Intelligent Dinosaurs

[freeztar]

This reminds me of "The World Without Us". It's unlikely that the human legacy would survive a million years, much less 65 of them.

Though, I've never heard of coprolites with enigmatic computer chips or even chemically treated toilet paper. Surely they must have had that?!

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Turtles are such cute little rascals, hard headed, but cute.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

But the final clincher (in my book, at least) is that the evidence that goes with the mass extinction of 65 million years ago which you want to blame the dinos for, is geologic in nature. If the dinos caused that, then they weren't intelligent and able on our scale. They must have been close to God-like in order to manipulate the planet on that scale. We're mere gnats compared to that capability.

And I think that's a bit far-fetched, at least.

Actually there is a school of thought that says we are indeed causing a mass extinction on a par with the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. If you looked back from 65 million years in the future the mass extinction going on now would indeed look as sudden as the end of the dinosaurs looks to us.

The Earth's 6th Great Mass Extinction is Occurring as You Read This -A Galaxy Classic

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Chicken fried Snapping turtle, mmmmmuuummm good stuff!

[modest]

Originally Posted by freeztar

This reminds me of "The World Without Us".

I was thinking that too. As I recall, its author was on the Daily Show and said that luckily for his wife she is a bronze sculptor and bronze survives nearly indefinitely. Also, plastics wouldn't biodegrade. I guess it's possible that an intelligent culture capable of causing a mass extinction didn't manufacture bronze or plastic or anything else which would survive, but it seems so incredibly unlikely.

Wouldn't it be funny though if an paleontologist was uncovering a dinosaur and found a fossilized wristwatch or maybe holding a bronze weapon

~modest

[Larv]

My Uncle Freddie was an intelligent dinosaur. He could count to five on one paw.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by modest

I was thinking that too. As I recall, its author was on the Daily Show and said that luckily for his wife she is a bronze sculptor and bronze survives nearly indefinitely. Also, plastics wouldn't biodegrade. I guess it's possible that an intelligent culture capable of causing a mass extinction didn't manufacture bronze or plastic or anything else which would survive, but it seems so incredibly unlikely.

Wouldn't it be funny though if an paleontologist was uncovering a dinosaur and found a fossilized wristwatch or maybe holding a bronze weapon

~modest

I think that the ability of plastic to last forever is much exaggerated. Over a time span of millions of years plastic will degrade, bronze is another matter but I notice our landscape isn't exactly littered with bronze implements either. Since this thread needs a devils advocate I will do so and point out that "lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack" (Sagan) There are reports of things called ooparts. Out of Place artifacts, some are quite extraordinary but like many things of that nature the idea of their very existence is cause to scoff. No matter how well documented can you imagine how difficult it would be to convince people you had found a bronze sword in a layer of Cretaceous rock?

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Actually there is a school of thought that says we are indeed causing a mass extinction on a par with the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. If you looked back from 65 million years in the future the mass extinction going on now would indeed look as sudden as the end of the dinosaurs looks to us.

That's certainly true - if you were to look back from 65 million years ago, you would find a layer in the rock where a lot of species suddenly disappear. In that same rock layer, you will find traces of complex chemicals, world-wide, in all deposits of the same age, that point to a chemical reason for the die-off. That would be our lasting legacy on this planet. However, when you look at the evidence for the end of the cretaceous period, the evidence point to an impactor. If we assume that it was a local species who did it, that that species must have been capable of transforming the planet on a geologic scale so that we can mistake it 65 million years later for an impactor. On such a scale that they would be approaching god-like status - that's way out of our league currently.

[Moontanman]

Actually I am quite sure the impactor happened, the idea in my mind at least is that a dinosaurian civilization was already flourishing at the end and that most dinosaurs were either extinct or being breed as meat animals by the controlling intelligence during the last few hundred or a thousand years or so. If not for their meddling the dinosaurs might have recovered. I do not really believe this to be likely but it does beg the question of how could we detect them if they had existed and have artifacts already been uncovered and dismissed due the impossible nature the main line of science puts on such things. ooparts are real, every bit as real as UFOs, but like UFOs deciding if a oopart is a real artifact of another civilization, or mistaken identity, or if a oopart is some jackass trying to hoax everyone becomes a problem for sure.

[modest]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I think that the ability of plastic to last forever is much exaggerated. Over a time span of millions of years plastic will degrade, bronze is another matter but I notice our landscape isn't exactly littered with bronze implements either.

Here's the Daily Show clip I was recalling with the author, Alan Weisman:

Video: Alan Weisman | The Daily Show | Comedy Central

I transcribed a relevant part for the broadband impaired

Originally Posted by Alan Weisman

Plastic though—it took microbes millions of years to learn how to digest the stuff that trees are made of; lignin and cellulose, so that’s why the original trees didn’t decay. They just got buried and eventually they became coal. Plastic—nothing knows how to eat that yet. It’s all still here (except for the little bit that’s been burned) so the conglomerates of the future will have Barbie and Ken and your telephone and your computer and all those things in it. They will enter the geologic record.

~modest