Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Abe
Since the world did not end with the passing of the asteroid, nor did a meteor level a Russian town, I will go on with my daily routines. Yet, I can't help but wonder- had the dinosaurs not been wiped out by a cataclysmic cosmic event, could mammals have become the dominant species on this planet?
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Well, there was the crab civilisation before the dinosaurs, but they got wiped out by an earlier asteroid. The dinosaurs almost got their space program underway before they got trashed... no, of course not. But Terry Pratchett tells these tales in one of his
Science of Discworld nonfiction books (obviously parts of it
are fiction, but it is mostly science written with his imaginative flare).
I do think that the place to look hardest for other intelligent civilisations is here on earth in the past. This is the one planet we know for sure can support life, and it is even easy to get to.