates had turned into clays, there was still remnant chromite from the meteorites that landed in the ocean and were buried by limestone. If things that small have been found, it is unlikely that we would miss ships, aircraft, and land vehicles. While lack of evidence isn’t evidence against a former intelligence species, the lack of evidence would at least suggest an extremely low probability.
The place to look for artefacts from a hypothetical earlier technological civilization on Earth would be the Moon where the likelihood of preservation far outweighs that on Earth. As far as I know nothing obviously unusual has been found yet by a whole array of orbiters.
Gavin Schmidt is a Silurian?
That does explain the hair, beard and fear of real climate scientists. But, Silurian Schmidt is not a surprise.
NOAA needs to connect Hexachromite gas cylinders into their air conditioning system to reverse any Silurian invasion.
He works for NASA
That explains what hair? Reptilians are hairless, although the Chinese picture bearded dragons, LOL.
I think the geologic record is rich enough and goes back a very long time for the geologists to have seen anything pre-advanced civilization.
I think the truth is he is seeing the gravy train leave the station and is trying to buy his ticket for the next one.
We’ve explored earth to a microscopic level, and never yet found anything hinting at extra terrestrial (other than myth, legend, and the Nazca Lines).
It does look like he’s looking for a well paying but easy job for his disappearance from the public view.
I agree, Greg. He may not have solid science, but his pull with the media is strong. Might as well use rediculi to retain his pop-science following.
Any planetary interactions in a less stable solar system would see planets stripping surface material from each other.
I suspect this happened to some human civilizatons in our own history 5 to 10 thousand years ago, but all we really have are hypothesis and mythology to look at.
When material is excavated by such events, all traces would be destroyed in that material and some of it ends up in space and some deposited elsewhere on the planet.
There is just no valid reason to state without uncertainty of massive margins, that the solar system has been stable for billions of years.
We’ve know there have been civilizations that just seemed to have stopped existing overnight geologically speaking.
It’s not that I think these things happened, I say we just don’t have the evidence to rule it out.
To me though, a stable boring solar system makes no sense, and I don’t buy the accretion theory for many reasons not least the fact that it seems other systems didn’t form that way.
Schmidt the “climatologist” lol. Seems anyone can call themselves that these days, such a vague title, apparently all you need is to be average at maths and do some bad science and hey presto, you are a climatologist
I don’t know where to start from. Are you +possibly+ having a stroke of Dunning-Kruger?
Naah, I don’t know a hist of astronomy, but I have this pet theory of mine that contradicts not only with astronomy but geology, paleontology and archaelogy. Just add ‘Einstien’ in and I can replace comb ceramics with crackpots.
“Are you possibly having a stroke of Dunning-Kruger?”
It is certain, and so are you, and so am I. Everyone has it. It is a phenomenon by which the under-achiever overestimates her achievement; and the overachiever underestimates her achievement. I suppose the exact estimate of actual achievement might be the exception; but there you have a problem of knowing when you exactly identify your own achievement.
One of the strongest indications of DK is asserting DK.
Michael,
Then there’s the guy that flips back and forth. Kinda like a manic depressive.
“One of the strongest indications of DK is asserting DK.” This statement only applies to one kind of DK though doesn’t it?
Even more concerning is the presence amongst us of the Cardassians, the alien beings once thought of as merely fictional creatures from Star Trek. These hideous large-bottomed monsters cunningly disguised themselves by a slight change of name and now openly prey on the gullible and weak-minded members of our society. Who would have thought that calling themselves Kardashian would have been enough to blind our world to their truly terrifying existence. But there they are, hiding amongst us. Just like c, m and d are hiding in Schmidt.
Nice!
Star Trek has an equally scientific episode, based on a Cretacoeus hypothesis. Their dinosaurs left the Earth before an asteroid strike, and now live in a different part of the Galaxy.
The Ferengi seem relatively common among us 😉
New just in. Atlantis submerged after their high-tech civilization induced “Climate Change”.
When Plato reported on the myth of Atlantis he was making a moral point about the decline of his own civilization.
Schmidt is doing the same.
Frankly, I prefer him trying amateur philosophy over his amateur attempts at science. It seems less dangeous to the poor.
You’d be surprised how dangerous Philosophy is. More people have been killed because of ideas than as a result of natural resource competition or political greed…
@dodgy geezer
Well, the opposite is also true. Ideas have improved the lives of millions of people. Don’t judge philosophy. Judge the philosopher and what he or she says.
