S01.E09: The Lost Worlds of Planet Earth

[maraleia]

 

The Ship of the Imagination takes us on a journey through space and time to grasp how the autobiography of the Earth is written in its atoms, its oceans, its continents, and all living things. We’ll meet the man who solved one of the central mysteries of geology, but died knowing he was the laughingstock of his field. We’ll meet the woman who proved him right and discovered the single largest feature on the Earth.

 

[Cress]

This was better, and Neil talked about how scientists are human and let their prejudices get in the way. If there continue to be more women scientists sprinkled through the last four episodes, that will help even out the sexism. But it was still a troubling triend in the first seven episodes.

 

All the bad things that happened to make the Great Dying just kept piling on. It made it seem like a miracle that even 10% of species survived extinction. It was also interesting to see the Mediterranean sea fill up so quickly. I never knew it was a desert before. Neil really emphasized the dangers of global warming more explicitly than in the lead episode. I'm sure it will annoy some viewers, but then again, would those viewers have stuck with the show for this many episodes? Who knows.

Edited May 5, 2014 by Cress

[Dagny]

I kinda sucked for the lady to know that she was right about the tectonic plates, but was only got it confirmed decades later. She might have been able to smile about it, but I'd be pissed.

 

I only knew about the Mediterranean because I watch tons of programs. Even so, it's one of those things that you only remember a little bit of.

 

I bet the climate deniers are pissed about this episode, if they knew it existed.

 

It was interesting that he was talking about the land bridge between Asia and the Americas.  Land mammals definitely would have crossed, but I thought that there were tons of recent data that shows that some might have used boats to cross or travel further down the coast.  

[Joystickenvy]

This was probably my favorite episode so far. Lots of interesting topics that weren't retreads, the animation segments were interesting, but brief and not a lot of gimmicky ship of the imagination type stuff.

The climate change PSA was a bit heavy handed, but I'll give them a pass because it's a message that needs hearing.

I particularly liked the presentation of the a Earth as it's own ever evolving organism and the demonstrations of how changes in the Earth sparked changes in the life forms living there paralleled by how living organisms (trees, humans) have also touched off massive changes in the Earth.

[A Boston Gal]

Off topic: why is the series' iconic "Ship of the Imagination" shaped like a Pez dispenser?

[millahnna]

I have this vague childhood memory of learning about the guy everyone thought was wrong about continental drift and being all indignant on his behalf. How anyone looked at a world map and didn't come to the same conclusion is beyond me. I know, I know historic perspective and all but still.

[muddywaters]

Off topic: why is the series' iconic "Ship of the Imagination" shaped like a Pez dispenser?

 

I would so buy that Pez dispenser if they made one.  And I don't even eat Pez!

[Joystickenvy]

Off topic: why is the series' iconic "Ship of the Imagination" shaped like a Pez dispenser?

My first thought when I saw it was why is it shaped like Slave 1?

Edited May 6, 2014 by Joystickenvy

[BusyOctober]

I really like this show and the topics discussed in every episode so far have been interesting to me, but I can only watch it On Demand in broad daylight.  Neil's voice is so calm and soothing that I fall asleep if I watch at night.

 

Some have disliked the animation and think it "dumbs" down science, but I like it better than seeing any "dramatic reinactments".

[Joystickenvy]

I really like this show and the topics discussed in every episode so far have been interesting to me, but I can only watch it On Demand in broad daylight.  Neil's voice is so calm and soothing that I fall asleep if I watch at night.

 

Some have disliked the animation and think it "dumbs" down science, but I like it better than seeing any "dramatic reinactments".

I definitely prefer the animation to "dramatic reinactments" but I also prefer the cosmos over the historical stuff, which was why I liked that the animation part was enough to give a nod to the people who made the discovery, but not a large portion of the episode.

[A Boston Gal]

My first thought when I saw it was why is it shaped like Slave 1?

(After I googled Slave 1, I thought:) Ok, it's the love child of Slave 1 and a Pez dispenser.

Edited May 6, 2014 by A Boston Gal

[Cress]

I kinda sucked for the lady to know that she was right about the tectonic plates, but was only got it confirmed decades later. She might have been able to smile about it, but I'd be pissed.

