life before ours

i know its strange but during biology class yesterday i pondered the thought of what if there was a whole civiliztion, as completly technilogically advanced as us that was killed however many years before life (re)started on earth i mean i think it could be possible they could of just nuked eachother to death leading to the baren wasteland described as “early” earth… just think it could be possible and even possible one before that and so on, like it completly loops… and i am saying that there had o be a huge gap between now and then so far that no scientific trace whatsoever was found…

I read somewhere that between Russia and the USa there are enough nukes to blow up the surface of the world 10 times over… it could have happened. In 4 billion years, what’s say… a couple million? After all, our civilization has been not even a flash in the pan. Makes you knid of existential thinking about it too much…

Hmm, I need to retreat into a place of solitude for awhile to ponder this.

Civilization starts by searching for ways to kill a thing socially.

Civilization ends when it searches for ways to kill a society over a thing.

All that is inbetween the begining and end is what fills heaven and hell.

There’s a novel called the science of discworld which is a brief introduction to the history of the earth by terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen which is actually a pretty good introduction to the history of the earth, interspersed with some discworld comedy, which makes reference to a crab civilisation and then a lizard one, both being wiped out by comets or ice ages. They make the point that there’d be no way of us finding remains of these civilizations. I dunno how long stone tools would last before traces of them were wiped out. But consiering the huge timescales, it’s plausible, especially since our rise to civilization was so quick.

I just had a thought though, if there had been an advanced civilization they’d probably have used up many natural resources wouldn’t they? I don’t know the time scales involved in replenshing them though. There’s also things like satellites stuff on the moon, etc. I don’t know how long these things would last.

Wouldn`t there be some geological evidence? You can date meteorite impacts by rare metal levels in ancient rocks - unless you are talking about a cataclysmic event that returned the earth to a molten state, then there would be some evidince of an early civilization through mineral/isotope levels.

yea but i think he is taling talking like trillions of years ago or something, and that would give plenty of time for it to replinish, then everything starts all over about a billion years ago. am i right Chris?

But the earth isn`t that old.

Guest, thats what we assume, because we assume science to be right. but its been proved wrong before.

Yes, but to make the theory work you must assume that most of what we know is wrong - which leads into the land of make-believe… so you could basically say anything is possible. Thats not really science though, is it!

Very basic civilization, like herding or development of a proper language would be impossible to detect. But any further down the civilization route would lead to some traces, but I suppose we’d have to be looking in the right place.

I still hold that once antartica defrosts we will see where man came from. It may be eden, it may be hell. But the traces of man start at the tip of africa. a tip close to antartica.

and now that i think about it, timewise its probably the safest to bet, an ape species gets on a prepermafrost antartica seperated from other apes evolves into early man, man escapes permafrost narrowly and goes north.

Are we allowed to swear on this forum? If not, balderdash!

Where is there any precedence for apes on ice?

Jungle book/disney on ice. and lion king on ice. :evilfun:

Thats certainly about the level of the science in that theory :laughing:

There’s a book called Eon I think by the screenplay writer of American Beauty (could be another film, gah, memory and drink not good combination) that postulates that antartica is really Antlantis. it’s a good if big and scientifically detailed book. Though if you’re religious youwon’t like it’s constant assertations that the bible has nicked all of it’s stories and even it’s symoblism from other religions. It’s actually very interestring if you’re an atheist though. Apparatnly there were flood myths all over the world way before Noah’s story popped up. And loads of other similar instance. The cross being a traditional symbol for representing the sun.

Anyway, I digress, Blutgi’s post just reminded me of it. Antartica was part of the super continent, but I think it split off before Man was even close to evolving, though I can’t remember very well. In fact I’m 90% certain of that as America was well away from Africa by then as humans got on to America by a land bridge between europe and greenland.

aside from the joking where is your evidence that apes of any speicies didnt cross ice?

Did man just evolve on the southermnost tip of affrica for no reason? We know evolution comes from change.

If a group of apes goes to a pre frozen antartica and is seperated and evolves once, then goes back and gets seperated again and evolves again because of this then, the missing link is going to be found in the species of ape that was traped on antartica.

With regard to a civilisation existing long before humans that was wiped out, you should read the book “The Light of Other Days” by Arthur C. Clark and Stephan Baxter. I wont tell you about it because the part that refers to this topic is near the end. But it is a worthwhile read. If you really want me to explain i further, just ask.

Life- microbial life, as far as we know, evolved on earth soon after its formation, was wiped out and then re-appeared about a billion years later. I doubt that early earth was a stable enough environment or that there was enough time for intelligent life, but it could have happened.
As for BluTGI’s assertion, it is possible, but unlikely. We are not physically adapted for Antarctic life, none of our ancestors that have been discovered were, and early humans were taller, less hairy and slimmer than their precursors, whereas you’d expect apes that had evolved in Antarctica to be more compact and hairy.