Orders of magnitude matters

It is important to keep track of which order of magnitude something has.  Otherwise one’s concepts of nature risk becoming far too erroneous.  Which in turn creates needless fear.  Changes in nature on a scale we have everyday experience of is supposed to change the world entirely.  Or things on the scale of the Solar System are believed to be at most a couple of times the Earth’s size away.  It can be imagined the same person make both types of errors.  In this case he or she has never learned to understand the scale.

Not keeping track of orders of magnitude also prevent understanding of time scales.  The age of the Earth is now calculated to 4,550 million years.  It ought to be pointed out that the universe is about three times as old.  But I don’t think it is possible to directly imagine a time-span of more than a few thousand years.  This is why young earth creationists insist the world can’t be older.  However, nature does not let itself be limited by human capacity of imagination.  Especially not the impaired capacity of people which have made dogmatism into a virtue.

One does not have to be a young earth creationist to make this mistake.  Some believe that “happens at all” have to mean “happens all at once”.  The result are ideas of changes which would not be physically possible.  Much belief in pseudoscientific catastrophism is based on this faulty thinking.  Of cause I don’t deny global catastrophes have taken place.  But they have completely different mechanisms than pseudoscientific catastrophists imagine.  Certain types of natural disasters can be enlarged to a scale which makes their consequences global.  Such disasters are physically possible.  Furthermore, they are much more devastating than pseudoscientific catastrophists believe.

In 2003 I visited two ruin towns named Herculaneum and Pompeii.  (Herculaneum was later rebuilt and is nowadays named Ercolano.)  Both were destroyed by a volcanic eruption around the turn of the month October – November 79.  To show different orders of magnitude I imagine myself in Pompeii 1,924 years earlier.  Then I multiply by 10 for each imagined time travel.  This is just a thought experiment.  However, what I would come across show what large differences there are.

First I place myself in Pompeii a few months before the eruption.  I would find myself in an agrarian society within the span of state societies.  The population does not look much different from the ones I grew up amongst.  The largest difference in looks is the naturally blond being rare.  I could even make some sense out of the local language.  Above all I would see similarities with languages descended from it.  Such I have some knowledge of.

Then I place myself there 19,240 years ago.  This was before agriculture arose so very little is human made.  The life-forms I would came across would still be familiar.  This is made easier by the whole world being considerably colder then.  Scandinavia was almost entirely uninhabitable forcing today’s local life-forms to live considerably further south.  Maybe I would see some species which are now extinct.  But almost no species of visible life have arisen since then.  Europe was sparsely populated enough for humans to be hard to find.  Moreover, they belonged to a population which no longer exists.  Although they have genetically contributed to today’s Europeans.  Especially this applies to the northeast.

I imagine myself there 192,400 years ago.  Then the world was just a little colder than it is today.  I would think the vegetation most closely resembles the natural one in parts of Central Europe.  The fauna would be even richer with more currently extinct species.  Some species which survived in Africa were then also found in Eurasia.  The current human species already existed in Africa.  However, Europe was then inhabited by Neanderthals which I consider a sibling species.  I think we out-competed them by being more energy-efficient.

1,924,000 years ago Italy was uninhabited.  Homo erectus existed at the time but had not reached Europe.  Ice sheets existed at both poles although the world was warmer.  Italy may have been drier due to increased evaporation.  If so the area was a scrubland not unlike the coast of Libya.  For sure many animal species would differ from those alive today.  However, they could be identified as belonging to present-day genera and families.  The differences are no larger than that.

19.24 million years back the apes had just arisen.  The world was tangibly warmer without any ice around the North Pole.  In contrast there was already ice at the South Pole.  If we look at Italy I think it was covered in scrubby vegetation.  Although the fauna was dominated by mammals it differ rather much form what I am familiar with.  Many of the animal species of the time don’t easily let themselves be classified.  Entire families have gone extinct and other has been added.

192.4 million years ago was in the age of dinosaurs.  Then there were no ice sheets at all.  Flowers and grass did not exist yet and all mammals were small.  Instead of birds as we know them the same roles were taken by pterosaurs.  Real reptiles existed too, although they were not particularly closely related to any present-day groups.  Same applies to all possible animals.  The most familiar would be vegetation which was dominated by conifers.  Seed-bearing plants without flowers could also resemble broadleaf trees, palms and herbs.  The last one mentioned has been out-competed by herbs having flowers.

1,924 million years ago the air was not even breathable.  I don’t know if the site of Pompeii was on land 19.24 and 192.4 million years ago.  If not I may imagine me being on the closest landmass.  The point is small changes being accumulated over time into large.  Oftentimes it is not physically possible speed up different processes.  In the cases it is possible the consequences are disastrous.  Life can of cause recover after such a disaster.  However, this takes very much longer than the disaster in and of itself.

 

Uploaded on the 21st of Mars 2024.