From: gecko@zooid.guild.org (GECKO)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Attenuated Nonsense (Lengthy!)
Date: 21 Jul 92 05:21:09 GMT

 
 
 Ted "Thickie" Holden writes: 
 
>This group, talk.origins, is dominated (at least in terms of 
>decibles) by a rough group of thirty or so individuals who basically 
>ruin the group as far as it being any sort of a forum for debate or 
>discussion.  Views other than the standard evolution/uniformitarian 
>view of earth origins are usually just shouted down.  I have no 
>further intention of engaging in "debate" with these individuals, 
>either singly or en-mass;  I know what they think of me and they 
>know what I think of them. 
 
    Presumably this means that you are unwilling to or incapable of 
    responding to any arguments against your theory, and so rather 
    than attempting to refute valid criticisms you will ignore them 
    and hope that they go away.  How evasive. 
 
 
>1.  It is a fairly easy mathematical and physical demonstration that a 
>    very large elephant is not only the largest actual animal in our 
>    world today, but the largest possible animal;  that anything larger 
>    would not be able to lift its own weight off the ground.  This 
>    implies that the felt effect of gravity was heavily attenuated in 
>    the recent past to allow for sauropod dinosaurs to live. 
 
    How is it then that domesticated elephants are able to lift HEAVY 
    felled trees?  How are they able to reproduce?  What the heck? 
 
 
>    I should mention that one particular member of the t.o crew, 
>    Throop, will always follow any such posting of mine with a claim 
>    that leverage in ligament attachments simply favor larger and 
>    heavier creatures so greatly as to give them lifting ratios beyond 
>    what we see today. 
> 
>    This flies in the face of everything we observe, namely that 
>    smaller creatures always have greater power-to-weight ratios than 
>    larger due to the square cube problem as well as to the bindings 
>    and inefficiencies which begin to accrue in the muscles with really 
>    heavy and bulky creatures.  Throop doesn't care. 
 
    So essentially you are asking anyone who happens to read Throop's 
    replies to your messages not to try and figure things out for 
    themselves, but instead to ignore them entirely because you feel 
    Throop contradicts you.  How patronizing. 
 
 
>2.  Theoretical results yeild a maximum possible weight for flesh-and- 
>    blood flying/gliding creatures of fifty lbs.  The largest birds in 
>    our world which fly are around 35 lbs, and breeding programs for 
>    hunting eagles have not produced anything larger than 25 lbs despite 
>    2000 years of effort;  past 25 lbs, they can no longer take off. 
>    That 170 - 200 lb eagles flew in the past (Argentinius Magnificens), 
>    quite aside from the 350 lb. Texas pterosaurs, indicates a heavily 
>    attenuated felt effect of gravity in the recent past. 
 
    Excrement!  I'll soon post something specifically on this subject. 
 
 
>3.  It is well known (as per Mcgowen's "Dinosaurs, Spitfires, and Sea 
>    Dragons"), that elephant-sized animals cannot sustain falls. 
>    Predators live by tackling and tumbling with prey.  This means that 
>    a tyrannosaur could not live in our world, and that a heavily 
>    attenuated felt effect of gravity would be necessary for it to live. 
 
    Animals BUILT the way elephants are (top-heavy and spindly-legged) 
    cannot sustain falls perhaps, but other large creatures can.  T. Rex 
    was of much sturdier build than an elephant, and certainly could have 
    withstood a bit of rough-and-tumble when hunting. 
 
 
>4.  There are other varieties of this sort of evidence.  For instance, 
>    elephants are too heavy to run in our world;  as is well known, 
>    they manage a kind of a fast walk, at least one foot always on the 
>    ground.  They cannot jump, and anything resembling a gully stops 
>    them cold. 
 
    It is absolutely true that elephants cannot run, but this is of 
    course a direct result of stiff-legged limb structure and has 
    little to do with mass.  Baby elephants cannot really run either. 
    Yet a large rhino, which has a more resilient limb architecture, 
    can gallop while an elephant of comparable mass still cannot. 
 
 
>    Mammoths were as big and bigger than the largest 
>    elephants, however, and pliestocene art clearly shows them 
>    galloping around.  Over and over again, this same dilemma, things 
>    which can't happen in our world being the norm in the antediluvian 
>    world. 
 
    Smegma!  Mammoths could not gallop any more than elephants can; 
    They're not built for it.  I'll warrant their are NO depictions 
    of mammoths with all four feet airborne simultaneously!  This is 
    not to suggest that ANY prehistoric paintings should be thought 
    of as scientifically accurate... 
 
 
>5.  Everything which is known of the initial configuration of the 
>    present land masses (the former super-continent Pangaea) supports 
>    the theory I describe, and cannot be in any way explained given 
>    standard theory as to earth origins. 
 
    Really?  How so?  Please explain. 
 
 
>6.  The OT and other rabbinical sources mention a great light which 
>    flooded the earth for seven days just prior to the flood.  Ovid's 
>    Metamorphoses and the OT both mention new animals and new kinds of 
>    humans after the flood in perfect accordance with Velikovsky's 
>    version of catastrophic evolution.  Ancients writing a fictitious 
>    flood tale would not possibly have known to include such a detail. 
 
    Mister Bible doesn't count as verifiable evidence, Teddie.  Ancients 
    were obviously retelling tales of creation they'd heard; this is how 
    religions get started.  I notice that you make no specific references 
    here either - any reason why not? 
 
 
>7.  Greek myth includes language to the effect that before and shortly 
>    after the flood, there were ages when Kronos (Saturn) and Zeus 
>    (Jupiter) were "kings of heaven".  The sun (Appollo) is king of 
>    heaven now.  The statements in Hesiod's works and other places are 
>    clear indications of a universal ancient belief that other bodies 
>    than our sun had served as suns within the memory of man. 
 
    Feeble.  Myth is myth.  You haven't any real evidence, chum :-). 
    You do not say that The Greek legends mention anything about 
    Kronos and Zeus actually BEING suns either, just that they were 
    "kings of heaven"... 
 
 
>8.  Egyptian lore describes Osiris, one form of their sun god, as 
>    shedding green/emerald light over the earth.  There is nothing 
>    like that now.  Something was REAL different then. 
 
    What?  The sun was green?  There are no people now with the heads 
    of falcons and crocodiles either - do you think that there were 
    then?  The Egyptians CLEARLY depicted them ;-}. 
 
 
>9.  Other pyramid texts show glyphs for the chieftain god as literal 
>    pictures of something very much like Saturn, a star within a circular
>    enclosure.  Further details leave no doubt that the entire system 
>    they viewed in the sky was entirely different than what we now see. 
 
    Again, this is the stuff of legends, and as such it cannot be 
    directly interpreted as clear evidence of anything. 
 
 
       It would appear that you your entire argument is moot in any 
       case, as you must first establish the existence of a non-event, 
       the Biblical Flood, in history as well as proving an utter 
       immpossibility, that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. 
       On top of this, you would also have to offer reason to believe 
       that every word of the Bible is absolutely true, which could only 
       be accomplished by confirming the existence of a non-entity (IMHO 
       at least) called God.  And at least one tiny shred of evidence to 
       suppourt this nutty Saturn theory wouldn't hurt. 
 
 
       I apologise for the blasphemous length of this post, 
       but don't regret posting it! ;^) 
 
                                    - GECKO 
 
 
 
P.S. - Ted, is just some big joke that you concocted to amuse yourself? 
       You can E-mail me if it is, and I'll keep it confidential, I 
       swear to God, so as not to spoil the joke for everybody else ;-). 
 
 
 
gecko@zooid.guild.org