...to give you a little perspective on things...

[helenmelon]

this (a short history of nearly everything) was a great book because, not only did it entertain, teach, and make me laugh, but it's been provoking thought and challenging my worldviews for the past week or two.

Comments

[patrick___]

"we wouldn't stand out that much from dogs or fish or anything, if we were found."

Wouldn't our skyscrapers and other large objects stand out?

I'm not sure it's necisarily true that larger brained animals don't last as long. Wasn't there mice of some kind in the age of dinosaurs? Perhaps there have been lots of dim witted species that died out so quickly we never even saw their fossil remains. ;) (Will anyone in the future discover Dodo Bird fossils?)

"the really crazy thing, though, is that there's evidence that this place was an axe blade factory for about a million years. a million. people (that is to say homo erectus, maybe) kept coming back to this same exact site for their axe blades for that long."

Wow, that IS crazy. Those aren't even humans. (Assuming evolutionary theory and all that is correct). Those are like some sort of pre-Adam biped.

Speaking of evolutionary theory, have you ever heard of a little known theory that says the next great intelligent species to create a civilization will likely be birds? Aparently (assuming evolution is true), birds evolved after mammals. They are in many ways a more advanced kind of creature. They're warm blooded, can fly, and many species (such as African parrots) are incredibly intelligent for animals. Wouldn't it be weird if some super advanced species of birds create the next great civilization on earth?

Although, I don't really believe that will happen or anything, but it's fun to think about. I honestly am not sure that "macro evolution" is even true at all.

[helenmelon]

oh, come on now, patrick. how long do you really think skyscrapers will last? the pyramids are only a few thousand years old and already getting a smidgen beat up. but two or three million years, through glaciers and earthquakes and volcanoes and a million different types of weather more extreme than anything we could imagine? i don't think anything above ground would be left standing. things under the ocean would have a chance to be preserved, but would only be found later (presumably) if the oceans there receded. things in lakes that'll dry up eventually--they might have a chance too. which dinosaur bones do we find? ones from animals that died in tar pits or lakes. we find things that were trapped in glaciers, buried in volcano ash. and again, the world is very big and looking can be like a random guessing game. it's not always obvious to see where there was a lake 5 million years ago.

oh, i can't imagine the number of animals we don't know about that emerged and died out but didn't last as long as we have, or even who survived longer. i'm sure the majority of really dumb animals died out quickly, but in order to emerge as a species, wouldn't you think they'd have SOME sort of survival instinct? dodos died out cause a foreign animal (us) was introduced to their island environment. a lot of extinctions happen that way. i guess that the situation is just that most of the organisms we know of that lasted a long time don't appear to have been high on brain power, and not many organisms that were smart lasted very long. were the mice decendants of today's mice, or just mouse-like? but that's not to say there weren't exceptions. apparently neandertals appear to have had LARGER brains (in proportion) than us. the snobbery of science, not wanting to admit another unrelated-to-us creature might've been smarter than us, says their brains must've been less efficient than ours, but they did manage to survive in a crazy-hard-to-live-in world for a million or two years.

i'd never heard that about birds. isn't it difficult to wrap your mind around the idea that some totally non-human creature could possibly be smarter than us? it's so anti-everything-we've-ever-been-taught. in douglas adams books, both dolphins and mice are smarter. his underlying philosophy in adams' books is really interesting. his humans think the evidence that they're obviously superior to all else rests in unparalleled acheivements such as digital watches. i bet he had a subscription to discovery magazine:)

[patrick___]

If the fossilized remains of little insects can last millions of years, surely a few skyscrapers or automobiles will last too. ;)

[helenmelon]

...maybe if they get sucked into some mud or something:) but metal oxidizes, wind wears down edifices... if mountain ranges don't even last millions of years, do you really expect the sears tower to?

i'd put my money on things like maybe wedding rings or bank vaults lasting, personally.

[jayj79]

the Eagles are coming! ;op