The Before the Flood Hypothesis: An Example of Polymathic Metascience

Before scientists engage in science, they first, either consciously or unconsciously, engage in metascience. In other words, they first ask and answer the question, ‘What is a theoretically interesting question that I can address?’

The paradigm of their subject informs them with regard to what research is likely to be fruitful. In other words, there is a SETI project because it is believed that it might produce meaningful results. There is not a Search for Leprechauns project because it is believed, and we concur, that it wouldn’t produce useful results. The epistemological structure and accepted methodologies informs them as to which questions may be productively addressed through the research process.

While still constrained, the Research Polymath may explore a broader range of questions. Here we address a metascientific line of reasoning that begins with a relatively simple question. Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 150K years. In a period of about 7,500 years at least seven independent instances of the invention of agriculture took place. What are the chances of that?

A very down and dirty calculation would be (150K/7.5K)^6 = 64,000,000:1 against. However, the degrees of freedom should actually be based upon the number of communities of humans that could have invented agriculture, how large they were and how long they were extant. These statistics are not known. Still, any reasonable estimates will yield probabilities greater than 1,000:1 against. In other words, something is missing from the story of the invention of agriculture. Before we proceed with our primary line of reasoning, we will consider a couple of possible explanations that we do not believe are supportable.

The first is what we call the popcorn hypothesis. If you put a number of kernels of popcorn into a pot, nothing happens for quite some time and then, in a relatively short period of time, the kernels pop. This hypothesis suggests that humans require a specific environment for a sustained period of time before they will invent agriculture. The problem with the hypothesis is that it does not explain what the various environments that existed prior to the invention of agriculture have in common and why we should suppose that those environmental factors did not exist at any time prior to those instances.

The second, and most popular among Anthropologists, is the Fertile Crescent hypothesis. In other words, when asked why agriculture was invented, the traditional response has involved discussing the climatic changes that took place at the beginning of the Holocene and how it drove people to invent agriculture. This, however, does not transfer as an explanation to the inventions in the Americas, East Asia or Africa. The environmental conditions within which agriculture were invented in these locations was not substantially different to conditions that existed throughout the upper Pleistocene.

We then move on to the hypothesis that we prefer. That is that agriculture actually was invented in the upper Pleistocene, most likely several times. In fact we will suggest that agriculture and most likely rudimentary civilization was first invented in the middle Pleistocene or about 150K to 200K years ago.

From the DNA recently extracted from a Neanderthal specimen, we now know that the last common ancestor (LCA) of the Neanderthals and modern humans lived about 450K years ago. The inference can be made from this that around that time a population of archaic humans became reproductively isolated and over a long period of isolation slowly evolved into modern humans. After approximately 250K years, mitochondrial Eve lived. The mitochondrial Eve hypothesis has come under attack, however, we believe that it is still approximately valid. About 350K years later, the Y chromosomal Adam lived. There are some very interesting implications to that date, however, we will use it for our purposes at this time.

The existence of a mitochondrial Eve and a Y chromosomal Adam is the result of what Population Geneticists call the Founders’ Effect. Essentially, if a population is small enough and isolated for sufficient time, it will ‘fix’ on a particular genetic configuration simply through random variation. The mathematics of the Founders’ Effect is complex and requires many values that can only be estimated. However, we can draw the conclusion that the population that led to the eventual emergence of modern humans averaged between 10,000 and 20,000.

By the time that the population of modern humans began spilling out into surrounding geographic areas about 100K y.a., they were anatomically different from the archaic humans in a number of ways. They were more gracile. They had a higher skull vault and thinner cranial bones. They had lost the supraorbital ridge, any evidence of an occipital bun and prognathism. It suggests that modern humans evolved in a very benign environment that did not put a premium on a robust conformation.

There is a great big elephant in the corner, however, if we assume that modern humans evolved in a benign environment engaged in hunting gathering. Why did the far more significant environmental changes of a civilized, agricultural life track cause absolutely no anatomical changes? It appears that modern humans came pre-adapted to modern life which would be a violation of what we know about natural selection. Taken in total, we are forced to consider the proposition that the anatomy of modern humans evolved as an adaptation to an agricultural life track.

The traditional Archeologist will bring up the very valid point that, save perhaps for the age of the Sphinx, no credible evidence exists of a pre-Sumerian civilization or agriculture prior to ~11K y.a. To an Archeologist, whose epistemology is predicated upon digging stuff up and then explaining it, this absence of evidence is all that is required to dismiss the hypothesis. However, the preceding points will be compelling to, say, a Physicist or Mathematician who is accustomed to the more theoretical reductio ad absurdum line of reasoning. Still, if no plausible explanation can be found for the absence of evidence, then the correct explanation has not yet been found.

Our hypothesis states that the evidence has been obscured by the Great Flood. We are not referring to some mythological or Biblical flood, but rather to the one that everyone knows about. We are speaking of the one that took place at the end of the last Ice Age from approximately 18K y.a. to 12K y.a. and more specifically what is known as the melt water pulse 1A. Over the total period, 10 million cubic miles of glacial ice melted, moved over the land to the ocean and raised ocean levels a total of 120 meters. Of those totals, nearly 20% occurred during a 200 year period around 13.8K years ago (+/- 800 years) known as the melt water pulse 1A.

Civilization is a coastal or riparian, and to a lesser degree littoral, phenomenon. In other words, if there was any civilization in existence 13.8K y.a. it almost certainly would have experienced a series of profound flooding events. Older civilizations would now be submerged under 100 meters or more of oceans or swept away by flood waters or buried by silt deposited during the flooding events. Furthermore, during this period, the climate was experiencing massive changes. Cold places were becoming warm, arid places were becoming wet and wet places were becoming arid. Species were becoming extinct or changing their ranges. If the nearly global mythologies of great floods have a basis in reality it almost certainly would find its source in this period.

Whatever the level of civilization during the melt water pulse 1A, the populations would have found their homes submerged, swept away or buried. The effectiveness of their food acquisition strategies would have been totally destroyed. In essence, during this time nearly universally humans became refugees. They left their homes and the survivors settled elsewhere to start afresh. Soon after this, agriculture began to crop up everywhere. A careful contemplation of the preceding will lead the Polymath to the conclusion that the mythologies of great civilizations that were destroyed by floods are reasonable.

This hypothesis is clearly polymathic in both the subjects it considers and the epistemological approaches used. A full consideration is even more polymathic. However, the primary point of this post is to ask the question does polymathy inform us differently as to whether ante-diluvian, agricultural civilizations should be considered SETI or leprechauns? The traditional Archeologist or Anthropologist will say the latter and not support expensive undertakings designed to find evidence that they don’t believe will be there. As we see, a more polymathic approach tends to support the proposition that under one hundred meters of ocean, quite reasonably may be found evidence of them.

We will encourage ongoing discussions of both the Before the Flood hypothesis and its relevance to the Polymathic Method.