Comment by randomImmigrant
7 hours ago
Actually correct. We have very very few fossils compared to the millions of species that have evolved and gone extinct over 4 billion years.
The fossils we do have are of highly successful species in that geography. It’s a matter of chance, leaving behind a fossil, after all.
And unlike biological matter that can fossilize, industrial structures etc do not. All our manufactured stuff has very short life once it reaches the crust and starts getting compacted.
The more time you add, the better the odds we’d find this evidence lost.
And if this wasn’t a global, but more localized pre-human civilization, the evidence would be thinner still.
Which is why this isn’t a scientific hypothesis really. It’s more showing you the limits of scientific inquiry into the deep history of Earth.
> It’s more showing you the limits of scientific inquiry into the deep history of Earth.
I think this is it: the point of this argument is to inspire some awe in the listener, making them realise how vast Earth's time is compared to our horizons.
But in practice, the argument is wrong. A dead animal's skin is expected to lasts weeks to months- and yet we have fossilised specimens. A footprint typically lasts hours, and yet we have ones that are hundreds of millions of years old. Even if the expected lifespan of our artifacts is nothing in comparison with these timespans, a small percentage of artifacts will either be preserved or leave recognisable traces- exactly as it happened for soft tissues and footprints. It's extremely naive to think that none of this will leave traces.