Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Crazyharp81602 · 12-03-2004, 02:24 PM

Me again,

I've been browsing a bit and I found this article on aig called "You just don't 'fit' dinosaurs with the bible" and believe me I this guy pleads to emotion and tries to get people to believe dinosaurs their way. Here's the article. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs...s4-14-2000.asp

Plus I've also know of another article about Sauropod whipping their mates into line here.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/398.asp

They say that the source came from New Scientist magazine on November 29, 1997. Does anybody out there has the issue of the magazine and can you look it and see that this all nothing but a direct fabrication or non-existant or did aig misrepresent the article. Knowing that sauropod do use their tails to communicate with each other, I don't think that sauropods use their tails to whip mates into line like slaves. Instead they used their tails as defensive weapons against their enemies and in some cases they probably do fight over mates by whipping each other with their tails as depicted in The Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Henry Gee.

Any comments on both of those articles?
Crazyharp81602

Clivedurdle · 12-03-2004, 02:35 PM

What this has to do with creationism I do not know!

Quote:

Cracking the whip - Did male dinosaurs use their tails to gain control?

New Scientist vol 156 issue 2110 - 29�*November�*97, page 27

MALE sauropod dinosaurs wooed their lovers and intimidated their rivals by cracking their tails like huge bullwhips. Or so says Microsoft's research supremo, Nathan Myhrvold.

Myhrvold's excursions into palaeontology have generated a number of articles in the popular press. Now, with the publication of his work on dinosaur tails in the latest issue of Paleobiology(vol 23, p 353), he has won recognition from professional palaeontologists.

The idea that sauropod tails were cracked like whips in displays of machismo was first suggested in 1989 by R. McNeill Alexander, an expert in biomechanics at the University of Leeds. But until Myhrvold ran a series of computer simulations of the movement of sauropod tails, no one had seriously tested the idea.

The crack of a whip is a miniature sonic boom, caused when the wave travelling down the whip breaks the sound barrier. The wave accelerates because a whip tapers along its length, allowing the wave's transverse energy to be converted into forward motion.

After his computer simulations showed that a wave generated at the base of a 13-metre sauropod tail could indeed reach the speed of sound, Myhrvold examined the tails of eight fossil sauropods. He noticed that the tail vertebrae were longest at about a quarter of the way down from the tail base—a known site of stress in a whip. Half of the specimens had fused vertebrae at this point. This can indicate a stress injury, and Myhrvold believes these fossils were the males, who would have cracked their whip in sexual or aggressive displays. "Males whipped their tails to get a date," he says.

"I put the idea forward with my tongue in my cheek, but I'm delighted that it is possible," says McNeill Alexander. But some palaeontologists remain sceptical, arguing that the violent motion would damage soft tissues. "Whipping delicate blood vessels around at the speed of sound doesn't sound like a wholesome thing to do," says Peter Dodson at the University of Pennsylvania.

David Morgan, a whip maker based in Seattle, who supplied Myhrvold with a whip to help his studies, agrees that even a small whip's tip eventually frays from stress—as would dinosaur flesh. "But if you had a cartilaginous end, or a renewable one like fingernails, it would stand up," he says.

Charles Seife

Clivedurdle · 12-03-2004, 02:38 PM

Ah got it - AIG states a whip manufacturer stated the tail was a good design for whipping, but the whip maker pointed out how whips fail in the New Scientist article!

Where do you start? :banghead:

Crazyharp81602 · 12-03-2004, 03:56 PM

So obvious, Aig did misrepresent the article. They delibrately fail to mention that the man who made whips did say that the whips at the tips do fray from stress just like the sauropods tail tips must have done. This is obviously another out of text report being made in an effort to keep their own followers in line.

Thanks for the article, Clivedurdle!

Crazyharp81602

12-03-2004, 02:24 PM	#1
Crazyharp81602 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Harping in Michigan Posts: 766	Comments on "You just don't 'fit' dinosaurs with the bible" and another article. Me again, I've been browsing a bit and I found this article on aig called "You just don't 'fit' dinosaurs with the bible" and believe me I this guy pleads to emotion and tries to get people to believe dinosaurs their way. Here's the article. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs...s4-14-2000.asp Plus I've also know of another article about Sauropod whipping their mates into line here. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/398.asp They say that the source came from New Scientist magazine on November 29, 1997. Does anybody out there has the issue of the magazine and can you look it and see that this all nothing but a direct fabrication or non-existant or did aig misrepresent the article. Knowing that sauropod do use their tails to communicate with each other, I don't think that sauropods use their tails to whip mates into line like slaves. Instead they used their tails as defensive weapons against their enemies and in some cases they probably do fight over mates by whipping each other with their tails as depicted in The Field Guide to Dinosaurs by Henry Gee. Any comments on both of those articles? Crazyharp81602

12-03-2004, 03:56 PM	#4
Crazyharp81602 Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Harping in Michigan Posts: 766	So obvious! So obvious, Aig did misrepresent the article. They delibrately fail to mention that the man who made whips did say that the whips at the tips do fray from stress just like the sauropods tail tips must have done. This is obviously another out of text report being made in an effort to keep their own followers in line. Thanks for the article, Clivedurdle! Crazyharp81602

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12-03-2004, 02:38 PM	#3
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Ah got it - AIG states a whip manufacturer stated the tail was a good design for whipping, but the whip maker pointed out how whips fail in the New Scientist article! Where do you start? :banghead:

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