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Can We Be Sure We're the First Industrial Civilization on Earth?
In a new paper, Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adam Frank from the University of Rochester ask a provocative question [open, DOI: 10.1017/S1473550418000095] [DX]: Could there have been an industrial civilization on Earth millions of years ago? And if so, what evidence of it would we be able to find today?
The authors first considered what signs of industrial civilization would be expected to survive in the geological record. In our own time, these include plastics, synthetic pollutants, increased metal concentrations, and evidence of large-scale energy use, such as carbon-based fossil fuels. Taken together, they mark what some scientists call the Anthropocene era, in which humans are having a significant and measurable impact on our planet.
The authors conclude, however, that it would be very difficult after tens of millions of years to distinguish these industrial byproducts from the natural background. Even plastic, which was previously thought to be quite resistant, can be degraded by enzymes relatively quickly. Only radiation from nuclear power plants—or from a nuclear war—would be discernible in the geological rock record after such a long time.
Anonymous Coward says "I told you so!" and starts babbling about megaliths.
Related: Homo Sapiens Began Advanced Toolmaking, Pigment Use, and Trade Earlier Than Previously Thought
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:36PM (10 children)
How do we know that other animals would have constructed a "society" in any way that would be recognizable to us?
The various African tribes have had extraordinarily advanced social structures in their societies for presumably thousands upon years while not constructing things out of stone.
If other animal so-called "societies" existed, they wouldn't even have to reflect anything remotely resembling ours. Once again, we're anthropomorphizing things we don't even understand nor have the right tools to analyze or really even ask the right question.
It's very similar to when the Europeans showed up to the West and thought "Wow, look at these absolute savages." They had no idea how complex Native societies were despite being non-metal-users.
Other animals don't even have thumbs - take dolphins or orcas for example. Both are extremely intelligent yet neither could manipulate things with the dexterity we do. Whose to say they don't have their own kings and queens and courts? They clearly have language that we don't understand, they clearly communicate - it's not unreasonable that there was some undersea "society" millions of years ago that perhaps died out due to glaciers or whatever. Not to mention dinosaurs and the asteroid that presumably clobbered them outta existence.
My point is that if they're looking for other human-like societies that produced "industry," then obviously they're kind of begging the question. But that's always the hubris of science, it has to bumble around before it finds any sort of ethical way to ask a question. Like, "are races a biological or social construct or [etc]?" Well duh. They are purely social constructs, and we know that now. But even the big brain of Kant couldn't answer that on his own. So it's more likely we are just asking the wrong type of question out of ignorance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:49PM (1 child)
Did you miss the part in the title where the words "Industrial Civilization" were used?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:49PM
Porn is an industry: is that what they mean?
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @08:53PM (4 children)
If we really want ideas of what non-human development would be like, why don't we work on elevating species already on earth?
Teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, etc how to use fire, build rudimentary tools and structures, find who are the smartest among them and separate them into semi-isolated and isolated groups to develop their intellect further. Given time we might even find other animals that could be elevated. Dolphins and whales are already considered relatively smart, but would require de-evolving their bodies to regain arms and legs, which might have other effects due to the change in diet and physiology. Certain species of dogs and cats may be smart enough and close enough to articulatable paws to be selectively bred to use human-like tolls and technology, eventually being able to learn more fully from us. Various other mammalian species have hands of sufficient dexterity but not intellect, which might over another challenge, cultivating intellect in animals whose intellect is multiple eras away from our own.
Each of these could help gain new insight into our own development, while simultaneously providing insights into potential differences in alien species, as the evolving species act in ways we never expected or made provisions for. As an added bonus we might be able to convince them to do the same for other lesser evolved species, eventually raising intellect across the planet.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:16PM (1 child)
That seems like a huge waste of time compared to just genetically engineering them. If you don't want to use the cheat codes by just plopping human intelligence-related genes into the mix, you could also sequence thousands of animals and search for genes that seem to associated with greater intelligence, and then synthesize an embryo with those genes. Same story with regrowing arms and legs: gene expression in embryos (which look similar to one another at early stages) is already an active area of research and a targeted genetic engineering rather than breeding program could created legged whales relatively quickly. We could also work backwards to resurrect the now vestigial features, possibly using DNA from fossils to help (DNA has been recovered from older and older specimens over the years).
Ok, so if we "cheated" as described above, it wouldn't give us the insights we are looking for. In that case we might want to look at other approaches, such as increasing mouse intelligence as much as possible, and then releasing some into the wild to compete against their dumber counterparts and see if they can evolve further. Or creating somewhat random but still guided mutations using a computer. Or finding a way to fully simulate a life form on a computer so we can create an infinite number of accurate virtual species without needing to put all of them into production.
Alternatively, if we crack life extension, an individual scientist could conceivably pursue the intellect cultivation project over a period of centuries, using slower methods.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:58PM
Fnnaaarkle!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @11:43PM
> Teach chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, etc how to use fire, build rudimentary tools and structures, find who are the smartest among them and separate them into semi-isolated and isolated groups to develop their intellect further.
whatcouldgowrong [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by leftover on Friday April 20 2018, @01:00AM
Considered insightfully in David Brin's "Uplift Wars" series.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @01:56AM (2 children)
Except of course for the various African tribes that did construct [wikipedia.org] things out of stone.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 20 2018, @04:04AM (1 child)
Right, and would you call those extraordinarily socially advanced cultures industrial, when they're not even constructing things of stone - much less using electricity or advanced metallurgy?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @04:15AM