The original comment from tpanther in post 760 was this...
"Of course, sometimes a person is suspended in a tank of water and the amount of water displaced measures body weight/mass/fat content, muscle content, etc."
Note: he said *suspended*.
Which is what started this all.
In post 763 js replied with....
You are not measuring weight, nor mass, nor fat content.
In post 766 js changes the term from *suspended* to *immersed*, thus changing the direction of the debate.
Humor me. show me a link to a claim that the water displaced by an immersed human body measures weight, mass and body fat.
Post 780-js
You made the rather interesting claim that the displacement of water by a human body measures weight and fat content rather than volume, and you think I'm absurd?
post 789-js:Displacement measures volume, not weight.
post 793-js When you say “immersed” do you mean completely immersed, or floating? I’m assuming you mean completely immersed.
tpanther never said *immersed*. That was js' statement.
In post 795 js:It remains true that measuring the amount of water displaced by a completely immersed object tells you its volume and tells you nothing about its weight.
The whole immersion thing was a construct. It was not brought up by tpanther. Why js is arguing against someone for something they never said is beyond me.
It's called a "strawman" argument. You can't attack the main case, so you set up one—a man made of straw instead of a real opponent—which you can attack.
I think that "suspended" is somewhat analogous to "floating." You can, however, suspend an object that is heavier than water in the tank by hanging it from a wire... thus making the terminology open to interpretation.