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From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: more on straw-men and plastic pterosaurs
Message-ID: <394@imsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 08:36:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: imsvax.394
Posted: Fri Sep 13 08:36:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Sep-85 05:38:17 EDT
Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD
Lines: 149



               It appears  that setting  up and  knocking down straw-men is
          becoming something  of  an  art  form  on  net.origins.  Consider
          Stanley Friesen's  recent article concerning "load-factors" based
          on the stress  which  bones  can  take,  his  assumption  of this
          implying that sauropod dinosaurs could function quite normally in
          our gravity, and my response to that which read:


>    I am not going to quote  Mr. Friesen's article  here;   it is  on the net.
>Basically, he  claims that  a Mr. R.M. Alexander  has computed "load factors",
>based on the stress that BONES can take, and determined thereby that dinosaurs
>could function  normally in  our world.  Is there a problem with that?  Anyone
>who has watched houses being built knows how much weight  an ordinary  2x4 can
>bear when stood end on end.  Bones are like that in a way.  Take my own humble
>middle-aged body as an example.  I am about 6' 4", 207 lbs,  somewhat stronger
>than  the  general  run  of  my  fellow  middle-aged  businessmen, but I am no
>powerlifter.  I have friends who are; they are  a whole  lot stronger  than I.
>Nonetheless, if  I kept  my back  and legs  straight, and two of these friends
>were kind enough to put a  bar with  five or  six hundred  pounds on  it on my
>shoulders, I  could stand  with it;  the bones would not break.  Mr. Alexander
>would no doubt then conclude that I could  function quite  well at  700 or 800
>lbs (my 200 plus the bar). 

>    I've been  out of  academia for a number of years now.  It could very well
>be that this kind of thing is now  called "SCHOLARLY  RESEARCH" at  UCLA these
>days; I don't know.  Out here in the real world where I live, however, this is
>called "LYING WITH FIGURES".

     Any intelligent person reading this would understand that  I meant  that I
could not  function at  my PRESENT  LEVEL OF  STRENGTH, weighing  800 lbs, even
though I could stand with 600  lbs  on  my  shoulders  without  bones breaking,
whereas  Mr. Alexander's  system  would  wrongly  conclude  otherwise.   Now it
happens that somebody like Bill Kazmaier could stand with a  couple of thousand
lbs on  his shoulders,  if all  he were required to do was stand there with his
back and legs straight for a few seconds;   his  bones would  not break either.
Paul  anderson  actually  did  this  once  with a yoke designed not to harm his
shoulders and about 2200 lbs on it.  I'll gaurantee the editors of  Ripley's or
anybody else that no human could function at 2200 lbs.

     But the  art of  setting up  straw-men is  a funny business.  Wayne Throop
interprets my remarks as follows:


>> Nonetheless, if I kept my back and legs straight, and two of these
>> friends were kind enough to put a bar with five or six hundred pounds on
>> it on my shoulders, I could stand with it; the bones would not break.
>> Mr. Alexander would no doubt then conclude that I could function quite
>> well at 700 or 800 lbs (my 200 plus the bar).
>
>Are you actually asserting that a (for example) 1000lb man couldn't
>"function quite well"?  If so, and you are right, I suppose you had
>better let the Guiness Book of World Records know right away.  Thay have
>a fraud... a man who survived and "prospered" while weighing somewhat
>more than that.  Of course, he was supposed to have crashed through the
>floor of his house, but he was walking around in it until then.


     The only real point which Wayne  and one  other contributor  are trying to
make, and  the only  other point in Wayne's article worth commenting on much is
that somehow "leverage" would work to the sauropod's  advantage as  compared to
the human.  In truth, you really would get an apples-oranges kind of comparison
between humans and most  other kinds  of animals.   In many  animals, the parts
of the  limbs corresponding  to our  thighs, calves,  feet etc. are simply used
differently and have different proportions than on our  bodies.  Amongst chimps
and gorillas,  the front limbs are the main pair of limbs, for traveling or for
anything.  One could get a distorted idea of a chimps  strength as  compared to
humans by  arm-wrestling with him.  A hundred yard dash against the same chimp,
however, will quickly restore the human's ego.

