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To: Swordmaker; FredZarguna; varmintman; Kevmo; Do the math
Swordmaker: "Eleven thousand years ago Teratorns flew in the Andes.
Their fossils exist.
These were birds indistinguishable from modern eagles except for one major and decided difference.. . . teratorns had wingspans up to 45 feet and weighed an estimated 450 pounds!"

Sure, I "get" that your anti-science enthusiasm frequently overwhelms any respect for facts, but let's begin here:
The largest Teratorn ever found is called Argentavis, with wing-span max of 26 feet and weight up to 176 pounds -- less than half what you report.
Argentavis lived six to eight million years ago, not 11,000 years ago:

Teratorns from 11,000 years ago maxed out at 14 ft wingspans, weights around 35 pounds.
Today's largest flying birds, Kori Bustards reach up to 9 ft wingspan & 44 pounds.

Swordmaker: "The largest modern birds capable of flight are the Albatross with an up to 11 foot wingspan and weigh only 30 lbs. or some reports offer the Andean Condor with a reported 10.5 feet and 25 pounds."

Kori Bustard in flight:

Swordmaker: "Biologists and Aeronautics engineers tell us that a scaled-up eagle with muscular engines simply could not fly under its own power without a complete redesign of its "airframe and power plant" . . ."

They also tell us that bumblebees can't fly.
This proves nothing about those critters, only that some aeronautical engineers are freeekin' idiots.

Swordmaker: "...the Cretaceous had flying dragonflies, completely indistinguishable from modern dragonflies, except the Cretaceous model had FOUR FOOT WINGSPANS.
Such an insect could not fly under modern gravity. . . cube/square law, again. . . and its form factor would be far different at four feet than at four inches."

First of all, Meganeura's wing span was two feet, not four feet.
Second, it lived in the Carboniferous period (330 mya), not the Cretacious (100 mya).
Third, oxygen levels are said to have been higher during the Carboniferous, allowing insects to grow larger, but also, there were no predators to eat dragonflies in those days.
Finally, you need to utterly reject whoever it is that's telling you all those critters "can't fly".
They obviously did.

Swordmaker: "Either these animals magically defied all laws of aerodynamics or somehow magically broke the cube/square law, or something was drastically different about the environment in which flew undoubtedly flew a mere 12,000 years ago and back in the Cretaceous."

No, far from it.
According to "Occams razor" theory, the simplest and most obvious explanation is best: whoever is making up these "laws of aerodynamics" are freekin' idiots who have not the foggiest clue what they're talking about.
And whoever endlessly repeats such nonsense is obviously driven by an agenda which has nothing to do with science.

Swordmaker: "...anomalies from those eras, such as your 40,000 pound pachyderms that NO LONGER, and can no longer exist today."

But not because of any stupid "laws" you fantasize, rather because they were driven to extinction by changing climate, predators and/or diseases.

Swordmaker: "Megafauna exists nowhere on land today yet millions of years of evolution seems to show that mega size is a survival factor.
Why not today? What has changed?
The best answer seems to be gravity increased."

But that's not the "best" answer, it's the stupidest answer imaginable.
Any other reasonable explanation (i.e., climate, predators, diseases) better fits the facts as known.

Swordmaker: "...blood the mere SEVEN FEET from a Giraffe's 24lb heart to its brain is so high—300 over 200—that it would most likely cause any other animals' arteries to blow out before long!"

Unless, having evolved over many, many generations, heart, arteries & other pumps grew robust enough to accomplish the purposes.

Swordmaker: "Yet what was the size and weight of the blood pump possessed by Argentinosaurus—which weighed an astounding 400,000 pounds, was 125 feet in length, and had a 65 foot long neck—to have blood reach what ever sized brain it used?
The mind boggles thinking about it."

First of all, Argentinosaurus weighed 100 tons, not 200 tons.
Second, it was about 100 feet long (1/3 neck) and 24 feet high.
So typically, its head did not rise much above the level of it's body & heart.
Third, there's no "mind boggling" required, since all such critters had pea-brains requiring far less oxygen-rich blood than we assume today.

