Big History seeks to retell the "human story" in light of scientific advances by

such methods as radiocarbon dating, genetic analysis, thermodynamic measurements of

"free energy rate density", along with a host of methods employed in archaeology,
anthropology, and world history. David Christian of Macquarie University has argued
that the recent past is only understandable in terms of the "whole 14-billion-year
span of time itself."[23] David Baker of Macquarie University has pointed out that
not only do the physical principles of energy flows and complexity connect human
history to the very start of the Universe, but the broadest view of human history
many also supply the discipline of history with a "unifying theme" in the form of
the concept of collective learning.[34] Big History also explores the mix of
individual action and social and environmental forces, according to one view.[2]
Big History seeks to discover repeating patterns during the 13.8 billion years
since the Big Bang[1] and explore the core transdisciplinary theme of increasing
complexity as described by Eric Chaisson of Harvard University.

Time scales and questions

Big History makes comparisons based on different time scales and notes similarities
and differences between the human, geological, and cosmological scales. David
Christian believes such "radical shifts in perspective" will yield "new insights
into familiar historical problems, from the nature/nurture debate to environmental
history to the fundamental nature of change itself."[23] It shows how human
existence has been changed by both human-made and natural factors: for example,
according to natural processes which happened more than four billion years ago,
iron emerged from the remains of an exploding star and, as a result, humans could
use this hard metal to forge weapons for hunting and war.[7] The discipline
addresses such questions as "How did we get here?," "How do we decide what to
believe?," "How did Earth form?," and "What is life?"[4] According to Fred Spier it
offers a "grand tour of all the major scientific paradigms" and helps students to
become scientifically literate quickly.[20] One interesting perspective that arises
from Big History is that despite the vast temporal and spatial scales of the
history of the Universe, it is actually very small pockets of the cosmos where most
of the "history" is happening, due to the nature of complexity.[35]

Cosmic evolution
Nature timeline
This box: viewtalkedit
-13 —–-12 —–-11 —–-10 —–-9 —–-8 —–-7 —–-6 —–-5 —–-4 —–-3 —–-2 —–-1 —–0 —
Reionization
Matter-dominated
era
Accelerated expansion
Water
Single-celled life
Photosynthesis
Multicellular
life
Vertebrates
Dark Ages
←
Universe (−13.80)
←
Earliest stars
←
Earliest galaxy
←
Earliest quasar/sbh
←
Omega Centauri
←
Andromeda Galaxy
←
Milky Way spirals
←
Alpha Centauri
←
Earth/Solar System
←
Earliest life
←
Earliest oxygen
←
Atmospheric oxygen
←
Sexual reproduction
←
Earliest animals/plants
←
Cambrian explosion
←
Earliest mammals
←
Earliest apes
L
i
f
e
(billion years ago)
Cosmic evolution, the scientific study of universal change, is closely related to
Big History (as are the allied subjects of the epic of evolution and astrobiology);
some researchers regard cosmic evolution as broader than Big History since the
latter mainly (and rightfully) examines the specific historical trek from Big Bang
→ Milky Way → Sun → Earth → humanity. Cosmic evolution, while fully addressing all
complex systems (and not merely those that led to humans) has been taught and
researched for decades, mostly by astronomers and astrophysicists. This Big-Bang-
to-humankind scenario well preceded the subject that some historians began calling
Big History in the 1990s. Cosmic evolution is an intellectual framework that offers
a grand synthesis of the many varied changes in the assembly and composition of
radiation, matter, and life throughout the history of the universe. While engaging
the time-honored queries of who we are and whence we came, this interdisciplinary
subject attempts to unify the sciences within the entirety of natural history—a
single, inclusive scientific narrative of the origin and evolution of all material
things over ~14 billion years, from the origin of the universe to the present day
on Earth.

The roots of the idea of cosmic evolution extend back millennia. Ancient Greek
philosophers of the fifth century BCE, most notably Heraclitus, are celebrated for
their reasoned claims that all things change. Early modern speculation about cosmic
evolution began more than a century ago, including the broad insights of Robert
Chambers, Herbert Spencer, and Lawrence Henderson. Only in the mid-20th century was
the cosmic-evolutionary scenario articulated as a research paradigm to include
empirical studies of galaxies, stars, planets, and life—in short, an expansive
agenda that combines physical, biological, and cultural evolution. Harlow Shapley
widely articulated the idea of cosmic evolution (often calling it "cosmography") in
public venues at mid-century,[36] and NASA embraced it in the late 20th century as
part of its more limited astrobiology program. Carl Sagan,[37] Eric Chaisson,[38]
Hubert Reeves,[39] Erich Jantsch,[40] and Preston Cloud,[41] among others,
extensively championed cosmic evolution at roughly the same time around 1980. This
extremely broad subject now continues to be richly formulated as both a technical
research program and a scientific worldview for the 21st century.[42][43][44]

One popular collection of scholarly materials on cosmic evolution is based on

teaching and research that has been underway at Harvard University since the mid-
1970s.[45]

Complexity, energy, thresholds

Cosmic evolution is a quantitative subject, whereas big history typically is not;
this is because cosmic evolution is practiced mostly by natural scientists, while
big history by social scholars. These two subjects, closely allied and overlapping,
benefit from each other; cosmic evolutionists tend to treat universal history
linearly, thus humankind enters their story only at the most very recent times,
whereas big historians tend to stress humanity and its many cultural achievements,
granting human beings a larger part of their story. One can compare and contrast
these different emphases by watching two short movies portraying the Big-Bang-to-
humankind narrative, one animating time linearly, and the other capturing time
(actually look-back time) logarithmically; in the former, humans enter this 14-
minute movie in the last second, while in the latter we appear much earlier—yet
both are correct.[46]

These different treatments of time over ~14 billion years, each with different
emphases on historical content, are further clarified by noting that some cosmic
evolutionists divide the whole narrative into three phases and seven epochs:

Phases: physical evolution → biological evolution → cultural evolution

Epochs: particulate → galactic → stellar → planetary → chemical → biological →
cultural