The Impossible Dinosaurs - Megafauna and Attenuated Gravity

Kronia.com ^ | Ted Holden

[Swordmaker]

The wing loading of your teratorn is well within the range that allows flight. Flapping to take off is certainly the dominant method used by birds, but it is not actually necessary.

Yes it is... but the loading is more consistent with birds that flap their wings to maintain flight... not with the birds that share body morphology with the Teratorn... the soaring birds.

Now put an engine on that wing... one that can keep it flying. One of the other scientific papers I linked on this discussion reported that the energy necessary to keep the Argentavis flying as a soarer, not even as a flapper, was about 600 Watts - but the Teratorn was only capable of producing 130 Watts - and that calculation was based on using a wing loading similar to a modern Condor of about 7 Kg/M² not the 11.5Kg/M².

As for not flapping for take off, there is a technical term for birds who have to wait for wind to take off... Lunch.

I’m going to ask again: there are many extinct bird species; do you have any evidence that average or typical wing loading has changed since the age of the dinosaurs? Have you even bothered to consider the question? If not, why not?

I have considered it... and the evidence is that the morphology of the Teratorn is essentially identical with a modern Condor... but scaled up without the necessary physiological changes in musculature and skeleton to support the additional weight.

By the way, the Argentavis magnificens lived and flew and died to extinction a little over six million years ago... nowhere near the time of the dinosaurs. But there is evidence that gravity may have been even more attenuated when dinosaurs roamed the earth...

Take, for example, the Hatzegopteryx thambema, the largest known species of Pterosaur with a wing span that reached 12 - 15 meters (40 - 50 feet). It's skull was nine meters long... Estimated mass was 400 - 500Kg. (880 - 1100 Lbs) with a wing load of 9.1 Kg/M².

Artist's representation of Hatzegopteryx thambema

It was larger than the Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, with its 8 - 10 meter wingspan, whose mounted skeleton is pictured here:

Quetzalcoatlus Northropi

Any problems getting airborne the Argentavis magnificens would have these creatures would have ... in spades.

[Swordmaker]

There has been some suggestion that these giant plant eaters were aquatic. In that case, the water would have supported much of the weight.

They are not found with aquatic fossils, but rather with coniferous forest fossils. They are not adapted for water... their foot bones are definitely those of land walkers, not mire plodders.

[js1138]

Wing flapping is nice, but it isn’t the only way of getting airborne, particularly in a region with strong prevailing winds.

You have the same approach to reality as all kooks and conspiracy theorists. Any lack of information about history supports theory X, which requires abandonment of all conventional knowledge.

It’s in line with those who can’t imagine how pyramids or Stonehenge could be built with muscle power; therefore they must have been built with alien technology.

You could do some actual research on the engineering requirements, or you could sit on your ass and assert that you are smarter than all the physicists and cosmologists who have ever lived.

Your claims boil down to which propositions are most reasonable and likely:

1. You are smarter that Einstein and Newton and Kelvin. Vast changes in the rotation rate of the earth over short periods of time have no consequenses except to allow for the existence of one or two large animals. No kinetic energy accounting needed.

2. You have made an elementary error in estimating the weight of a complex animal from a bone fragment, and an elementary error in assuming that a bird with standard wing loading is impossible because it couldn’t leap into the air from a standstill.

3. You are correct in ignoring the fact that no class of animal in the fossil record shows evidence of adaptation to varying gravity. Tens of thousands of complete fossils can be ignored because you have one or two magic bone fragments.

[Swordmaker]

You have returned to ad hominem attacks and misrepresentations of what I wrote.

[js1138]

I really can’t help it if you present yourself as an idiot.

Life size animatronic models have been built of some of the larger dinos, particularly the ones we have complete skeletons of. If you have something to say about structural impossibilities, I suggest you build a model and test your engineering hypotheses.

My own experience leads me to think that living creatures are stronger and more agile than animatronics. In any case, it would be fairly easy to test your hypothesis about maximum neck length.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_9GnP-lhaY

Some of the smaller ones are obviously costumes worn by people, but the principle remains the same: if you want to demonstrate that a structure is impossible, build one.

[Swordmaker]

So i am insane, a kook, a conspiracy theorist, and now an idiot. How far do you intend to extend you ad hominem attacks?

