Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!qantel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Extinction Message-ID: <390@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 7-Sep-85 00:13:17 EDT Article-I.D.: imsvax.390 Posted: Sat Sep 7 00:13:17 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 05:43:56 EDT Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 266 In an article now on the net entitled "Powerlifting and the Ultrasaur", I present an outright mathematical and physical proof that at least one species of sauropod could not possibly exist or function in our gravity. The conclusion regarding the ultrasaur was: > It would thus seem that, given our gravity, there is a threshold >for size and weight beyond which no animal could be wide enough to >provide a base for the legs it would take to bear it's own weight. An >animal beyond that threshold should properly be regarded as a >mathematical impossibility in our world, given our gravity. The >ultrasaur is beyond that point by a considerable margin. For anyone who was having problems understanding why some of these creatures could not function in our world as it presently exists, I can honestly say I've done all I can to help you. I would now like to take one last stab at a sensible approach to the problem of the extinction of virtually all of this planet's large animals before changing the topic to something more interesting. I don't particularly like being involved in an argument over whether or not man could have caused the extinction of any or all of the planet's megafauna. The notion seems preposterous to me and, frankly, it was not what I expected as a retort when I first wrote one or two articles on catastrophic evolution and extinction on the net. I actually had replies ready for several more sensible kinds of retorts which I expected, but which never materialized. But let's talk about reality for awhile. Let's take a hard look at this whole notion of stampeding animals over a cliff. What would I want for an ideal victim for such a hunting technique, assuming I intended to practice it? Several things, actually. These would include: 1. I would want the prey to be as stupid as possible. Cattle, deer, or bison obviously qualify. Elephants are a bad choice from this angle. 2. I would want the prey to be fairly short i.e. have a low eye-view of the world so the lead animals would not see the edge of the cliff untill too late. Giraffes and elephants are the two worst choices on the planet from this angle. Again, bison might be a reasonable choice. 3. I would want the prey to travel in large herds so that the animals in the rear of the stampede would push those in front over the cliff without hearing any cries of warning etc. Elephants travel in small groups (females and calves) and singly (bulls); again, not the right choice. 4. I would want the prey to be big enough to justify the effort, but not big enough to pose any ridiculous danger to me and my companions. Again, elephants are the wrong choice; bison would be more like it. I can't believe that writers on net.origins keep refering to mammoths as HERD ANIMALS. New York city street gangs travel in something like the same numbers as elephant groups; that doesn't make them herd animals. I have to believe that attempting to stampede a group of elephants over a cliff would be about like attempting to stampede one of these street gangs over a 40 story roof top or the high point of the G.W. bridge. I would expect either group to turn and fight to the death before going over the edge. In any scene of actual human inflicted carnage amongst mammoths in the vacinity of a cliff, I would expect to find the mammoths AT THE TOP OF THE CLIFF, DEAD FROM SPEAR WOUNDS, along with many human skeletons. Conversely, I can think of several reasons not involving man why a herd of elephants might have ended up over a cliff on occasion, which might or might not have left any obvious signs as to cause. Aside from several effects due to catastrophies which I could think of, loco weed might have caused such scenes. Spear points found in mammoths below cliffs could indicates humans putting several animals which still suffered out of their miseries as easily as they could indicate anything else. Modern scientists have proven themselves again and again to be masters at misinterpreting any evidence regarding origins, and I have no particular reason not to believe that they have done their usual superb job with this kind of evidence. Sorry, Stanley and Pam. Immanuel Velikovsky believed that most of the elephants died in a castrophy which was violent enough to actually have shifted major parts of the earth's surface with respect to the poles so that some of the elephants, which died either directly from the catastrophy or froze to death shortly thereafter, actually were frozen before their bodies had time to decompose, and are