21 NOV 2017 by ideonexus

 Evolutionary History Through Macro and Micro Observations

Everything in the cosmos has a history. The old dichotomy between the "historical" sciences (like geology, paleontology and evolutionary biology) and the (for want of a better term) "functional" sciences (like physics and chemistry—some would call them the "real sciences") was always supposed to be that fields like physics study dynamic processes and discover immutable laws of interaction among particles composing the cosmos—while the historical sciences study, well, history—the suppose...
  1  notes
 
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 The Archeologist's Search Image

A fossil hunter needs sharp eyes and a keen search image, a mental template that subconsciously evaluates everything he sees in his search for telltale clues. A kind of mental radar works even if he isn't concentrating hard. A fossil mollusk expert has a mollusk search image. A fossil antelope expert has an antelope search image. ... Yet even when one has a good internal radar, the search is incredibly more difficult than it sounds. Not only are fossils often the same color as the rocks among...
Folksonomies: fossils archeology
Folksonomies: fossils archeology
  1  notes

Varies from hunter to hunter, but must be able to find camouflaged bones that might be fragmented into many pieces.

11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 The Relationship Between Geology and Geography

All that comes above the surface [of the globe] lies within the province of Geography; all that comes below that surface lies inside the realm of Geology. The surface of the earth is that which, so to speak, divides them and at the same time 'binds them together in indissoluble union.' We may, perhaps, put the case metaphorically. The relationships of the two are rather like that of man and wife. Geography, like a prudent woman, has followed the sage advice of Shakespeare and taken unto her '...
Folksonomies: geology geography
Folksonomies: geology geography
  1  notes

They are intertwined, but there are strict boundaries.

05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 The Sad Evolutionary History of Humans

I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toi...
Folksonomies: evolution big history
Folksonomies: evolution big history
  1  notes

Come out of the wilderness as a brute, filled with terrors, and constantly subject to a cruel world.