Mr Monkeybat Posted May 30, 2014 Posted May 30, 2014 The occasional land slide of other disaster does no stop large contiguous forests from developing or at least before humans stated felling them. When a land slide creates a bare patch in the forest does not stop them from quickl being filled in with plants and trees again. Xrays from Supernova only sterilize one side of the planets near them anyway. And it could be argued that the most likely form of interstellar species could be self manufacturing robots which can be largely immune to radiation.
Moontanman Posted May 30, 2014 Posted May 30, 2014 The occasional land slide of other disaster does no stop large contiguous forests from developing or at least before humans stated felling them. When a land slide creates a bare patch in the forest does not stop them from quickl being filled in with plants and trees again. Xrays from Supernova only sterilize one side of the planets near them anyway. And it could be argued that the most likely form of interstellar species could be self manufacturing robots which can be largely immune to radiation. Yes but a super volcano can have a devastating effect and recolonization can result in a whole new suite of plants and animals recolonizing... Only one side of the planets? You are kidding me right? Then you have gamma ray bursts, just about anything can be argued I thought we were arguing something specific..
Mordred Posted May 30, 2014 Posted May 30, 2014 (edited) Earth itself went through 5 known major extinction events, with 12 minor extinction events, these are only the known ones from fossil records etc. Other planets would also have extinction level events. Planets without an atmosphere having a higher susceptibility. Radiation, meteors etc. The number and types of planetary scale extinction events are numerous. Evolution on a planet does not necessarily always produce intelligent, technological life forms. It took millions of years before humans came into being. Part of the reason we did was that the Dinosaurs were wiped out giving mammals a chance to develop beyond rodent size. As I mentioned before mathematical statistics rarely involve every variable into their equations. Exponential growth is a prime example. For one thing nature trends to establish a balance between animal and plant species. The only reason mankind isn't balanced with nature is our technology, allows us to fight natures processes. Take a region where one species becomes dominant outside of technology his food supply is limited, so that species can only survive to a certain population. If the species survives long enough. Then the likely hood another species evolves, that uses the previous species as a food source increases. Exponential growth is a statistic involving one species, the mathematics you showed doesn't cover food competition, diseases, extinction level events etc. (the numeric scenarios are endless) edit just recalled an interesting story in regards to exponential expansion... When I went to high school in grade 10, I recall watching a video as part of the curriculum. In that video they talked about exponential expansion based on the (then ) current birth rate and death rates. This was back in the early 80's, according to that video by the time the year 2000 rolled around mankind would have lost 98% of its population due to starvation. I recall this as I spent the better part of my younger years worried about population growth. Now that I've studied far beyond those days I learned to realize the numerous factors those numbers never accounted for. Edited May 31, 2014 by Mordred
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