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Re: Intelligent Dinosaur Paleo Civilization?
Jacques Guy (jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au)
18 Jun 1995 08:23:19 +1000
For once a post on the fringe which is not cracked!
What we ought to ask is "what evidence will remain of our
civilization in 200 million years?" Precious little, I
guess. Stones? Flint perhaps, but I guess that all building
stones will have crumbled into dust or been crushed by
tectonic forces. And you can make tools out shells.
So stones we cannot count on. Metal tools, I expect, will
have oxydized away, or become unrecognizable slag.
And how about our high-technology? Imagine what will be
left of your PC in 200 million years.
So, exceedingly little is likely to survive, I think.
And what when, or rather if, this exceedingly little is
discovered by the intelligent ant archaeologists of
200,000,000 AD? It will be dismissed a geological quirk,
or as a hoax, of course. This brings to my mind the
famous (or infamous if you prefer) "spark plug" found
I forgot where embedded in I forgot what rock, X hundred
thousand years old (there was a photo of it in Fortean
Times a couple of years back). The point is not whether
the "spark plug" is a hoax, or a natural formation, or
even existed, it is that it is all that is likely to
be retrieved from our civilization 200 million years from
now.
As for brain size of dinosaurs or other, we know that
with human beings brain size does not correlate very
well with intelligence. Further we know that dinosaurs
had a "secondary brain" (a brain-size nerve ganglion
... in the pelvic region isn't it?). And finally,
if parrots and mynah birds were extinct, would we
guess, from their skull capacity, that they were quite
good at mimicking human speech?
Opposable thumbs now. I have had pet mice, and
have observed how they grasped food and twigs. Mice
do not have thumbs. It makes handling tools nore
difficult, but not impossible.
Personally, I would not be surprised if non-human
civilizations had developed in the past. I find
it statistically improbable that none would, that's
all. But evidence? Short of a time-machine...
It makes for interesting speculation, though.
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