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The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

theparisreview.org

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Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#31

Post by kergonath »

Razengan wrote: post #23

Petroleum could be the byproduct of a previous civilization. Also, just as we "engineered" animals and plants through selective breeding, previous animals/plants could have been the results of selective breeding by a previous civilization: There'd be no way to tell just as there'd be no way to tell our "tampering" a few million years in the future.

> Petroleum could be the byproduct of a previous civilization.

How so? We know how it forms, there is no real gap in understanding there. What could lead to the kind of distribution of oil and gas fields we can observe?

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#32

Post by graemep »

senshan wrote: post #21

Isaac Asimov's Nightfall [0], but on a longer cycle? Jokes aside, what is the evidence, beyond "Ancient mystical texts"? [0] http://www.myths.com/pub/fiction/science-fiction/Asimov/Nigh...

I think there is no evidence for it, but I think the point of the Silurain hypothesis (which the article does not convey well) is that if there were such civilisations we would not know as its unlikely we would find any evidence.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#34

Post by hdgvhicv »

api wrote: post #7

This is a good thought experiment to show how time is as vast as space. 400 million years ago is as distant as the stars. The Earth was a different planet then, in a sense. It’s also yet another Fermi paradox answer. Even if our civilization lasts for millions of years, that’s a blip. We are searching both space and time and both are incomprehensibly vast.

How can a galaxy spanning civilisation fail. If life can spread to other worlds, unless you get FTL, how could you end all life in a galaxy

As such it seems impossible for life to have reached interstellar travel anywhere in the Milky Way before at most a few million years ago, otherwise we would see it.

Which is weird because life surely can’t be that rare in the entirety of space time.

Of course the galaxy could be teaming with non interstellar life, but once you reach mankind’s level of sentience and technology it dormant seem a massive jump to interstellar, and once that happens there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#35

Post by steve1977 »

randomImmigrant wrote: post #24
steve1977 wrote: post #5

The timelines don't really add up for me. So there could have been this hypothetical civilization 55 million years ago already. And they've only just disappeared (if they did) 10'000 or so years ago? Without a trace? Also, no, a conspiracy cannot be the answer to a question we've not yet asked. The word has a clear meaning, it requires people to conspire to hide something from you.

No. The idea is they could have lived and thrived for a few thousand years a few million years ago, then gone extinct.

That's not what the articles says though:

"Ancient mystical texts hint at earlier creation, the life that preceded the Garden, prequels to Genesis. These incarnations are not reported in the Bible because they are none of your goddamn business, but the evidence is everywhere. Some students of conspiracy believe there was a time when lizard people shared the earth with modern men, the older race dying as the younger emerged from the forest. The last of the lizards were worshipped as gods; these were the deities of ancient India and Greece. The technology—weapons and machines—created miracles. You can see the lizard kings in carvings from Mesopotamia, the oldest historical records, where humans bow before reptile men. You find them again in the Torah, where they appear as Nephilim..."

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#36

Post by kergonath »

amazingamazing wrote: post #18

if all dolphins were wiped out could we know that they were ever here from physical evidence?

We’ve already got fossils of dolphins. Not exactly the species we know today but close enough. We have enough fossils to trace their evolution since their ancestors walked on land. So yes, we definitely would have evidence that dolphins were here.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#37

Post by DFHippie »

delichon wrote: post #15
jmclnx wrote: post #8

>The oldest place on the earth’s surface—a stretch of Israel’s Negev Desert I do not understand this statement, I thought an area in Quebec was around 3 - 4 billion years old. I looked, seems Australia may have the oldest area: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220126-is-the-pilbara-t... But I say the article could be true, but the only issue I have is the large dinos. I would think they could be an impediment to…

The claim isn't about the age of rock, but that the surface has churned almost everywhere. Israel does contain the oldest measured continuous surface at about 1.8M yo, but nobody claims to have looked everywhere.

How churned is "churned"? Does this mean particular pebbles have have been found to have lain in their current arrangement for 1.8 million years, or just that not much has happened? I expect any arid region far from the poles or mountains and lacking dune fields will have similar patches of inert land. Much of Australia would fit this bill.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#38

Post by randomImmigrant »

steve1977 wrote: post #35
randomImmigrant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The idea is they could have lived and thrived for a few thousand years a few million years ago, then gone extinct.

That's not what the articles says though: "Ancient mystical texts hint at earlier creation, the life that preceded the Garden, prequels to Genesis. These incarnations are not reported in the Bible because they are none of your goddamn business, but the evidence is everywhere. Some students of conspiracy believe there was a time when lizard people shared the earth with modern men, the older race dying as the younger e…

That’s not the Silurian hypothesis the astrophysicists put out. That’s the author extending it to fit those myths.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#39

Post by throw1234567891 »

graemep wrote: post #28
dash2 wrote: post #20

I can't speak to dinosaur people, but the population genetics of our own DNA reveals that there were never many humans on the planet till recently, so that rules out any very large human civilization. (Unless they genetically altered themselves to hide the evidence! Ahaaa...)

If whole populations were wiped out and the world was repopulated by a small remnant would that not account for it? Or if an extinct human species had an advanced civilisation?

No. That’s exactly how we know.

Re: The Silurian Hypothesis (2020)

#40

Post by bensyverson »

nwah1 wrote: post #11
gorgoiler wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument: dinosaurs were around for a staggering amount of time, no pun intended. 165 million years is reasonably long enough to ensure they left behind some nests, bones, and a feather or two. Modern humans have been around for more like 0.02 million years. The counter-counter argument is that while we’ve been here for a comparative blink of an eye, we’ve left behind 4 orders of magnitude more stuff than…

Yea, but if humans went extinct tomorrow, very little human artifacts would remain after millions of years. Indeed, most would be gone well before that. How much stuff from the 18th century still remains, in percentage terms?

Unless it was burned, melted, decomposed or crushed to dust, it's all out there or in a landfill somewhere.

I do find it difficult to believe that we would not leave enough fossil and mineral evidence for future paleontologists to find. I get that the surface will churn, but layers of rock routinely become exposed, revealing the geological history of the area. No tea cup shards, no impressions of rusted cars in the mud, no concentration of metal in strangely rectilinear formations that suggests skyscrapers?

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