Dragons Are Real

CON: “Yes, Dracorex is a real creature. But you cannot call any animal with an irregular bony skull a dragon.” I never called Dracorex a dragon, or pretended that it single-handedly proved the resolution. I merely pointed out that it's latin name translates to “Dragon King”, presumably for its striking resemblance to the popular idea of a dragon. CON: “Most of these animals (except the eel) eject a liquid from their body[...] I see your point, BUT there is an enormous difference between ejecting dangerous liquids and making/ejecting flame or smoke.” This isn't completely true. The liquid the Bombardier Beetle ejects is so hot it isn't just boiling, it's also vaporizing. So hot, in fact, the Bombardier Beetle can kill other insects. My examples encompass animals not just electrocuting and shooting hot liquid, but shooting out vapor. CON: “How does my opponent suppose that an animal could produce it in the first place?” Presumably by storing highly reactive chemicals in separate glands, and mixing them together when ready to produce the flame. In other words, kind of like the Bombardier Beetle. For fun, let's hypothesize in more detail. A popular chemistry experiment is dropping a gummybear (or other sugary substance) in molten potassium chlorate, which produces a large, smoking, violent fire. An alternative is using room-temperature potassium chlorate with sugar, and using a catalyst to provide a little heat to jumpstart the reaction. A drop of sulfuric acid is an example of one such catalyst. CON: “Then how would its body survive the temperature without being seriously hurt?” Such an objection may also be leveled at the Bombardier Beetle, who can boil other insects to death without hurting itself. People who breath fire for the circus also manage to do it without hurting themselves. I should point out that potassium chlorate is known to be produced by living organisms, and of course sugar is too. So all our hypothetical dragon would need to do is mix potassium chlorate, sugar, and a catalyst to create a burst of fire and smoke. Of course, there are practically infinite other combinations of chemicals that produce fire, and maybe the real answer is much simpler. Cows produce lots of methane gas as a result of digesting plant matter. Methane gas is flammable; in fact, earlier this year in January, a cow shed literally exploded from all the methane produced by the cows inside.(4) It's speculated that static electricity may have ignited the gas. When you realize that many dinosaurs were also plant eaters, and just one large individual could be digesting the same amount of plant matter as an entire herd of cows, the plausibility of fiery dinosaur burps becomes apparent. All that's needed is a plausible ignition mechanism. Quartz is an extremely common mineral, and rubbing a couple quartz rocks together can produce sparks. It is said birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds have gizzards, which they deliberately fill with minerals like quartz, in order to grind up seeds for digestion. Could it be that the gizzards of modern birds were the organs which ignited the methane burps of dinosaurs? CON: “[P]reviously unknown chambers have been found in the skulls of dinosaurs. There is no evidence of the existence of an organ that could produce smoke/flame in these animals.” I don't think this is a strong objection. Soft tissue in dinosaurs is almost never recovered, and even when it is, it's usually very ambiguous. For example, red blood cells have supposedly been found in a T. rex fossil, yet they are not perfectly preserved, so some question whether they really are blood cells and not merely some modern bacterial growth. Even if such an organ were found preserved, it is extremely unlikely that its purpose would be indentified. A couple questions must be asked: Would we recognize the amazing electrocution capability of the Electric Eel if all we had of it were fossils? Would we recognize the explosive power of the Bombardier Beetle if all we had were fossils? I say definiately not, and anyone who attributed such abilities based on fossils would probably be laughed at. Such powers would sound downright magical to those who hadn't seen it with there own eyes. Can you imagine the incredulity of someone being told, for the first time, that there exists a fish that can kill an alligator with a 600-volt shock, without even hurting itself? CON: “[M]y opponent's source says that these chambers "helped dinosaurs breathe, communicate, and hunt.The extra room may even have paved the way for flight in some species."” That's misleading paraphrasing. The full quote says the cavities “could have” helped dinosaurs breathe, etc. My source is being highly speculative on the purpose of these cranial cavities and tubes. How would an inter cranial chamber help a dinosaur breathe anyways? The nostril size remains the same, so it's not like having (supposedly) empty holes in your head would increase oxygen intake. Plus, modern animals communicate just fine without extra chambers in their head. I think that speculation is pretty baseless. As far as helping them hunt... I don't even understand how the article is suggesting being an airhead aids in hunting. Doesn't make sense to me. CON: “[N]o where in any of the three quotes does it mention smoke or flame being ejected.” Con is completely correct. I ran out of space last round, so I'll satisfy his request at the end of this one. I'll start by pointing out that the entire world has had tales of fire-breathing dragons; that is, giant reptiles that breath fire or smoke. According to Animal Planet's Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real program: There is one creature remembered in the legends of almost every human culture that’s ever existed. A creature depicted with remarkable similarity by the Chinese, the Aztecs, even the Inuit who live in a frozen land where no reptiles are found—even they have stories of this animal: the dragon. Cultures from different continents, people who had no contact with one another[...] These stories can be found on every continent except Antartica. How did the Native Americans communicate their legends of dragons with the Ancient Romans, or the British, or the Asians? It's not as if the legends are of fire breathing hamsters, or fire breathing butterflies, or even fire breathing lions. No... the universal legend is of not just a giant reptile, but one associated with fire, lightning, or smoke. You can't expect the ancients to universally infer fire-breathing from a few, poorly arranged dinosaur fossils that were accidentally stumbled upon. According to Dr. Hogarth, senior lecturer of biology at University of York: The evidence [for dragons] is not confined to works of natural history and literature but appears in everyday chronicles of events[. S]uch eyewitness accounts are not derived from hearsay or anonymous rumor; they were set down by people of some standing, by kings and knights, monks and archbishops, scholars and saints[...] [H]ow could you say in Western Europe in the Middle Ages that an elephant was a real animal and a dragon wasn’t? The information you had about them was both the same in each case[...] Even the methods used to slay the dragons sometimes coincide. In the Catholic Bible, Daniel kills a dragon by feeding it sulfur, and Poland has a tale of a dragon being killed the same way. Carl Sagan sums it up nicely: “The implacable mutual hostility between man and dragon,[...] as exemplified in[...] myth[,]is a worldwide phenomenon” In the Anglo-Saxon chronicles of the 8th century, we find the following recorded: A.D. 793. This year came dreadful[,] fiery dragons flying across the firmament. The Canterbury Cathedral holds a record of Friday, September 26th, 1449 which reads as follows: In a marshy field on the Suffolk/Essex Border, two fire breathing dragons engaged in a fierce one hour long struggle. The Suffolk Dragon was black and lived on Keddington Hill, while the dragon from Essex was reddish and spotted and came from Ballington Hill, south of the river Stour. Eventually the red dragon won and both creatures returned to their own hills to the admiration of many beholding them. In 1669, in London, a record with the following (extremely long, therefore paraphrased) title was published: [A] true Relation of a Monstrous Serpent which hath divers times been seen at a Parish called Henham on the Mount within four Miles of Saffron-Walden: Showing the length, proportion and bigness of the Serpent, the place where it commonly lurks, and what means hath been used to kill it. Also a discourse of other Serpents[...] It's several pages long, and describes the creature as "8 or 9 foot long, the smallest part of him about the bigness of a Man's Leg." The eyes were said to be "very large and piercing" and "in his mouth he had two row of Teeth” that were “very White and sharp." The serpent possessed wings which were "too weak to carry such an unwieldy body", and “[Hellish] blasts exhaled from his dire throat.” Interestingly, this description matches the drawing of the dragon killed by St. George which I posted last round. I await my opponent. (4) http://www.bbc.com...