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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 JoeMerchant on Friday April 20 2018, @12:54PM (3 children)
Relative to what? Ourselves? We've made great progress in the last few years, but "complete" would not be in my description of our understanding of... almost anything.
The species themselves already vary enough to have varying needs for shelter, from essentially zero up through humans which seem to build the most complete shelters of all.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @01:25PM (2 children)
Relative? You're speaking of an absolute question of whether such civilizations exist not a relative one.
Industrial civilization implies the latter.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 20 2018, @03:32PM (1 child)
Oh, you're going semantic on me again. The question of "civilization" can only be framed relative to our concept of what is civilization, and Douglas Adams pretty much covered this with his bit about the dolphins.
Industrial civilization, as conceived by us, implies shelter. So, if we meet creatures who have harnessed physical properties of our universe that we don't yet understand - maybe we've observed them but explain them incompletely or incorrectly - and they manage to "do things" without requiring large-scale physical construction or anything we would recognize as shelter, how impressive would these things have to be to qualify as industrial civilization?
Low latency communication across half the ocean? How about combining that with deliberate shaping of fish species populations to make a more reliable and better tasting food source for themselves?
If we're just looking for creatures that do things more or less exactly how we do, we're going to miss most of what is really happening, not only in the geologic past, but even right here right now.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 20 2018, @06:02PM
We're not speaking of civilization, but of industrial civilization.