I don’t think this would even rise to the really bad, schlock level of Mystery Science Theater 3000 of below-B-grade sci-fi.
Better yet, in the artifacts collected or found, could we be the result of extra-terrestrial seeding? Like the end to Battle Star Galactica? (the new series of course)
They would have left trash and we would have found it by now.
Absolutely right.
Well, AtheoK up above did posit that Gavin was one of their descendants.
We have barely made near observation — not reproduced — at the edge of our solar system; inferred information from signals from beyond, where there are known unknowns that reduce signal fidelity; and speculate about the origin of humanity and everything else. People’s need to believe in something, anything, and match patterns in the sand, seems to be an undeniable motive for leaps, assumptions, and assertions, well outside the limited scientific frame of reference and logical domain.
The more technological a civilization is the more likely it is to be totally wiped out .
The more UNlikely. More technology means more means to adapt to changing conditions.More ways to produce food, to keep people warm and dry, etc. As long as you have the social structure to keep technicians working, and you will, since those doing it obviously have an edge over those failing and going “back to the trees” Uncle Vania’s way.
I vote for likely. Think of generations of students educated by Naomi Oreskes.
I don’t count these as civilized, but as barbarized
While the society may collapse, the people themselves continue living.
Given how wide spread humans are today, in order for a single accident to destroy all humans, you would pretty much have to destroy all life in general.
I wonder if there is a slightly different explanation for Schmidt’s approach ?? Not least because of the ever-growing public scepticism about ‘climate change’ .
If ‘evidence’ could be ‘found’ that an earlier civilisation had destroyed itself on earth … what a massive story that would be to try and bolster flagging belief in ‘climate change’ and boost ‘environmental’ activists claims about mankind’s “destruction” of the earth.
Just a thought ….
But as the public grow ever-more doubting and sceptical it has little effect on the politicians and global businesses that are 100% focussed on using CC to “change the economic model that has prevailed since the industrial revolution” (whilst locking in their profits) and the UN’s dream of an unelected, unaccountable and basically anti-democratic world government. In my mind the greatest threat mankind faces from man-invented ‘climate change’ is the destruction of true democracy at the hands of bureaucrats, environmental lobbying groups and multi-nationals.
Those of you who are familiar with the EU will know that its ‘founding fathers’ and embryo eurocrats believed that the average voter could not be trusted to make the ‘correct’ political decisions and that these must be put in the hands of a technocratic elite.
The EC and subsequently EU was structured accordingly to create a fig-leaf of democracy for the voters in each nation whilst policies and new laws are created by unelected eurocrats. These are then issued as Directives which must then be adopted into each nation’s law by their own elected, but now virtually impotent, politicians. That way a semblance of democracy is maintained as laws controlling people’s lives have the appearance of being made by the people they elected.
It has led to a massive disconnect between people and law makers that the voter has no way of getting rid of. Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece have unemployment levels of some 40% amongst young people as a direct result of EU economic policies – but the voters have no way of changing those policies.
The UN seeks a similar approach to an unelected and unaccountable world government. But unlike the British public being able to vote for Brexit there will be no such escape mechanism from an unelected World Government.
AGW / Climate Change is the Stalking Horse, or Trojan Horse if you prefer, to achieve the UN’s anti-democratic aims.
Do we have a candidate phylum for this imaginary extinct intelligent life?
Presumably they were animals (Kingdom Metazoa of Domain Eukaryota). Phylum Mollusca? Phylum Arthropoda? Or our very own kin in Phylum Chordata?
In science fiction, they are traditionally Dinosaurs. Star Trek based theirs on the Iguanodon.
Iguanodon, Early Cretaceous, ornithischian herbivores, would not be my first choice among dinos. They were at least capable of bipedal locomotion.
Late Cretaceous coelurosaurian theropods of some kind are more likely, particularly maniraptors. Troodon is usually cited as the most intelligent of known dinos, although the validity of the genus was called into question last year. Also, it lived ten million years from the end of the Cretaceous, so presumably something with an even higher brain to body mass ratio might well have evolved during the Maastrichtian Age. Having only three fingers might be a drawback, but omnivory, as some suggest was the case for troodontids and ornithomimosaurs, would be a plus.
