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Re:When Are the Intelligent Aliens? by VLM on Sunday June 30, 2013 @04:03PM (#5966977)
One of the semi serious answers is you need a peculiar and somewhat unusual arrangement of land and sea to create a long series of oscillating ice ages every ten thousand years or so (to one sig fig), which is just the right wavelength to very strongly evolve intelligence and civilization. Without that intense adaptation pressure you don't get growth. With enough of it, you get us.
Re:When Are the Intelligent Aliens? by Luc on Sunday June 30, 2013 @04:52PM (#5967142)
Interesting idea, I'd like to know more. Is 'The Ascent of Mind' by William Calvin what you are referring to?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595161146/

Re:When Are the Intelligent Aliens? by VLM on Monday July 01, 2013 @08:21AM (#5970090)
My apologies, I messed up by not providing things to google for.

There is a hyper specific (perhaps overspecific) theory by a geologist named Matthias Kuhle with many publications from vaguely the 80s thru the 90s. He's probably the most "famous" of the proponents of the whole plate arrangement theory.

The general idea that plate tectonics causes the overall cycle of ice ages doesn't seem very controversial. What the geologist types seem to fight over a lot is Exactly which of numerous causes contributes Exactly what percentage of the positive feedback loop in Exactly which numerical model.

For example Kuhle has a lot of publications about the tibetan plateau being a great place to bootstrap the glacial positive feedback loop. There's others who get all excited about the precise location of the continents affecting the flow of ocean currents pushing warmth up north... The current that pushes warm water to England so its warmer than alaska, the current that used to flow over Panama but can't anymore, the current that used to not exist over the Bearing straits in Alaska but exists now. Then theres the other folks who get all wound up about continents being over a pole (like antarctica) or landlocking a polar ocean (like the other side, the north pole) leading to glaciers. There's something of a minority opinion about "really big continents with mountains in the middle covered in glaciers"... think America's Glacier National Park as visual model, other than its all melting right now.

I don't know anything about the book you linked to, although it's reviews make it look interesting.

Re:When Are the Intelligent Aliens? by Luc on Wednesday July 03, 2013 @04:46PM (#5987404)
That's all very fascinating! Thanks very much for the reply.