Dragons Are Real

I would like to point out an error my opponent made in Round 1. He says "By dragon, I mean any dinosaur that could emit smoke from it's mouth or nostrils." That is the definition of dragon that we established. He claims that dragons "once lived on Earth with humans". This is impossible because dinosaurs and humans did not live at the same time. Full Definition of DINOSAUR 1 : any of a group (Dinosauria) of extinct often very large chiefly terrestrial carnivorous or herbivorous reptiles of the Mesozoic era 2 : any of various large extinct reptiles (as ichthyosaurs) other than the true dinosaurs http://www.merriam-webster.com... The above definition by Merriam-Webster says that dinosaurs lived in the Mesozoic era, which stretches from 251 million BC to 65.5 million BC. No humans lived during this time period. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu... Now that we've established that they could we could not have co-existed, debunking half of my opponent's claim, let's move on to prove that it is not plausible that dinosaurs emitted smoke from its mouth or nostrils at all. "so hot it isn't just boiling, it's also vaporizing. So hot, in fact, the Bombardier Beetle can kill other insects." Yes, water boils at about 100 C and turns into vapor. "Vaporizing" is no hotter than "boiling", it's about the same temperature. "but shooting out vapor." Vapor is not smoke. It takes much higher temperatures to produce smoke. Full Definition of SMOKE 1 a : the gaseous products of burning materials especially of organic origin made visible by the presence of small particles of carbon http://www.merriam-webster.com... "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." It would take more than "a little heat to start the reaction", it takes a blowtorch. I see what my opponent is trying to say, but this would be nearly impossible because of the damage that these chemicals would do to the animals body. For example, sulfuric acid can have serious corroding effects on stone. That means living tissue wouldn't stand a chance. The reaction my opponent mentioned also produces extremely high temperatures and if this happened inside the animal, then the poor dinosaur would simply get cooked. http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... "People who breath fire for the circus also manage to do it without hurting themselves." Yes, but the fire source is outside their body (hand-held torch). A dragon would have to have the entire process occur inside the body. "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?" Gizzard stones must be very smooth so it does not hurt the animal. If the stone is smooth, then there is virtually no possible way that these stones could be "knocked" in such a way that they would produce a spark. Also don't forget that since they are inside the body, they are moist, making it impossible to make a spark. http://stoneplus.cst.cmich.edu... "Even if such an organ were found preserved, it is extremely unlikely that its purpose would be indentified." Scientists managed to identify gizzards in dinosaurs didn't they? That is soft tissue as well. "That's misleading paraphrasing. The full quote says the cavities "could have"" helped dinosaurs breathe, etc....I think that speculation is pretty baseless" 1) Yes, it says "could have". But it says absolutely nothing about any "dragon-like" function. 2) You may think that the speculation is baseless, but you are not a scientist. In fact, my opponent completely ignores the next page of the article. It clearly says that: "Witmer estimates that T. rex's head would have been 18 percent heavier if not for the air spaces in its skull. This savings may have allowed T. rex to pack more muscle onto its head, which possibly strengthened its bite and allowed it to tackle bigger prey." Also: "The nasal airways in the ankylosaurs...These winding airways were often located next to large blood vessels. 'Whenever we see that, it raises the possibility that we're looking at heat transfer,' Witmer said.This setup would have allowed hot blood circulating through the creatures' heads to dump excess heat into the airways, helping to cool their brains and the rest of their bodies." http://news.nationalgeographic.com... My opponent mentions how wide-spread the myths/legends of dragons are. There is a very simple explanation to this. It's like the telephone game. Legends and stories travel quickly. Here are the words of an expert on the subject: "From a biological standpoint they couldn't really have existed - not if you think of a dragon with wings and four legs, breathing fire. Once the idea's there, they pick up characteristics from real animals. There are quite a lot of dragon "remains" in churches on the continent that look very much like stuffed crocodiles or a bit of a whale skeleton or something like that. Relics: a local saint slew a dragon and here's the proof. There are certainly some accounts that sound very like garbled travellers tales of, say, pythons: there are stories of dragons that wound themselves round the thing they were attacking. Certainly once people had the idea of a dragon, a lot of things got mapped on to that idea. It's a ferocious animal, obviously, so it's going to have claws like other clawed animals, and big teeth and so forth. It's oral history" http://www.empireonline.com... It's just like myths about Atlantis and vampires and such. It may have once been based on reality, but the truth was greatly distorted by time, poets and artists. People think of vampires as crazy, bloodthirsty, pale humans who want nothing but blood and can't step in the sun. No evidence supports this, even though hints of vampires are found in many texts, including the Bible. http://www.angelfire.com... My opponent then shows quotes describing dragons. In these descriptions, dragons are described as enormous, winged, fire-breathing serpents. Have any skeletons or fossils of such creatures ever been found? I would like to note that almost all of the historical quotes my opponent provided have no source. Could he please provide a source? In reality, there is no direct evidence of the existence of dragons. There are no skeletons as described in my opponent's quotes, there is no evidence of a fire-breathing organ.There are things that may fuel local legends and myths, but no direct evidence. It's just like the Lochness monster. A widespread myth about an enormous, underwater serpent that has many accounts and tales BUT no direct proof has ever been discovered. Maybe a man just saw a big snake and freaked out. When he returned home to tell his wife, he described it as a 50-foot toothed serpent. The wife tells all her friends, etc. It spreads very quickly, but no physical evidence has been found to support a so-called Lochness Monster. "Roman historians talk about a battle between the Roman legions and the tribes of the east, and the tribes of the east had this dragon banner, apparently with some sort of pyrotechnics in it. It was said to breath fire - kind of psychological warfare, I guess. And then the Roman army adopted the dragon as their standard, a kind of windsock affair, and it then comes into heraldry. There's a dragon standard flying above Harold in the Bayeux Tapestry. So there are a lot of rather complicated threads." http://www.empireonline.com... The above quote illustrates how myths of fire-breathing serpents could have originated and spread. On to Pro.