From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Mon Sep 04 2006 - 14:47:55 EDT
While pondering the bickering about TSS, I chanced upon this item from a paper by the late Andre Gunder Frank: "Among the dating techniques and timelines, [David] Christian [in his book Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History] offers the following perspective for our recent-one second!-history within the 13.6 billion years age of our planet Earth, by converting each billion years to a scale of one year: History of the Universe before Our Sun: From 13 to ca. 4.5 Years Ago The big bang occurs ca. 13 years ago. The first stars and galaxies appear by about 12 years ago. The sun and solar system form about 4.5 years ago. History of Earth and Life on Earth: From 4 Years to ca. 3 Weeks Ago The first living organisms appear about 4 years ago. The first multicelled organisms appear about 7 months ago. Dinosaurs are driven to extinction after a meteor impact about 3 weeks ago; mammals flourish. The Paleolithic Era of Human History: From 3 Days Ago to 6 Minutes Ago First hominids evolve in Africa about 3 days ago. First Homo sapiens evolves in Africa about 50 minutes ago. First humans reach Papua New Guinea and Australia about 26 minutes ago. First humans reach the Americas about 6 minutes ago. The Holocene Era of Human History: From 6 Minutes Ago to 15 Seconds Ago First agricultural communities flourish about 5 minutes ago. First literate urban civilizations appear about 3 minutes ago. Classical civilizations of China, Persia, India, and the Mediterranean and the first agrarian civilizations in the Americas emerge about 1 minute ago. The Modern Era: The Past 15 Seconds Human communities are linked into a single "world system" about 15 seconds ago. The Industrial Revolution occurs about 6 seconds ago. The First World War is fought about 2 seconds ago. Human populations reach 5, then 6 billion; the first atomic weapons are used; humans walk on the moon; and the electronic revolution occurs, all within the last second. (pp. 502-503)" From: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/16.1/frank.html Spiritually considered, do we really have time to quarrel, considering the broader scheme of things? Jurriaan .
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