From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Holden and superhumongoreallybigosaur weights
Summary: Ted certainly has an interesting way of admitting he is wrong
Date: 17 Aug 92 23:59:56 GMT

> From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2863@fedfil.UUCP>
> Artists conceptions of the seismosaur do not show him as a diplodocid.
> I suspect the jury is still out on that one.

Ted, of course, suspects wrongly.  I've already quoted at least one
expert on the subject (namely Dr. David Gillette of the Division of
State History in Utah).  The seismosaur is a diplodocid. 

> I have not seen any figures on weight for the seismosaur yet, and the last
> person on this planet I'd trust for such figures is Wayne Throop.

If Ted has "not seen any figures on the weight for the seismosaur",
then he simply didn't read the post he purports to respond to, Nor the
entry he claims to have read in Guiness.   (Hmmmm.  Or possibly his
copy of Guiness isn't the latest.)  Gillette estimates the weight at 50
tons, perhaps more, by volumetric methods.  (My own guess was 75 tons,
but Gilette has more detailed size data, so we may probably safely go
with his lower figure).

> I noticed that Guiness gives weight figures only up to about a
> quarter of what appears in most of the rest of the literature.  You'd
> figure there had to be some reason for that.

Ted may have "noticed it, but it just isn't true to any significant
degree.  In the '92 edition, they give figures for the Ultrasaur up to
200 tons or so, and in the '91 edition gave a figure of 140 tons.  This
is by NO means "only up to about a quarter" of McGowan's figure.  True,
they end up settling on estimates are a bit lower than those of Colbert
from 1962 (the ones McGowan refered to for his estimates), but Colbert's
brachiosaurus estimates were among the highest, NOT (as Ted claims)
representative of "what appears in most of the rest of the literature". 
And, most important, they explicitly say that they are using volumetric
methods, not force-based methods. 

The rest of Guiness' figures (say, for diplodocus, apatosaurus, and so
on) are pretty standard.

> They note that the tracks of breviparopus indicate a weight
> of around 55 tons.  Now, a footprint that old isn't going to tell you a
> damned thing about what KIND of sauropod this guy was.  The only
> possible way they could be drawing such information is track depth.

No, it is quite obvious that track breadth and stride length can be
used.  This is ultimately another volumetric (archimidean) method. 
Further, trackways (as opposed to footprints) *can* give information
about the species involved.  For one trivial example, look at Gillette's
examiniation of trackways in the "Dinosaur Tracks and Traces"
collection: they clearly show the rear legs to be bearing the greater
share of the weight, and hence the sauropods were not brachiosaurs
(which bear most of their weight on their front legs).  Other features
of trackways can establish other details of species. 

> You combine that with the estimates which are uniformely 1/4 what you
> normally see in books, and I figured it a safe assumption they're going by
> track depths.

In order to make this "safe assumption", Ted had to ignore what they
explicitly said about their estimates, which is that they were from
volumetric measures and NOT track depths.  This is specifically and
doubly true for the seismosaur data they present.

> There's one other funny little thing about what Guiness has to say about
> breviparopus:  "...the print named Brevoparopus, taken together with those
> of the BRACHIOSAUR Pleurocoelus from the Paluxy River TX, suggest that they
> also in the very large size class, i.e. 55 tons." (pg 106, 91 edit.)
> So that we have Guiness claiming that Breviparopus was a brachiosaur.

Well, to me the funny thing here is that Ted actually expects anyone to
believe that two creatures massing the same is supposed to imply that
they are of the same species.  "The imprint on the deck made by the
primate named Ted Holden, taken together with that of the deep-sea
grouper we just caught, suggest that they both are in the 100-200 lb
class".  Does Ted think that this implies primates are fish?

In Ted's favor I note that the breviparopus was mentioned in the
"brachiosaurid" section of the latest Guiness.  But a little
paleoscriptology puts the issue quite in doubt.  Comparing the '92
edition to the '91 edition shows that a a diplodocid saurpod was
discussed "out of place" just at the section where breviparopus is
mentioned, and it becomes clear in this history-of-edits context that
the section labled "brachiosaurids" in the '92 edition was a grab-bag of
the most massive specimens of whatever species.  Most telling is that in
the '91 edition, under "longest", it mentions that (as brachiosaurs are
most massive) diplodocids are the longest, and it then goes on to list
only diplodocid species of enormous length, including breviparopus, and
excluding pleurocoelus. 

Further, even in Ted's quote, the phrase "the brachiosaur pleurocoelus"
is fairly clearly used to *differentiate* breviparopus from pleurocoelus,
not to liken them.  I mean, you don't say "Felix and the dog Spot"
if Felix is also a dog.  That type of phrase is used when Felix is
NOT a dog.

So, I conclude that breviparopus is a diplodocid, and that Guiness never
intended to claim anything else.  Certainly the original reason I
thought the breviparopus was a diplodocid was it's prominent mention in
the diplodocid section of the '91 edition, and I see no sufficient
reason to conclude otherwise now.  

Of course, this is somewhat conjectural for my taste...  perhaps
somebody can find the original papers on breviparopus to confirm or
confound my interpretation, but until then, the weight/mass ratio of
breviparopus, whether brachiosaurid (or more likely) diplodocid, is just
a wild-eyed guess, and so doesn't do much to support Ted's case. 

> Putting that piece of information together with normal published
> weights for brachiosaurs, brontosaurs. supersaurs, ultrasaurs etc.,
> you're right back with my 500,000+ lb weight figure for the
> breviparipus.

Only if one has an overactive imagination and no common sense.  The
largest seriously proposed masses for *any* sauropod dinosaur are
400,000 lbs or so, and masses above 200,000 lbs are certainly
not universally agreed upon.

> But all of this is really immaterial, and Throop is quibbling as usual.
> Forget the seismosaur and the breviparopus if you don't like them.

May we also forget Ted's erronious claim that there is any evidence
that their weights are one quarter of their masses?  Pretty please?

> McGowan gives a 180 ton figure for the ultrasaur on page 119 of his
> book.  [...] For him simply to stand, he'd need a ratio of weight
> lifted to 2/3 power of weight (Holden number) of around 71.  This would
> be equivalent to Bill Kazmaier doing a squat with around 3200 lbs on
> his shoulders.

( Well, actually that should be "weight lifted to 2/3 power of mass",
  but then Ted always does abuse the terms "mass" and "weight". )

I don't particularly doubt McGowan's figure for the Ultrasaur, though
other researchers disagree with him.  But in fact, with more correct
scale factors than the intra-species-only Holden Number, the ultrasaur
at 180 tons would actually be equivalent to Kazmaier doing a squat of
860 lbs or so.  A cake-walk for the Kaz-meister.

And by the way, this is one reason why my objection to Ted's inflated
masses is more than just a "quibble" as Ted claims.  For a quadruped to
mass more than 300 tons *would* be pretty hard to explain in 1g
acceleration.  But up to *at*least* that point, while interesting and
amazing, there are definitely no fundamental, unsolvable mechanical
problems.

Another reason is that I just hate to see such fundamentally mistaken
claims as Ted makes about sauropods go uncorrected.  Brachiosaurids and
diplodocids are about as different as two species can be and still be
sauropods.  Ted is buttressing his position by making obviously
erronious claims, and pointing these errors out is hardly a "quibble".

> It cannot happen in our world.
> That's the bottom line.

Ted's calculations don't correctly model our world.  
THAT's the bottom line.

( See the posting entitled "Holden Numbering" for further details.  And
  all this is even without resorting to the point that Ted hasn't yet
  shown that adult sauropods ever *needed* to get to their feet, or that
  they did it as inefficiently as a squat. )
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw