Atlantis

I love the idea of the lost city of Atlantis because it fits so well into an alternate theory of human origins. In the alternate theory, the first life on Earth was an alien settlement. The aliens built a scientific base station in Atlantis and used their advanced technology to create all the other life forms. Imagine it was illegal to do DNA experiments on their home planet, so they came to Earth and built dinosaurs and pandas and different humanoids and plants just to see what happened.

Perhaps they were looking for the ultimate physical form so their own future generations could survive in hostile climates. Maybe some of the dinosaurs, such as the t-rexes, were highly intelligent. They didn’t use tools because they had no need for them. When they got hungry, they just ate smaller, slower dinosaurs and pooped them out in the forest later. It would be the perfect life.

Or maybe they built different creatures just for the purposes of competition. They would pit one type of creature against another and see who won. The rest of the plants and animals were just food for the gladiator animals and experiments that didn’t work out.

The Atlantis hypothesis explains the big jumps in evolution, and why creatures seem to have common parts, such as birds and dinosaurs. The aliens reused the designs they liked. Maybe some features, such as the exact shape of antlers, were more accidental than planned, because DNA manipulation was as much art as science.

Then something happened to the city of Atlantis. Either it was destroyed in a natural disaster or abandoned on purpose. Now it’s at the bottom of the ocean someplace.

This doesn’t answer the question of who created the aliens in the first place, so it allows the possibility of God. It just pushes him back one level. I like the Atlantis hypothesis because it makes everyone uncomfortable, explains everything here on Earth, and you can’t disprove it. That’s as good as it gets.

I'm sure someone wrote a science fiction book on this exact topic, but I didn't read it.

Comments

[AzoresPhotos]

The real story of Atlantis begins about 1 km southwest from here. Let's name X that place where the evidence is found.
The day this theme was created, December 17, if you google
- X and Atlantis
you get only two results, both from the same site.
Atlantis appears on those two pages because of "Columba livia atlantis", a bird.
The evidence was made public in 2001, though.
See
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo796989.htm

[kelly]

the beginnning of this sort of sounded like when stargate sg-1 found atlantis and then there was stargate atlantis. sounds sort of nerdy right?

[Dave Oblad]

Before we move on from intelligent design, one more observation by yours truly:

In a discussion with a creationist friend, he brought up that old example about a man finding a watch on the beach. Did such a beautiful complex object evolve or was it intelligently designed? He thought he had me on that one. I told him it evolved. His jaw hit the floor.

I went on to describe the Mans next actions. He dug in the sand and found another watch. Not as small and not self winding. Deeper still, found a much cruder, and larger, pocket watch. Still deeper, he found a spring wound pendulum clock. Next was a huge weight driven pendulum wooden clock, then an hour glass and finally, way down, a sundial. I point out that, even with intelligent design, clocks had to evolve.

Computers, cars, internet, clocks, even language.. evolved. And continues to evolve. So.. are we the product of intelligent design? Maybe! But we still evolved over time, no matter what spin you put on it.

As for the mechanism of evolution.. the possible answer sounds like pure lunacy. As many may know, sugar has a molecular geometry. Chemists say that common sugar has right-handed geometry. All food, animals and such have right handed geometry. Left-hand geometry "can" exist for all equal right handed ones. In other words, we can create left handed sugar. It is identical to it's mirror image, but it can't be digested or absorbed.

Lost anyone so far? Ok.. Now, if we mix the basic atomic ingredients for sugar and shake well (process/randomize), some sugar molecules will form. Statistically, there should be an even count of left and right handed sugar molecules. Observation will "probably" show a huge statistical count on the common right-handed side. Why? Could it have something to do with quantum physics and random events, such that during atomic bondings, randomness is being influenced by resonance vibrations for patterns that already exist?

If this hypothesis holds true in lab tests, it would go a long way in explaining why so many differing species developed similar traits at near the same time, such as eyes evolving on species that haven't shared an ancestor for a millennia. It might also explain how similar ideas pop up across long distances..(I.e.: Monkeys washing food) and that sort of thing. (anti-matter vs. positive matter?)

Some food for thought.. Best to ya Scott.. from Dave :^)

[Sandy]

This is an interesting way to explain things.

In a way, it kind of reminded me of a South Park episode where the boys found out that the aliens had taken creatures from different planets and put all of them on earth as part of a reality show called 'EARTH!'.

[Aaron]

Iread a really interesting "non-fiction" that began by discussing how plate tectonics might work differently to we had supposed and that Antartica was actually somewhere around the equator in the Atlantic Ocean for some period in humanity's general memory. But that then there wa sa major shift and it scooted down to the south pole. It was carefully and logically laid out and drew upon some interesting tidbits of history and actually made a stab at the science that would be observably correct but different to the current understanding enough to allow for the theory.

And then half way through it said that aliens lived there and began human civilisation on Earth.