Speaking of oxygen -- note the geological eras' oxygen levels higher than present:

Swordmaker: "NOW, do you begin to grasp the problem?
This is an issue that simply cannot be swept under the proverbial rug.."

Yes, I see clearly that you sell blithering idiocy, that this cannot be swept under the proverbial rug, and you and your buddies should all seek out professional help with it.

Otherwise, there's no hope for you...

126 posted on 02/23/2014 6:00:22 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: All

Weight estimates for the Argentinian teratorn vary, I’ve seen numbers between 170 and 250 lbs. Likewise Christopher McGowan’s original volumetric weight estimate for the ultrasaur was 180 tons and a couple of the dinosaurs discovered since then are larger than that. As in the case of Wan Langston and the Texas pterosaur remains, McGowan caught grief from the uniformitarians for that number and later estimates are also influenced by academic politics, but I am not aware of a reason to like any of the later estimates better than the original volumetric estimate derived from known parameters of real animals.


129 posted on 02/23/2014 6:29:26 AM PST by varmintman
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To: BroJoeK; Swordmaker
Er, the Kori Bustard is capable of low, short distanced flight - at considerable effort - which they generally only do to escape predators. They are, most of the time, two feet on the ground.

Flight to them is not equivalent to the Albatross or Condor.

132 posted on 02/23/2014 8:26:17 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: BroJoeK
Obviously you love Wikipedia. There ARE other sources that are far more reliable. My source used the figures before they started putting the sauropods on a "diet" making them far more lean, because of the problems being pointed out by the Paleontologists questioning the cube-square law and the issues with sheer energy intake, muscle power, and the question that they could not answer. . . and still can't. You have bias blinders on. The only COMPLETE dragonfly found is two feet, but a single wing that was itself almost two feet was found in coal several years ago. . . I also stated as a fact, which is true, that Teratorns had Wingspans up to 45 feet because wing parts of Teratorns that were not reported in your precious Wikipedia article indicated that they did indeed reach that size . . . and your example weighs in at over 176 pounds, also after being adjusted DOWNWARD when challenged by the people YOU denigrate! Yet there is no doubt it flew while modern birds cannot get off the ground at just a little over 30 pounds. They first tried to claim the teratorns were flightless but that fell apart when it was shown they had no adaptation at all for running. . . I have been studying the history of this issue for years.

"The "bumblebees can't fly" canard has been debunked for years. No aeronautic engineer EVER claimed that. It's an old wives tail. So don't pull that chestnut out of your hat.

They had to drop the neck to parallel to the ground, again because of the issues brought up by the people YOU ARE DENIGRATING, trying any way possible to limit the damage and find answers, after years of saying the long necked dinosaurs first developed the long neck to (1) keep their heads above water as they lived in water to support their weight; then, (2) developed the long neck as an adaptation to be able to forage for leaves from tall trees, lifting their heads up into the upper branches to better compete against the grazing dinosaurs, and now, (3) being denied the ability to lift their heads because of the gravity/BP issues, the long neck/tails are weapons for territory mating battles as well as swinging back and forth in a scythe like grazing pattern, ignoring the coniferous forest environment these animals seemed to inhabit that would block such swings.

Ok, let's grant you the latest theory, ignoring the fact that the bone structure of the necks appear to be designed to both lift and swing, and keep the neck parallel to the ground. I told you I've studied this. Pump the blood down the legs and back to the heart. You said 24 feet high? Right? Heart would be center of the chest cavity. . . For just front legs it's about 18 feet to toes, 36 feet round trip, if it were that simple, then it's 20 feet to pelvis and then 18 to back feet and 96 feet round trip to and back. It just isn't the neck. The heart muscles generates heat. Moving generates heat. Fill capillaries in hundreds of square feet of skin to dissipate that heat. That's one hell of a lot of pumping at some humongous pressure. All against one G. The oxygen levels, if they are legitimate and not an artifact of chemical action, cannot account for increases in the efficiency of the chemical engine. It's not possible. If it were, oxygen doping of athletes would work wonders. It doesn't.

You really haven't a clue on the issues.

You really don't know what you're talking about, spouting the company line.

151 posted on 02/23/2014 6:38:56 PM PST by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue...)
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