thus found in Siberia today. This means that the elephants had been living in a tropical zone (a jungle) which became an arctic zone overnight, and they are indeed found to have tropical vegetation in their stomachs. It should be obvious to anybody who knows anything about elephants that they cannot LIVE in arctic zones on a regular basis. It goes without saying that if this earth surface change had taken place over one of the huge spaces of time which traditional scientists are so fond of believing in, that all that would have been left to freeze would have been bones. This also means that we catastrophists (or Velikovskiites or whatever) do not truly believe in ice ages. We believe that after the earth's surface shifted, the former arctic zones which had become temperate zones lost their ice sheets after some years and that present scientists err when they interpret this evidence of ice sheets over our temperate zones as indicating an age when ice sheets CREPT over these zones from the north. It is interesting to note that the Aryan migrations are generally dated around 1500 B.C., exactly the date Velikovsky gives for the big catastrophy described in "Worlds in Collision". I take this to mean that these people's former home had been shifted too far North and they had to seek greener pastures. But back to our topic. Catastrophists believe that many if not most of the earth's megafauna died directly in catastrophies of one sort or another, at which times they, of all the world's creatures, had the most difficult time finding high ground or shelter. Further, it seems very likely to many of us that a certain number of left-over large dinosaurs and other creatures, several of which Noah had made an effort to save, perished WHEN THE FELT EFFECT OF THE FORCE OF GRAVITY ITSELF CHANGED FOREVER ON THIS PLANET AFTER THE FLOOD. In all likelyhood, these included the pteratorn and several remaining pterosaurs. As long as these creatures were able to function, I can't truly believe that any catastrophy, even the flood, could have wiped them all out; the sky and mountaintops are pretty safe and a big eagle could live on fish for a long time. With the change in gravity, however, any hope for these creatures died. Noah, aside from being a man of God, must have been something of a scientist; he saw the flood coming somehow in time to have built the great ship to which we owe our not living in a world of humans, rats, cockroaches, and little else. A "science" which does not recognize this man or regards him as a fable, aside from being wrong, is ungrateful. Like I say, these scientists would have their laboratory rats, and rats to pet and walk on leashes, rats in their zoos to show their children, fried rats for breakfast, barbecued rats for dinner...... But I digress. Back to the notion of man having killed all of the megafauna. On this topic, I am speaking strictly for Ted Holden, and not for Immanuel Velikovsky (who had little or nothing to say on the subject of humans killing large animals), or any other catastrophists. I will admit to the possibility that men killed an occasional mammoth and it is even remotely possible that they killed an occasional herd of mammoths. But no way did they kill all or even a majority of the large animals, which is what several of the writers on net.origins seem to believe. Most of these animals died at the hand of a violent nature as I have described. I am completely turned off by modern science's insistence on describing our ancesters as idiots at every opportunity. Can anybody believe that our ancestors were so stupid as to ALWAYS go after the biggest and most dangerous and wretched tasting game when there were always deer and cattle and buffalo and rabbits and ducks nearby? Such a disfunctional mental trait on the part of our ancestors would have indeed caused the extermination of at least one species I can think of: OURS. And with what? Fire? Fire is the only thing which comes close to making (a perverted kind of) sense. But fire would be a two edged sword when used as an offensive weapon against animals. Anyone attempting to stampede elephants by fire in the swirling winds you usually get in areas with cliffs nearby would likely cook themselves while the elephants laughed. There is another problem as well; the humans, torches in hand, would have to approach the animals FROM UPWIND TO USE FIRE AGAINST THEM. An elephant would smell all of that coming from MILES and be long gone. Like I have said, one mammoth would feed a whole tribe for a hell of a long time, assuming the tribe consisted entirely of masochists willing to eat elephant. There was no need for any of this. It would be far simpler to pick out a straggler and kill him with spears or kill one elephant in a pit trap; this would have the added advantage of not destroying your entire hunting ground for the season. Oh, man killed mammoths here and