>Recently I watched a show that talked about the age of this planet. It is much older than previously thought. The narrator mentioned how the earth has recycled itself many times over, and stated that for most of its’ history, there was no life. Then life happened, and ultimately evolved into us and all the other species and forms in existence now. What I want to know is, how can it be stated as fact that there was no life previously? How can we know that life didn’t exist many times and become extinct and all traces plowed back into the magma through plate tectonics? I love science.
>That reminds me of how I feel when I’m watching a show about historical things and they emphatically tell the audience that ‘this piece of pottery came from a jar used for holding corn’, or ‘that piece of jewelry was worn ONLY by men and meant such-and-such’ or ‘these figures *clearly* show a battle scene’ (and, to me, it actually looks as if it could pass as a dance or some such fun thing)…excuse me, but how exactly do you know this? Were you there?? How can you say this *definitively*??Yodata