What is the sense of man studying the origins of the earth?

Question

thanks

Answer 1

It's actually quite important. Understanding how the planet formed is part and parcel to understanding the basic questions of our Universe.

Philosophically, Who are we? How did we get here? How did life start? These are ALL absolutely fascinating and compelling questions. How did the Earth get here? is a GREAT question.

Practically, knowing how the earth likely formed, is important to understand how it behaves currently, a better understanding may allow us to improve public safety in areas regarding flooding and earthquakes and volcanos and other processes which helped form the Earth as we know it today.

From the perspective of the future,

It might be that we find that planets like Earth form very easily and around every star in the sky is a planet and some are bound to be like Earth and still some might have other creatures on them , which means that when we are ready and able, there is a whole new wilderness and wonderous galaxy for our distant decendants to discover and explore!

Relgiously,

While many people are perfectly content believing X or Y, I don't want to believe, I want to KNOW.

If it's the case that the Earth was formed as a result of a natural process of matter accreting around our central star some 3-4 billion years ago , that's good to know, it takes the mystiscism out of an important question.

On the other hand , perhaps there is some some superintelligence which has the ability to engineer planets around selected stars or perhaps even engineer whole regions of the Galaxy so that a race of organisms might be able to be evolved to achieve a degree of intelligence or sentience, that would be important to know too.

In the case of the galactic superintelligence, we have no hard evidence to suggest such an entity exists, we have no unexplainable artifcacts, we have received only one or two signals from extraterrestrial sources which cannot be explained by our current science (the WOW signal for instance) , and we have found nothing in our scientific frame of reference to suggest that what we have discovered so far could be on shaky ground otherwise.

That is to say we have VERY good reason to feel comfortable that WHAT we know is in fact the truth, we may come to change that position with new knoweldge , but that's just not very likely.

I say either answer is acceptable and compelling, but I think it's important that we stick to what we can prove.

Answer 2

Understanding the origins of the earth from a geological perspective help us understand the way the earth is now.  

Scholarly effort on the development of the planet has led to a greater understanding of natural resources on the planet and where they may be.

Want an example ?....diamonds.   Diamonds are extremely useful in industry as drill bits or substrates for extremely high  temperature electronic circuits.  Since diamonds are so rare and obviously extremely expensive, industry needed an alternative.   An understanding of the origin of the earth led to an understanding of how diamonds form naturally....that led to a process which can produce artificial diamonds for use in industry.  Those artificial diamonds are used to tip drills which are used to extract natural gas and petroleum etc...

Answer 3

What is the "sense"? Do you mean value?

Of course there is value. For one we maybe able to predict the lifespan of earth - that might be of value.

Answer 4

You're asking about geology in anthropology category eh?

OK from an archaeology, multidisciplinary, point of view. Well uhm it is good to know about climate change for instance, and when it was likely to have contributed to cultural change. Do you know, for instance about the Humboldt Current on South America's west coast and its connection with the El Nino weather cycles in continental North America? Yes, that's meteorology, geography, and a function of geology too.

Check out the last Little Ice Age, up to the Year With No Summer. Humans were on the move, migrating - they needed a place to grow food for families. Had you ever noticed how much clothes folks piled on a couple hundred years back? Even how much they were still wearing in the mid-1800s? It hadn't begun warming noticeably until after the US Civil War - you can easily tell by the clothing - more cultural changes coming. I could go on. It's geologic history, history and anthropology too.

Let's see, another instance was recognition of particular lithic material's origins, the specific source, and thereby suggesting that the assortment found at the site were likely trade goods carried afoot from a good distance away.

Aren't you glad you asked.

Answer 5

None.  The origins of the earth don't really matter, do they?