there, but that is not why mammoths are extinct. The really big mammoth kill sites, in Alaska and in northern Siberia and in the islands off the north coast of Russia and Siberia, show no evidence of man's hand; only that of a violent nature. Velikovsky's book, "Earth in Upheaval", gives a good account of several of these. Pam Pincha, speaking of the mythical fire hunts writes: >(Note: neither does this method kill of all of a herd >just a significant portion -- but that was enough at the time. >these animals were in a highly stressed position at this time >period. All it took was a little of the wrong push to wipe them out.) Do you mean that of, say 100,000 mammoths alive at the time, after nature had killed 999,995 of them, man killed the other five (for this is about the real ratio), and this is simply your definition of man having exterminated the mammoths? I could almost buy that. Actually, just a slight problem with semantics which might could be overlooked. Also: >At this point, I am disapointed in the quality of these responses >in this article. It seems fraught with numerous instances >of either no information of massive mis-information on >the large body of evidence involved in this particular hypothesis >about the these extinctions. > >Please go to the nearest university library and check into >the reams of site descriptions and VERY detailed studies >of the Big Game Hunter Gatherer tradition in North America. To learn how five of every 100,000 mammoths died, Pam? I honestly couldn't spare the time. You might consider reading "Earth in Upheavel", however, if you are interested in learning how the other 999,995 died Generally, I can think of only one altogether right way to go out after super bisons, super-rhinos, giant cave bears, super-lions, sabre-tooths, wolf-bears, a pteratorn, or any of the other really dangerous animals which modern scientists apparently give our ancestors credit for killing. That would be with a 375 H & H magnum or a 460 Weatherby magnum safari rifle in my hand and several companions similarly armed. Anybody who would go out after one of these guys with a spear, with or without an atlatl, a zip-gun, chucks, a straight razor, a switch-blade knife or anything else like that would have to be out of his mind. Judging from what I read, I can believe that one or two of the ivory tower dwellers who contribute to net.origins might be capable of attempting such a thing (about once), but I give Alley Oop credit for having had more sense than that. I've mentioned this one once; it's worth going over again. Fred Bear is one of America's best bow-hunters and is owner of Bear Archery. He hunts with a modern 70 lb. recurve hunting bow of hiw own companie's manufacture, a weapon far more powerful and efficient than anything Alley Oop ever had. He uses light aluminum arrows with three bladed razor head tips. These not only travel much faster and hit with one hell of a lot more authority than anything Oop had, but they penetrate hide and bone far better. Deer and small brown bears usually drop within a few yards of being hit by one of these. During the late sixties and early to mid seventies, Fred made several attempts to kill polar bears with his bow. He was intelligent enough to have a buddy backing him with a 300 magnum rifle each time, and it was only on about the fifth or sixth attempt that he didn't actually NEED that friend along. On each of the prior attempts, he would have been killed otherwise. Fred is better at placing shots than any ancient hunter would likely have been, yet on all but one of his polar bear hunts, despite one well placed shot (the first one) and several other shots placed as well as possible on a charging animal, Fred and anyone else standing around would have been slaughtered, other than for the dude with the 300 magnum. Readers please note, on no occasion did the bear, when hit by the first arrow, say to himself: "Alas, I am not loved!" and, despondant, commit suicide by jumping over a cliff. Note also that one of the 1000 lb North American super-lions or one of the double sized super-rhinos likely would have gotten to Fred faster than a big bear would. I don't think you'd get more than one shot at one of those creatures. I would like to suggest that some of the contributers to net.origins who have been writing these articles about man causing the extinction of these giant animals leave the ivory tower long enough to drive to the nearest shooting range at which heavy caliber rifles are kept, and talk the man in charge into letting you actually fire a 300 or 375 magnum rifle so that you can SEE and FEEL and HEAR just what in the hell it actually takes in the real world to kill 1000 or 2000 lb predators and rhinos etc., and kill them in a reasonable enough way that you and 15 of your companions don't get slaughtered. And make sure the man shows you how to use it, so that you don't get hurt.