 

Yeah, I think the animation glossed over how she was proven right and then worked with the guy on a paper. They just made up instantly like that? The same with the other woman in the previous episode who changed her thesis only to be vindicated later. We hear a quote from the woman blaming herself for not standing up for her theory, but are given no context of when she said that and to whom.

[Biosynth]

Dagny, there is a movement in the Science community that the populating of the Americas was first achieved by boats traveling down all the way down the West Coast of the U.S. down to the tip of South America. 

 

Likewise there is also suggeston (and some proof) that people came in boats along glacial ice from the France region to the U.S. mostly Southern Virginia and Carolinas.  I worked with a man who was one of the people spearheading the Pre-Clovis concept.  We have a site in Virginia called Cactus hill. You should check it out.  Mike Johnson is his name, if it comes up.

 

This predates the Clovis Settlement idea by a few thousand years.  (And one of the arguments is that the stone tools made by these earlier settlers of North America were very reminiscent of Solutrian tools made in Europe.) 

 

I enjoyed the show.  Lots of good information.

[millahnna]

There's also some evidence that the Vikings may have populated the Americas much earlier than previously thought.  Some recent digs in Scandinavian areas have unearthed some remains that turned out to be Amerindian (DNA testing) and dated them significantly earlier than a lot of accepted "when the Europeans got to the Americas" timelines. 

[Dagny]

Likewise there is also suggeston (and some proof) that people came in boats along glacial ice from the France region to the U.S. mostly Southern Virginia and Carolinas.  I worked with a man who was one of the people spearheading the Pre-Clovis concept.  We have a site in Virginia called Cactus hill. You should check it out.  Mike Johnson is his name, if it comes up.

 

Thanks Biosynth!  More reading for during lunch.

 

I like how all of this is interconnected. Nothing happens in a vacuum.

[Kierstyn]

Regarding the 'boats used to populate the Americas before the Bering land-bridge" hypothesis... I think it is a theory that is gaining strength.  The problem is that a lot of what would have been the coastlines - where, presumably, a lot of evidence of habitation from ship-using people would have been found - have changed so much due to sea level rise.  But I remember when I was a kid and newly interested in archaeology (thanks, Clan of the Cave Bear series) people talked about the Monte Verde  site down near the tip of South America, and it was thought to be a hoax, or that something went way off wit the carbon dating.  They thought that because this site was dated to some 2,000 years or so before the land bridge would have been passable.  But more and more discoveries in the western hemisphere, including the Meadowcroft rockshelter in Pennsylvania, are showing dates that support a human presence in the Americas via a method other than the Bering migration.  And I think that a consensus of scientists are accepting many of those early dates from these archaeological finds.  It's cool stuff.  I have fallen down many wiki-holes on this and related topics.

[Prevailing Wind]

 

My first thought when I saw it was why is it shaped like Slave 1?

(After I googled Slave 1, I thought:) Ok, it's the love child of Slave 1 and a Pez dispenser.

I think it looks like a Bluetooth earpiece - which is a descendant (ancestor?) to Lt. Uhuru's earpiece.  You can contact Starfleet HQ with that thing.

[TeeVeeStevie]

If there continue to be more women scientists sprinkled through the last four episodes, that will help even out the sexism. But it was still a troubling triend in the first seven episodes.

Most of the developments in these fields happened long before civil rights, so most of the scientists involved will inevitably be white men. In a thousand years that might be different, but today that's just the way it is. We can't invent female scientists and discoveries just to avoid "sexism."

Neil really emphasized the dangers of global warming more explicitly than in the lead episode.

That's just more alarmist politics getting in the way of objective scientific facts. There were other more important factors contributing to the Permian extinction besides global warming, including a possible asteroid impact. Judging by this chart, atmospheric CO2 levels don't seem to have much at all to do with the occurrence or severity of extinction events.

Likewise there is also suggeston (and some proof) that people came in boats along glacial ice from the France region to the U.S.

It's doubtful there were any ancient trans-Atlantic migrations from Europe to America. It appears instead that there was an ancient population in Siberia that migrated east and west, contributing to both Native Americans and Europeans, which would explain the similar tools.

See:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12736.html

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/23/001552