You claim I made errors on the weights of megafauna. You can find those quoted weights in any text book or reference book on dinosaurs. In fact, except for the original article that started this thread, I have posted only references from recognized experts in their sciences taken from peer reviewed scientific journals. Weights when presented were also extracted from recognized resources in paleontology and are the accepted weights for the animals to which they refer.

Your idea that “lifesize animatronic models” of some of the dinosaurs could be used to “test” whether they could move is absurd. Those models are merely a synthetic skin over a metal frame with some hydraulic actuators which have no relationship to the real thing made of dense muscle, skin, tendons, and bone that weighs many times more than the model.

You continue to ignore the well established Square Cube LAW (where is that reference to it only applying to “idealized spheres?” I’m still waiting for that ) and now you want us to believe a basically air filled model with steel or aluminum bones, hydraulic “muscles,” and steel cable “sinews and tendons” is the same as the real thing for determining whether a flesh and blood animal muscle could lift a mass of muscle and bone at the end of a very long lever. Who’s the idiot here? It’s not me.

[js1138]

Your idea that “lifesize animatronic models” of some of the dinosaurs could be used to “test” whether they could move is absurd. Those models are merely a synthetic skin over a metal frame with some hydraulic actuators which have no relationship to the real thing made of dense muscle, skin, tendons, and bone that weighs many times more than the model.

Evidence for the difference in weight? Or is discussing actual numbers beneath your dignity?

My comments on your credibility are restrained. I have at least suggested putting my skepticism to the test with engineering mock-ups.

[Swordmaker]

I have pinged everyone who has responded to this thread. This is my last response to JS1138 on this thread...

---

JS, I have provided information you request from authoritative sources... yet all you do ignore it and toss more snide spit wads. You repeatedly refer to my authoritative sources as though the data were created by me or the author of the article, Ted Holden, implying we (mostly I) are making it up... lying. You have misrepresented what I have posted and ignore facts. You are now using insults to me, both implied and stated boldly, as a method of argument. It doesn't work. I have just responded politely and mostly ignored the insults.

You did point out an error that I made, the posting of a mis-labelled skeleton picture. I agreed that it was probably mis-labelled and thanked you for finding the error. I am still not certain that the picture which I have found in several articles on the internet about Teratorns is not what it claims to be, a Teratorn. But I have agreed with you on this thread until I can find an answer to what it is. You have not offered the same courtesy to me when I have pointed out errors that you have made.

You have demanded that I answer questions, which I have. On the other hand, you have ignored every question I have posed to you. Again you do not extend to me the same courtesy I have extended to you.

Now for your straw-man arguments that you posted:

Your claims boil down to which propositions are most reasonable and likely:

1. You are smarter that Einstein and Newton and Kelvin. Vast changes in the rotation rate of the earth over short periods of time have no consequenses except to allow for the existence of one or two large animals. No kinetic energy accounting needed.

Where have I claimed to be smarter than Einstein, Newton, and Kelvin?

And I told you I did not subscribe to that theory. Don't you read what I post? The person who posted that hypothesis did indeed account for the kinetic energy... he said it tossed the moon into orbit. Whether it balanced or not, I can't say. Ask him.

2. You have made an elementary error in estimating the weight of a complex animal from a bone fragment, and an elementary error in assuming that a bird with standard wing loading is impossible because it couldn’t leap into the air from a standstill.

I have made an error? These extrapolations of the beasts involved were done by experts in paleontology and are the accepted weights. A few have been challenged (which I pointed out) but they are mostly well within the "ballpark" of the weights ALL paleontologists claim for megafauna.

Loons and Albatrosses, birds with large wings with loadings around 9 Kg/M² compared to the much heavier and relatively weaker Teratorn's 11.5 Kg/M², do indeed get into the air by talking running starts, but they do so in areas where they have no natural predators... and over water... and have a much lower minimum glide rates. The Teratorn's lived in a time and area where Thylacosmilus (a marsupial Sabre-tooth predator), Saber-toothed cats, and Bear-dogs hunted... all primary predators capable of taking a grounded Teratorn down and eating it if it could not get into the air quickly enough.

By the way, you claimed the Teratorn's 11.5 Kg/M² wing loading is in the middle of modern bird wing loading... and therefore not a problem. Not true. The much smaller and lighter Wandering Albatross, Diomedea Exolans, has a wing loading of ~9Kg and a maximum wing span of about 10 feet. Another one of those inconvenient to your position scientific papers, this one from Stanford University states:

"The wing loading of albatrosses is very high also. Indeed, it is thought that albatrosses are close to the structural limits of wing length and wing loading."