I would have been content to keep reading but it never seemed like it was going to give any evidence other than the same things that always come up. The rocket ship carving in some Inca temple, the Nazca Lines, Pyramids...

Whether you go for that theory or not, it wasn't actually laid out like the very interesting ideas about Atlantis were. I wished they'd discussed how an island that large in that place could have affected histroy, what parts of the records reflects its position.

I could look up the book for you if you're interested.

[null]

where is it?

[Joe Blow]

Well, you almost got it right.

The only part that needs some alignment is that we are left here as an experiment and someone is going to come check up on us. I think it's going to be on a Thursday. Let's just hope they like what they see or we're flushed!

My 2 cents.
JB

[Jonathan]

Your mom is from Atlantis.

(oh, and your blog is awesome)

[Ace of Sevens]

This is essentially Raelianism, though tying it to Atlantis was a nice touch. If you weren't a cartoonist, you would have been a great crackpot.

The basic problem is that while you can't exactly disprive it, you can prove that if it were true, the aliens went about things in a nonsensical manner, but you can always come up with bizarre explanations why they would do so. There are plenty of people who won't be deterred by such issues,though. That's why Christianity is still popular.

[Dave Oblad]

Hi Scott.. at it again I see. Ok, just a quick bit of lip service to the evolution argument. Why is it so hard to believe. We, ourselves, evolve from a single cell to a fully functional human in less than Nine months inside our mothers womb. Many subtle stages are touched upon during our accelerated evolution in a mothers womb.

We also need to remember that the theory of evolution wasn't created to piss off creationists. It was formed to explain the bizarre facts that surfaced during fossil excavations. That animals/fossils started simple and became more complex over a very, very, very, long period of time. The fossil record, though full of expected gaps, does show a layered progression over nearly a billion years. You won't find a trilobite buried next to a monkey in any geologically sound strata.

I'm not inclined to totally disregard the possibility of manipulated biological engineering on the part of aliens or even God for that matter. If creationists would admit their Bible is also BS, written and dummied down for the masses, I might go to church. They would also have to give up Noah and the two of every kind on one boat story. But admitting Noah to be false would cast credibility issues with the whole bible, so it will be an up hill battle for them, for a long time.

It's obvious we need an explanation that incorporates all the evidence.

Evolution is still an on going process. Example? Look at a dogs paw someday. He has what used to be a thumb. Today, it's worthless. Just hangs there doing nothing to help a dog survive. But it does indicate that dogs used to have a reason for a thumb. Early proto dogs must have had approximated hands and thus were probably tree dwellers. And dogs haven't been around all that long, about the same as humans. We also know evolution by guided design works because we breed dogs for specific behaviors and looks. A Saint Bernard and a Chihuahua have a common dog like ancestor. But they are very different today, and some of that has to do with deliberate breeding by humans. We can actually state that we humans have genetically engineered dogs to our preferences via selective breeding. That we exploited the mechanisms inherent in evolutionary properties to meet our own demands.

What do I believe? Glad you asked. I think the earth may have been seeded with pre-developed life. Way back billions of years ago, another planet may have developed DNA life forms. It was destroyed by some cataclysm and huge shards of ice laden with frozen DNA, bacteria, germs, even some multi-celled animals etc, was dispatched into space. Pieces of which fell to earth in big hunks of ice, into our early oceans. Perhaps many planets, with suitable environments, have been seeded with life spores from this same source. They will have, very likely, evolved along similar lines as here.

Ok, I hear someone out there saying "What an idiot! Comets would burn up on entry into our atmosphere!" At least I'm not idiot enough to believe the thin layer of nitrogen we started with is anything like the robust oxygen rich atmosphere we have today. Also consider that a comet, with matching trajectories and velocities with earth, could just drop without hardly heating up at all..

Ideally, science will discover all the major truths and we will finally know.

For the time being, as fragmented as it is, evolution still carries far more circumstantial evidence than the Bible Stories (abrev: BS) has to offer.

Best to you Scott from Dave :^)

[George]

The über-conspiracy book "Rule By Secrecy": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060931841/coghilcartooi-20 – combines these ideas and those from the "Zeitgeist" film you mentioned a few posts back. A little of the Graham Hancock & some Zechariah Sitchin as mentioned in other comments here, with a dose of "Holy Blood Holy Grail". I got on a conspiracy theory kick a while back, this is one of the best.

[Dave]

Well Scott, after the litany of varied posts today, I feel the time has come to beseech you from the bottom of my heart to start scheduling get-togethers for your loyal readers. Start in the major cities and expand from there. I can't think of a more entertaining Friday night than getting drunk in public with this delightful combination of highly intelligent people, total nutballs, and whatever category people like me fall into (highly intelligent nutballs?)
The smart people will enjoy talking with other smart people, and the nuts can provide the rest of us with unending hours of entertainment...
Whaddya say?
-D

[Mark Savage]

Terry Pratchett - "Strata" 1981 - a great book that follows this argument, and takes it a step further

While Terraforming a new planet, a young man is court-martialed for leaving an old boot in the dinosaur strata as a joke. Fossils are supposed to be left at their correct level so that the people who evolve on the planet will develop the correct scientific theories. Practical jokes like that are not frowned upon, but few people can resist.