Schmidt and Frank propose searching for more subtle signals, such as byproducts of fossil fuel consumption, mass extinction events, plastic pollution, synthetic materials, disrupted sedimentation from agricultural development or deforestation, and radioactive isotopes potentially caused by nuclear detonations.
Yeah. ‘Cuz all the geologists and archaeologists and cartographers and miners and explorers on the planet haven’t found any such thing because, why? They were looking for something else?
Some claims defy ridicule. Every scientist with a drop of ethics should be denouncing this or be branded a coward. NASA should be ashamed. Sadly, the former won’t and the latter aren’t.
Just how retarded can NASA get? There is not one shred of evidence of this (or aliens visiting us for that matter) and yet we have “scientists” exploring this possibility? They should search for Unicorns and the Loch Ness Monster living in Lake Michigan as well.
A species capable of an advanced civilization would have to evolve… Evidence of this please?
It would leave behind art and structures that would have to exist in some trace amounts… Evidence please?
Industrialization would leave all sorts of scars and concentrations of materials that could not be easily otherwise be explained.
And I suppose this civilization wiped itself out through too much CO2 as well? So 4 degrees C wipes out wide spread advanced civilations??? Ugh.
Even SETI has failed to produce any evidence of advanced civilizations, and that one at least seemed to me to have a chance given the number of star systems out there.
Wild imaginations may drive AGW, but they can’t replace disciplined science. A 5-year old could “imagine” such fairy tales, but it takes a highly trained 20+ year old to advance our understanding of REAL processes.
well no wonder no one has found Nessie yet, they’ve been looking in the wrong place! instead of searching Loch Ness, they should have been looking in Lake Michigan. D’oh. 😉
Nessy lives in Lake Champlain, not Lake Michigan! 🙂
Robert,
It’s entirely possible that the Slestak (sp?) did not leave any evidence on earth because Dr. Marshall & his kids were repeatedly successful in keeping them (the Slestak) from being able to travel to this dimension/time. (and if they did we wouldn’t be here to wonder about anything … those Slestak were mean and tough).
What Gavin should be searching for is the pylons & crystals that may or may not control the time door(s).
There’s more to this sci-fi story:
http://metro.co.uk/2018/04/16/another-civilisation-earth-humans-scientists-investigate-7470510/
“Could the… Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) – be evidence of global warming caused by an extinct civilisation?”
“…some planets might have fossil-fuel-driven cycles of civilization building and collapse. If a civilization uses fossil fuels, the climate change they trigger can lead to a large decrease in ocean oxygen levels. These low oxygen levels (called ocean anoxia) help trigger the conditions needed for making fossil fuels like oil and coal in the first place. In this way, a civilization and its demise might sow the seed for new civilizations in the future.”
Are Schmidt and Frank serious? Evidently they are, as they are literally pushing fairy tales as plausible scientific scenarios: A previous civilization evolved on Earth and wiped themselves out by triggering catastrophic global warming through the use of fossil fuels. And it didn’t just happen here, it’s happened time and again on other planets as well.
This is beyond stupid. This scare mongering propaganda proves yet again that the vast majority of climatologists are not scientists. They are witch doctors.
If it were the PETM, then Lemuria!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_%28continent%29
NASA looked less ridiculous when it was promoting the glories of Islamic science.
We are living in the world of OZ when the CEO of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a division of NASA, is now pushing for research into aliens. I shake my head in disbelief. If Schmidt thinks that this is going to save him from the wrath of the public when the media finally report that Global warming is a hoax then he is sadly mistaken. He is lucky Trump is too busy fending off investigations for now to be able to fire Schmidt.
I had no problem reading the paper at the International Journal of Astrobiology. Here’s an interesting footnote regarding the PETM quote:
No kidding?
I also noticed that while reading a link earlier. It appears to me that a new, desperate attempt at blaming any and all warming in geologic history on the nefarious industrial crimes of advanced civilizations.
If 7000ppm of CO2 didn’t create the conditions necessary for ocean anoxia, then I don’t see how going from 280ppm to maybe 500ppm is going to do it.
Guys like Schmidt have blood on their hands. They are the indirect cause NO i will say direct cause of some elder people around the world in cold climates freezing to death or catching respiratory infections and dying from low temperatures in the home in winter cause they couldnt afford the sky high energy prices that this hoax has caused.