How does that fit with your unsupported claim? How does that fit with a 170 lb bird with a 28 foot wingspan and an 11.5 Kg/m² wing load? Do you perhaps think that it would be beyond the "structural limits of wing length and wing loading?"

I also provided you with a peer reviewed scientific article written by a paleontologist, an aeronautical engineer, and an ornithologist, published in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Science, which included the information that the Teratorn would have required a 39 mph (60 feet per second) glide rate and to launch itself into flight would have to fall from a 65 foot height to acquire his glide rate (at which he would still drop ~2 feet for every second of glide). So did this bird have to "leap" 65 feet into the air so it could fall to gain its flight speed? Or did leaping into the air only work with constant 39 mph prevailing winds? As an alternative launching technique, the article also proposed that the bird would have to run for about 100 yards in an attempt to attain a 30 mph speed (~45 feet per second) to take off into a convenient 10 mph headwind on a 10% downslope... right. sure. The world record 100 yard dash for a human, an animal that is evolved for running as a biped, is 9.4 seconds and the athlete who made that record was running at an average of ~31 feet per second. Yet these scientists propose that the Argentavis magnificens was running 50% faster than a champion human athlete into a 10mph head wind merely to achieve his minimum glide rate to take off into the air? Don't these guys look at the implications of what their conclusions mean?

I think, that based on this evidence, it is a proper conclusion that a bird of the size of the Teratorn would have distinct multiple flight problems relating to its weight... problems that would dissipate if you adjust gravity downward.

3. You are correct in ignoring the fact that no class of animal in the fossil record shows evidence of adaptation to varying gravity. Tens of thousands of complete fossils can be ignored because you have one or two magic bone fragments.

I am ignoring your "fact" because it isn't a fact. It's an assertion you are making absent proof or evidence.

You fail to see the evidence in front of your face that a four foot wingspan dragonfly IS proof of a fossil showing varying gravity because it has no adaptation for larger muscles and increased wing area over its much smaller modern descendent to support the greater weight IF it lived in a 1G environment. There are thousands of fossils in the record that defy modern expectations of both animal and plant sizes and growth. Again you make claims without providing proof. Every mega-animal that weighs more than the 30,000 or so pounds that seems to be the maximum weight for modern land animals is also proof that SOMETHING was different about conditions that allowed the 66,000 pound Diplodocuses to survive... or the almost complete fossil of the Seismosaurus Hallorum, on display at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, that is estimated to have weighed in at 160,000 to 200,000 lbs., 5 to 6 times MORE than the theoretical limit of the mass that modern muscles can lift. And YOU continue to claim that these weights are not right.

So, JS1138, how much DID the Diplodocus and the Seismosaurus weigh? Produce a figure... and back it up with your reasons for why your figure is right and every text book on Dinosaurs is wrong.

You stated early on that you are ". . . not expert enough to comment on the square cube problem. . ." and then you proceeded to criticize my use of it and challenge the law's validity and mis-applied it to unlike shapes with your Chesthut Sparrow to California Condor comparison in a mis-guided reductio ad absurdum argument whose rebuttal you completely ignored... and then you start to make ex-cathedra statements about the Square Cube Law as though you ARE an expert... designed to designed to denigrate my use of it and imply to other readers that it can not and should not be universally applied.

By the way, JS, where is that link that proves your claim that the Square Cube Law only applies to "...spheres and polyhedrons that can be mathematically approximated by spheres..." I await your links... confident that you cannot provide them because it's a "square" "cube" law... not a "sphere" "polyhedron" law...

Almost 100 posts ago, I told you that I chose NOT to post any more calculations for you. In response to Shryke's request, against my better judgement that it would be a waste of my time, I went ahead and started posting the requested calculations. I expected you to respond exactly as you have done; you ignored what I posted, ignored the authoritative sources, and threw more spit wads. You also escalated the ad hominem attacks. As I told you before, that is the last refuge of the debater who has no facts or arguments.

Your one and only link to a source that you claimed was from a "real scientist" was easily refuted... and when I did, you also ignored that.

Quite frankly, JS1138, while the discussion has been interesting, since you have chosen to imply that I am insane, a kook, a conspiracy theorist, and an idiot, I have grown tired of YOU. I have decided you are a waste of my time. I will no longer respond to your posts on this thread.