     The funny thing about sauropods, and particularly brachiosaurids,  is that
their legs  actually look a hell of a lot like human legs, with one major joint
pretty near the middle of the  leg, both  front and  back, and  feet which stay
pretty  much  on  the  ground;  they  didn't  walk on their toes.  Neither from
looking at skeletons, nor from  looking  at  artists  reconstructions  of these
creatures, can  I see any way in which "leverage" would favor either a human or
a sauropod in lifting weight with their legs.  On the other hand, the advantage
in "efficiency"  which I  claim the normally proportioned human limb would have
over the disproportionately thick sauropod limb is real, but you either have to
do  a  little  thinking  or  a  little  bit of drawing pictures for yourself to
understand it.  It would be neat if I had graphics on the net;  I could make it
real easy  for some  of you  guys who have been flaming me over this one, but I
don't.

     Is there any magical reason for thinking that a reptile's muscles would be
"better" than  a humans  on a  per pound basis?  It hardly matters;  the people
who study sauropods are fast coming to the  conclusion that  they were mammals.
What about  Bill Kazmaier;   is there any reason to believe that he is stronger
than animals his size?  Believe it.  The technology  it takes  to build  a Bill
Kazmaier doesn't exist in the animal kingdom.  Deadlifts with 1000 lbs on a bar
are light exercise for Kazmaier.   A  gorilla  attempting  this  would probably
incur serious injury.


     So much  for serious  business;   let's now  consider the  strange case of
Wm. Jefferys, of the UT Astronomy dept. who begins most of his  articles on the
net with:

     "It is  the unmistakable  sign of  the crank scientist, that he studiously
     ignores evidence tending not to support his theories, while......."

and  then  generally  goes  on  to  accuse  me  of  insulting  the astronomical
profession.    As refutation of all of the material I have presented indicating
that Pterosaurs could not  make  it  in  our  gravity,  Jeffery's  presents the
following:

>Ted's experts may think the Pterosaurs couldn't fly.  Obviously,
>Paul MacCready thinks otherwise, and no one in the world knows
>more about muscle-powered flight than he does. 177 lines of
>quotations, insults and obfuscation don't change the fact that 
>the Ted's case is by no means as overwhelming as he imagines.

     Now,  as  proof  that  pterosaurs  could  have  flown  in  our  gravity, a
titanium/mylar monstrosity  flapping through  the air  by means  of an internal
combustion  engine  would  no  more  make  it than a sixty lb. 100 ft. wingspan
device in which some really good human athlete must pedal his heart out to stay
ten feet off the ground, MacCready's other invention.  The world would say:

     "There go MacCready and Jefferys... bullshit artists."

That's kind of a shame.  I mean, I'm the kind of guy who believes that anything
worth doing is worth doing right.  MacCready, being bright enough to BUILD this
contraption, is certainly bright enough not to get IN it; i'm not even going to
talk about THAT possibility.  But Jefferys.....

     Let's be brutally honest  about this  whole thing,  Bill.  You  and I both
know that,  If I  manage to convince the world that pterosaurs COULD NOT fly in
our gravity, that all of your neat uniformitarian  theories with  their million
and billion  year time-frames are DEAD.  And you and I both know there's a good
chance I can DO  that.  Any  thinking person  who looks  at the  metabolic rate
changes needed  by hummingbirds  and condors  to fly level in still air, seeing
that the condor is at the ragged edge of what is possible,  will easily picture
a  graph  of  size  versus  such  metabolic  rate  rises  and  know  that a 300
lb. Quetzlecoatlus Northropi would  be  OFF  THAT  CHART;  that  even  if fully
charged with  methamphetamines and  coccaine, he  might could fly for about one
minute, and then he would DROP DEAD.

     And you and I both know that there's only one way in  the world  you could
possibly demonstrate that something like that COULD fly UNDER MUSCLE POWER, and
you and I both know what that is, don't we?  And you and I  both know  how high
that sucker  would have  to be  launched from to have any chance, don't we?  It
seems to me, it's  really just  a question  of how  generous the  Lord was when
passing out  CAJONES down  there around Texas.  I mean, sooner or later, if you
want to  save Astronomy  from the  boundless evil  of the  Velikovsky fan club,
you're going  to end  up having  to ask  yourself one question, in the immortal
words of Clint Eastwood:

     "Do I feel lucky?"


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