From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Holden Numbering followup
Summary: mostly correcting Ted's misunderstandings
Date: 19 Aug 92 23:31:58 GMT

I'm combining responses to followups from several folks into this one posting:
      news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
      kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
      rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)

> From: news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2864@fedfil.UUCP>
>> Holden claims that Kazmaier's 1000 lb deadlift is the
>> largest lift that any creature can perform, 
> Whoa!  Not quite. I've claimed that the squat is the closest thing in any
> sort of weight lifting event to the ordinary act of standing up, number one,

( It isn't really an accurate analog.  But the point of my post is to show
  that *even*if*it*were* accurate, the Holden Limit based on it is wrong. )

> and that the 27 Holden number for Kaz doing the 1000 lb squat is an
> upper limit, more or less, for the world for creatures AS LARGE OR
> LARGER THAN Kaz.  

Sorry I was unclear.  Hopefully, "Holden claims that the "squat" (a
weightlifting event) is a good model for how any animal stands under
load, and that Kazmaier's 1000 lb record represents a limit for
creatures his mass or greater" will reasonably capture Ted's intent. 

> Ants probably derive Holden numbers far above the 27 I mention.  

Why bother with "probably"?  Let's take a really large ant, and give
it tremendous strength: 1 gram of ant, lifing 100 times its weight.
This loads the dice in Ted's favor.  Yet the HN of such an ant is less
than 15.  Even such a goliath of an ant would have to lift 200 times
its weight or so before reaching HN 27.  And more reasonably sized
ants would have to lift 500 or 1000 times their weight.  To borrow
a phrase "it just can't happen in our world".

Face it, Ted.  Insects just aren't that strong.

( Warren Vonroeschlaub also pointed this out. )

( Note: Guiness mentions some beetles that come close, but you will note 
  that those events don't involve lifting, but simply the point at which
  their exoskeletons crush. )

> But you have to understand the manner in which every muscle in
> a power lifters body gets used in such a total effort.

Nonsense.  The arms aren't engaged in lifting weight: they are used in
series with the legs, instead of in parallel.  The weight being lifted
by the arms must also be lifted by the legs.  This is why adding the
load Kazmaier's hands *could* have lifted to his squat lift weight is
proper when accouting for biped/quadruped differences. 

> Kaz would derive a Holden number of 71 only by doing a squat with around
> 3200 lbs on his shoulders.
> He'd be flattened out like one of aunt Jemima's pancakes.

True, but irrelevant.  As mentioned before, better (though still
back-of-the-envolope) scaling than the intra-species-only Holden
Number show the equivalence between the  Ultrasaur and Kazmaier
is more like an 860 lb squat.

> Kaz can benchpress around 500 lbs,

His record is listed as 660 lbs.

> Throop can quibble all he wants;  I've got a LOT of margin for error in the
> basic point I'm trying to make.

Unfortunately for Ted, he uses it all up by neglecting the three 
factors I treat just below.

> Throop's continuation is considerably less than well-reasoned:

( Translation for the Holden-impaired: "I don't understand it." )

>>      1)  biped/quadruped differences
> As noted, 2/3 power of weight is a rough general average of cross section,
> and roughly compensates for biped/quadruped differences.  [...]
> The real world says I'm right about the 2/3 power of weight compensating 
> for biped/quadruped differences.

No, it doesn't.  

Ted's attempt to show that square-cube scaling compensates for
biped-quadruped differences (by comparing Kazmaier's total leg cross
section to the Smithonian elephant's) is not valid.  It's just taking
two data points and drawing a line through them.  Collecting data from
dozens of different species over a broad span of sizes shows quite
conclusively that linear measures (such as leg radius) don't scale as
the cube root of mass as Ted requires, but (in quadrupeds) more like
the 2.73 root of mass.

Further, it is perfectly clear that Kazmaier has four limbs and
is using only two of them.  Nothing is preventing him from bearing
weight on his hands, thus excluding them from the comparison Ted
does is artificial, so even Ted's single data point doesn't really
say what he says it says.

So this one is just a misunderstanding on Ted's part.

>>      2)  proportional scaling differences
> Huh?

I mean just what I've been talking about for years now.  Changes in
(for example) the ratio of limb length to limb thickness.  Ie, a
difference from exact proportional scaling.  Ie, "proportional scaling
differences".  Which word is Ted having problems with here?  
I'm not sure.  The "Huh?" is just a little to vague for me to
get any useful feedback from.  

>>      3)  leverage differences
> This one is idiotic.  Throop is claiming here that differences in leverage
> due to size always favor the larger creature.  If so, then larger creatures
> should always be stronger on a lb. per lb. basic than smaller, while we
> know the opposite to be the case.

I have never claimed that "differences in leverage due to size always
favor the larger creature".  Never.  Not ever.  Not once.  This is a
figmenet of Ted's imagination, and has nothing to do with my position.

I HAVE claimed that leverage favors the thicker limb (specifically, the
limb with a higher ratio of joint thickness to limb length).  It is
trivial to see that this *must* be so, because joint thickness is an
input lever arm, and limb length is an output lever arm.

