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