The book has the same recursive structure as the Atlantis theory: Who made the Terraforming people?

Terry Pratchett and Scott share one basic personality trait.

Subversion. It runs VERY DEEP.

Naughty little boys

[Troy Z]

It's not what the Atlanteans did with our base matter that's the issue today, it's what we're doing with their remnants: apparently, we're using their old hydroelectric power-generating stations as waterslides for our own amusement.
http://www.atlantis.com/flash.aspx

[~C4Chaos]

one more thing: Atlantis = Nazi Occult Conspiracy
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4360800110742625275

[Andy Watt]

I do like it when these comments stray into metaphysics... or at least keep mentioning stuff that sounds like the Matrix :)

[Taxi guy]

Quote:
"Can you tell by their writings, how many of your readers are atheists/muslims/texans/wasp ?
Can you tell if they are part of a troubled sect that doesnt like science and reject all talks of evolution ?
Or if they are against/for abortions ?

My god, your blog is attracting aplenty.
Posted by: Jules | September 06, 2007 at 12:25 AM"

Sco-ot, he called us Texans.

[mingz]

so weird.. i just thought of something similar to this yesterday ._.

[Borjan]

"I like the Atlantis hypothesis because it makes everyone uncomfortable, explains everything here on Earth, and you can’t disprove it." - Scott

Hmm. If it comes to that, I still like the theory of evolution by natural selection more because it makes maaaaaaaany more people uncomfortable, and even if there was no evidence at all it would still be the best hypothesis ever. And the fact that you could disprove it just adds insult to injury to all Darwin-haters.

[George Lane]

Scott, I couldn't agree more.

Perhaps we have a long storied history of aliens creating new aliens and new aliens and we are the latest iteration.

Perhaps we are just computer programs.

With all these ideas that are as likely as the "God" idea, why do we find it so necessary to believe that God exists?

I don't want to hear about Occam's razor just because we have the Bible. A supernatural being is not the simplest solution.

[Harry]

Hahaa i like the idea of an ancient yet advanced civilization. There´s enough of obscure time in the past for the development and decay of a pre-industrial culture.

I disagree on the new age stuff: technology in ancient times was perceived as magic, so engineers were "magus".

Talking about decision taking, a Navajo elder can kick the ass of many of today´s Harvard-spoon-fed crazy-bigot politicians.

Gotta go, peyote crop time :)

[DF]

I believe that I have heard an arguement similar to this before? I believe it was a religious nut who stated that because they found an empty cave around were Jesus was supposed to be buried, that proved he was resurrected. This was before, however, the discovery of the cave that had the boxes of Jesus, his wife, and his whole family. How much you want to bet we'll have nuts now claiming to be decended from Jesus?

I have yet to decide on a religion yet, I've got a few decade before I'm dead and I have to decide, but I am leaning towards the alien worshipping Raelians right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism

Maybe your next post can be about the Great Pumpkin, or was that another comic strip....

[Andy Watt]

Hmmm. This obsession with animals is pushing you ever closer to Larson, Mr Adams....

I remember a guest cartoonist drawing a friendly "barney" style dinosaur... that's in a dilbert book I have somewhere...

but if you start drawing Ratbert eating smaller animals and pooping them into catberts tray, we'll know which in-joke you're referring to when the last panel say "...and that proves my atlantis theory"

[twounicycles]

Scott said "The Atlantis hypothesis explains the big jumps in evolution, and why creatures seem to have common parts, such as birds and dinosaurs." Perhaps this is because we have a common ancestor? Did you know we are more closely related to starfish than we are to crabs? Apparently crabs have a molting gene (a HOX gene apparently) which both we and starfish lack. Amazing.

[Vidar]

Lovely theory! It even explains why there appears to be evolution. You can do the same with, say, operating systems, from UNICS to UNIX to Minix to Linux with a bunch offshoots like BSD and Xenix, some dead and some still alive. Many features appears "independently" and there is a fairly clear ancestry. Why wouldn't someone who creates creatures leave the same kind of tracable past? Many previous versions died for lack of funding or fan support (would you cheer for a trilobyte, especially after the mass marketed introduction of the lobster?), and their features were bought cheaply or stolen and tweaked for a new round of whatevertheydo. If you add a suitable disintegration story for Atlantis, say bombed to pieces, tactically destroyed to keep the Romulans from gaining technology, sucked into a pool of lava or simply rotted away by time, and there's nothing to disprove anything.