Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?

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Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?

Quote:“Wait a second,” he said. “How do you know we’re the only time there’s been a civilization on our own planet?”

It took me a few seconds to pick my jaw off the floor. I had certainly come into Gavin’s office prepared for eye rolls at the mention of “exo-civilizations.” But the civilizations he was asking about would have existed many millions of years ago. Sitting there, seeing Earth’s vast evolutionary past telescope before my mind’s eye, I felt a kind of temporal vertigo. “Yeah,” I stammered, “Could we tell if there’d been an industrial civilization that deep in time?”

We never got back to aliens. Instead, that first conversation launched a new study we’ve recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. Though neither of us could see it at that moment, Gavin’s penetrating question opened a window not just onto Earth’s past, but also onto our own future.

We’re used to imagining extinct civilizations in terms of the sunken statues and subterranean ruins. These kinds of artifacts of previous societies are fine if you’re only interested in timescales of a few thousands of years. But once you roll the clock back to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of years, things get more complicated.

When it comes to direct evidence of an industrial civilization—things like cities, factories, and roads—the geologic record doesn’t go back past what’s called the Quaternary period 2.6 million years ago. For example, the oldest large-scale stretch of ancient surface lies in the Negev Desert. It’s “just” 1.8 million years old—older surfaces are mostly visible in cross section via something like a cliff face or rock cuts. Go back much farther than the Quaternary and everything has been turned over and crushed to dust.

And, if we’re going back this far, we’re not talking about human civilizations anymore. Homo sapiens didn’t make their appearance on the planet until just 300,000 years or so ago. That means the question shifts to other species, which is why Gavin called the idea the Silurian hypothesis, after an old Dr. Who episode with intelligent reptiles.

So, could researchers find clear evidence that an ancient species built a relatively short-lived industrial civilization long before our own?
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


(This post was last modified: 2018-04-15, 04:48 PM by Sciborg_S_Patel.)
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  • Ninshub
Did you forget a link, Sci?
I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.
Freeman Dyson
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  • Sciborg_S_Patel
Here it is:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...on/557180/
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ah sorry guys and thanks Ninshub - will add to top!
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'

- Bertrand Russell


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  • Kamarling
Quote:That means the question shifts to other species, which is why Gavin called the idea the Silurian hypothesis, after an old Dr. Who episode with intelligent reptiles.

Surprise

[Image: deep5.jpg]
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Obviously the Silurians were advanced enough to invent the pantomime horse many millions of years ago.

But seriously, this reminds me of the work of Michael Cremo on anomalous ancient artefacts:
http://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-michael-cremo

If I understand correctly, his theory is that human beings existed tens of millions of years ago (or perhaps even longer). But maybe his evidence would be consistent with a different humanoid species?
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  • Sciborg_S_Patel
I think what they are really trying to do is explain what they consider "anomalous data" that brings human caused global warming into doubt, ie that the earth was warmer in the past, by insinuating it was caused by an ancient civilization. It shows that global warming is not sicence, it can't be falsified, if it was warmer in the past that doesn't falsify agw, it is simply evidence of a previous civilization.

This is like the trick darwinists play: similar structures are evidence of a common ancestor, except when they aren't then it's parallel evolution. Not science, not falsifiable.

And when all the evidence indicates the universe was designed, how do atheists preserve belief in materialism? They throw empiricism under the bus and invent a multiverse for which there can never be any evidence and results in absurdities. Or they resort to the claim that the universe is a simulation.

LOL  (the smilie means I'm trying to be funny -  not laughing at you, laughing at my joke)
The first gulp from the glass of science will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you - Werner Heisenberg. (More at my Blog & Website)
(This post was last modified: 2018-04-17, 03:33 AM by Jim_Smith.)
(2018-04-17, 03:32 AM)Jim_Smith Wrote: This is like the trick darwinists play: similar structures are evidence of a common ancestor, except when they aren't then it's parallel evolution. Not science, not falsifiable.

How do ‘Darwinists’ (or anyone else) determine a feature that arises from common descent as oppose to parallel evolution?
The Daily Grail has an article on this too:
https://www.dailygrail.com/2018/04/scien...-the-past/
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  • Sciborg_S_Patel
(2018-04-15, 03:02 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?
You tell me. Where do you think the ingrained hostilities in the Mideast originates?

Residual Orion energy

500,000 Earth years ago The Anunnaki created 'Homo Sapiens' from 'Homo-Erectus' to aid/assist with mining Gold and other minerals. Guess who was on Earth first?

The amount of information we have on civilizations that have occurred on Earth is squat. That will change in a course of time.

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