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Can’t believe the article doesn’t mention why it is called the Silurian Hypothesis [1]! [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_(Doctor_Who) https://en.m.

• weinzierl 6y ago
  I expected Silurian come from silicon but I was wrong. Once heard the idea that there might have been silicon based life on earth and all the sand we have is from that period - much like oil is dead carbon based life. Scientifically there is not much to it, I think, but it would make a good basis for a SciFi story nevertheless.
• bregma 6y ago
  Long before Doctor Who geologists have referred to an era in Earth's history as the Silurian. This is because it was originally identified from sedimentary rock layers found in south Wales in an area where the Romans had encountered a fierce tribe of natives named the Silures. One thing led to another and British Victorian scholars being what they were, the rocks were named after something a Latin master taught rather than anything locally relevant, like the Welsh. Incidentally, the Silures lived in the part of Wales where the city of Cardiff is located. There is a known active rift in the space-time continuum under the city of Cardiff [0]. This could also explain much. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Rift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_Rift
  • messe 6y ago
    That may be true, but in this case the term was actually inspired by the episode of Doctor Who.
    • mkl 6y ago
      "We name the hypothesis after a 1970 episode of the British science fiction TV series Doctor Who" - The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in the geological record? https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748 https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.03748