To all of the rest of you, agree or diagree with the premise, I will respond and continue the discussion and/or debate.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Swordmaker.

[mad_as_he$$]

I find the whole discussion fascinating. The fact that some will not even discuss it and resort to belittling a point of view in a scientific discussion bothers me. I have told many a young engineer that you ignore physics and gravity in particular at you peril.

[aruanan]

Since insects are limited in size by their respiratory system, not their weight, and these six times larger insects have NO [structural] adaptation for their larger size, whatever was different about their environmental conditions had to increase the efficiency of their respiration.

Insect respiration is basically a tube from the outside of the body that reaches down to within each couple of cells. If there was a higher percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere, that could support a larger overall form.

[js1138]

I have made an error?

You make the fundamental error made by all crank scientists. You assume that a few bits and pieces of unexplained phenomena or unknown history can be assembled into evidence for overturning mainstream science. In your particular case, you argue that the existence of a bird whose wing loading is near the theoretical limit for its type could not have existed unless gravity was weaker.

Your evidence for this is the presumed existence of predators.

You have neglected to include evidence for any wide ranging or systematic adaptations for changes in gravity over time. Dramatic changes in gravity would affect every living thing above a few grams in mass. It would affect the size an structure of plants; it would affect all birds and insects. We have excellent remains of all classes of plants, insects and birds covering the last 60 million years, and there is no evidence for adaptations for changing gravity.

You have a few bone fragments for large dinosaurs. Their reconstruction could lead in a number of directions, but you have chosen a reconstruction that leads to maximum difficulty.

But the signature assumption of a crank scientist is the assumption that major physical constants can change, or that large changes in the orbit or rotation of planets can change without catastrophic heating effects.

[theFIRMbss]

>I have pinged everyone who has responded to this thread
>But the signature assumption of a crank scientist is ...

The signature of
of a crank is they do not joke.
Swordmaker, have fun.

This whole forum is
optional. If people choose
to respond lightly

to something you take
seriously, well, who cares?
Nothing spoils a thread

more than self-righteous
posturing. Gravity change
is intriguing, but

don't expect to win
hearts and minds in forum posts.
Just intrigue people.

FYI, I've blogged
on the topic a little.
It's like fun fiction . . .


Dinosaurs And Low Gravity

Gravity, Redshifts And Really Odd Explanations

Exploding Planets And Really Odd Explanations

[zeugma]

Excellent rebuttal. I didn’t know the thread was still continuing. I’ll have to read through it later.

[Swordmaker]

The signature of
of a crank is they do not joke.
Swordmaker, have fun.

It was and is fun... until JS1138 started making it personal with ad hominem. I put up with it far beyond the point of irritation attacks. Look at my posts. You will find jokes and humor. JS1138 was not discussing... he was baiting and not responding to any points made. Look at the previous post... again he attributes to ME the weights given to the megafauna by mainstream scientists as though I was making up the data. He really does not know what he is talking about. I am still waiting for his proof of ANYTHING... specifically the Square Cube Law only applies to idealized sphere nonsense. Discussion is not a one way street. JS1138 made it a waste of my time.

[Swordmaker]

Excellent rebuttal. I didn’t know the thread was still continuing. I’ll have to read through it later.

Thanks. Let me know what you think.

[Shryke]

I think I've found an error with your application of this Square Cube Law. The example I am going to use is a rod. The rod will be 1 foot long, 1 inch think, and uniform thickness. This rod weighs 2 pounds.

Please describe your square cube law relating to the rod if it were 2 feet long, and 3 feet long, with the same thickness.

[Poincare]

Just don’t try arm wrestling a chimp.

Thank you for saying that! Real science is subject to experimental verification. I have no quarrel with the philosophizing on this thread, but the misstatements of easily disprovable "fact" drive me nutty.

[Poincare]

Your yahoo ‘voted upon’ solution is wrong. The weight of an object at sea level is the same at the equator as a pole because the seas form an equi-potential surface. The water corrects for variations in gravitational and centrifugal accelerations.

[zot]

Insect respiration is basically a tube from the outside of the body that reaches down to within each couple of cells. If there was a higher percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere, that could support a larger overall form.

Yes, that was the point I was suggesting. And I think that a higher percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere would also facilitate larger life forms in species other than insects, by providing more efficient respiration and thus more energy to overcome the weight of their larger size.

It also occurs to me that the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere may have been significantly reduced by the massive fires caused the impact about 65 million years ago.