Further, leverage is only one factor, so *even*if* a creature has a
better leverage, to then say that it "should always be stronger"
is simply a non-sequitur.  

In fact, I agree with Ted that area/volume considerations will cause
more massive creatues in general to be at a disadvantage.  I merely
point out that 1) the rate of change isn't unform or smooth, and 2) Ted
is incorrect about the rate at which this disadvantage accrues between
species.

So this also is just a misunderstanding on Ted's part.

>> But we can account for
>> proportional scaling differences between species by dividing by a
>> more appropriate factor. 
> I.e. a mysterioso non-real-world factor 

No, actually a non-mysterioso real-world factor that has linear measures
of limb thickness changing at rates that are actually observed, instead
of at rates that Ted supposes that they change.

In other words, Ted is prefering his theory over actual facts here.

Also note: the "mysterioso" factor Ted seems to have so much trouble
understanding is simply accouting for the added cross section and
leverage that the ultrasaur would have if its legs were only 20 percent
thicker than Kazmaier's.  It doesn't matter whether this is so for most
animals or not: the point is, it is *possible* for the ultrasaur, and
*if* the ultrasaur had legs and pelvis only 20 percent thicker than
Kazmaier's, it could stand up.  Not having soft tissues, we don't
know how much thicker they actually were: I'm working on getting
actual figures on the best preserved specimines, and see about that.

( Of course, as Richard Harter points out, Ted has yet to
  show that large sauropod dinosaurs ever DID stand up... )

>> but we can get a ballpark idea by using the
>> bone thickness factor reported by Alexander and others of (1/2.73).
> Sorry, Throop.  Bones don't lift weight;  muscles do.

Sorry, Holden.  I never said they did.  I'm merely taking the
bone size as a rough indication of the limb size.

> 2/3 power of body weight is the accepted scaling factor for every kind of
> competitive lift.    There are a number of reasons why these scaled lifts
> go down somewhat from your normal sized athletes to your super heavyweights
> like Kaz, even in cases like Kaz in which there appears to be no excess 
> weight or fat in the picture.  [...]   layers of thick muscles
> will begin to bind somewhat against each other.

Ah. Ted's usual fantasy theory about "muscle binding".  Of course, it
doesn't account for the rather obvious fact that the scaled lifing
numbers go down for *smaller* than average athletes as well as for
*larger* than average athletes.  So again, Ted's theory disagrees
with the real world, and he prefers his theory.

> From: kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring)
> Message-ID: <1992Aug18.134525.8381@rhrk.uni-kl.de>
> I just had an idea.  Elephants are used as workers in India.  They lift logs
> and other heavy things.  How much can an elephant lift?  You have to add this
> to compute the "correct" HN for an elephant.

Well, actually not.  Because they don't get to their feet under load,
as Ted wants to require.  They stand, and then lift additional load.
But just for yucks, we can say a 10000 lb "average" elephant, lifting
a 2000 lb weight with its nose (let's see Kazmaier do THAT) might have
a pseudo-HN of only 25.  So, no particular joy there.

On the other hand, a 10000 lb elephant arising from a squat on its
rear legs only would have a HN-equivalent of something like 35 or
50, depending on how much of the total cross section of an elephant
is in the rear legs.  At least one such act was reported, but I
personally haven't seen it, and I don't have film of it, and I
don't have references that demonstrate it.  If anybody else does,
I'd be glad to hear from them.

> From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
> Message-ID: <1992Aug18.053325.17277@smds.com>
> Adding mass supported and mass lifted is simply illegitimate.  I will
> give Holden this credit.  In the hotel and bellboy story, the trick is
> that one adds a number that one should be subtracting.  Holden is, at
> least, adding two numbers.

Well, yes and no.  It *is* illegitimate, but in this case, since in the
act of standing up most of the weight of the animal is being lifted, the
two become somewhat addable.  In fact the error of this, at least for
the act under examination, is probably fairly small, and though I was
aware of the distinction, it wasn't really worth bringing up.  I think
the error would ammount to the part of the load supported directly by
the ground, and not being lifted by the leg extensor muscles.  This
would ammount to something less than the mass of the legs.  Not enough
to change the general outline all that much.  (Or is there something
I'm still missing?)

> The above is a simplification; the popular works of McGowan, Bakker,
> and Alexander tackle the issues of dinosaur weight and motion at
> length.  And of course one can tackle the professional journals.
> In any case the popular works do provide the framework for a correct
> and meaningful approach to these kinds of questions.

Yes, fully agreed.  My intent was to simply show that *even* using
Ted's oversimple methods, introducing even the most minimal of
real-world facts upsets his applecart.

> One has to give Holden credit.  He propounds a potpourri of preposterous
> propositions.  To make his case, he has taken a smattering of carefully
> selected facts and quotations [usually out of context].  He has buttressed
> his case with plausible and misleading calculations.  His ingenuity
> in doing so is moderately impressive.

Yes.  Again, the point I'm trying to make is that the calculations
aren't as plausible as they seem, even given most of the rest of the
Holdensian framework. 
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw