Economics on the geological time scale, to scale

I was brushing up on the geological time scale two days ago, and didn't find much on the web that placed the various eons, epochs, and eras on a timeline that was to scale.  I'd like to say my goal was to place the history of economics on that backdrop, because that would make this exercise sound more relevant to this blog; unfortunately, it had almost nothing to do with economics, so I can't say that. 

Truth is, I was in the middle of a book that was talking about various periods like the Cambrian, Permian, Cretaceous, etc., and was wondering where they fell, relatively, on the number line going all the way back to earth's birthday.  One of the better timescales I found on the web was the color-coded pdf at this link; it's pretty, but definitely not to scale, and I still wanted to imagine things in the proper perspective.  So I decided to generate a to-scale timeline myself.  What a pain... but I did manage to find an excuse for calling it an economics history chart.  Finding economics on the geological timescale is like playing Where's Waldo; see if you can spot it. 

Click to enlarge.

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I'll get back to economics with the next article.  This took more time than expected, but at least I've got a better picture of the epochs in my head now. 

Comments

[Pete Storm]

I once heard that if you stretched your hands out wide, with one finger tip the formation of the earth, and the other fingertip the present, you could wipe out all of human history with one swipe of a nail file.

Interesting perspective, no?

PS

[Jason]

It would be interesting to include all the known extinction events, the percent of species wiped out, the estimated global temperature, CO2 levels and the rise of man on your time scale.

[mark]

No matter how short you make the time period by putting it in perpective, I am still not looking forward to 4 years of Hillary.

[Kevin]

OK, then here's today's philosophical question:

Does Economics exist in the absence of human beings?

[Bob]

This post is about as good as any to ask a question of Steve that I have
been wanting to ask for a while.

Preface. You're obviously an intellectually curious man with a wide variety of interests; economics is your main interest, at least on this blog. So, given that economics is really about human behavior, what is your interest in some of the social sciences (psychology or sociology)?

[Steve]

Bob:
I'm no expert in those, but I try to stay current on the fundamentals and the developments. I do like to keep current in the hard sciences of astronomy and astrophysics; Neil DeGrasse Tyson is my current favorite author in that field. In economics (obviously not a hard science) Paul Romer is my favorite; he deserves the Nobel prize everyone is betting he'll win someday soon -- largely for the work he's done, but also (IMO) for his ability and desire to communicate with us in everyman's language.

Underlying all of this is my strong preference for critical thinking, evidence, objectivity, and the scientific method; their secondary or tertiary importance in political persuasion is my primary beef against politics and politicians. I force myself through books on the "art" of persuasion, so that I can more readily recognize when those who desire to be experts at it (eg, politicians) are using it against us; I usually have to pinch my nose when reading those books, however.

The scientific method isn't of much help in a few other subjects, either, such as aesthetics; fortunately, I don't need science to help me understand that my granddaughter is among the most beautiful of anyone I could ever hope to meet in her age bracket.

Hope that helps.

[Joe C.]

Wo, Dude. What were you smokin' when you came up with this? Cool.

[caveat bettor]

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Please sign up and trade ($5,000 of play money). Let's hope we can get a real market up and running, and better inform our policy on global warming.