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Author Topic:   Evidence for Evolution: Whale evolution
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 196 of 443 (782276)
04-21-2016 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 192 by Blue Jay
04-21-2016 8:20 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
The photo also shows a protrusion on the opposite side of the whale's vulva, and I’m curious to know what you make of that.
I can only guess. Being that I think it was a hoax, I think they tried to do both legs and one broke of or something. Most likely causing the buldge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 8:20 PM Blue Jay has not replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 197 of 443 (782277)
04-21-2016 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 192 by Blue Jay
04-21-2016 8:20 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
It's possible that the 4' 2" was not measured from the body, but from the base of the "leg" that was buried inside the body; in which case the claimed measurements would be perfectly consistent with the reported measurements from Roy Chapman Andrews; but it's pretty much impossible to verify that.
Read again. Four times this claim is made in this paper. Each time it is stated "protruding from the body about 4 feet 2 inches". It is rare such a fact gets repeated so often in such a short expose'.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 192 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 8:20 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 200 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 9:18 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 198 of 443 (782278)
04-21-2016 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 194 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 8:52 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
Hi, AOkid.
AOkid writes:
The brightness of the "leg" has nothing to do with lighting. They covered whatever is was with white blubber.
You have evidence for this claim, of course.

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 194 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 8:52 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 199 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 9:14 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 199 of 443 (782280)
04-21-2016 9:14 PM
Reply to: Message 198 by Blue Jay
04-21-2016 9:07 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
You have evidence for this claim, of course.
The claim of the paper is it is covered with blubber. Look at pictures of humpbacks. There are only two colors of blubber and they are sharply contrasted . One is blackish, the other is almost white. Sure they have some variation, but normally these colors are sharply contrasted.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 198 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 9:07 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 201 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 9:27 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 200 of 443 (782281)
04-21-2016 9:18 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 9:07 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
Hi, AOkid.
AOkid writes:
Read again. Four times this claim is made in this paper. Each time it is stated "protruding from the body about 4 feet 2 inches". It is rare such a fact gets repeated so often in such a short expose'.
And what exactly do you think you can glean from the fact that it was repeated four times? The publication is at least a third-hand source about the living whale's dimensions: if the information was wrong at the primary source, it will be wrong every time it's repeated after that.

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 197 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 9:07 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 205 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-22-2016 12:42 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 201 of 443 (782282)
04-21-2016 9:27 PM
Reply to: Message 199 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 9:14 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
Hi, AOkid.
AOkid writes:
The claim of the paper is it is covered with blubber.
You specifically said, "they covered it with blubber," as if it were some type of treatment they applied to it to enhance the photo. But, the blubber was just the natural tissue on it.
Here's how Roy Chapman Andrews described it:
quote:
Mr. Ruck says that the end terminated in a "kind of round knob like a man's clenched fist," that the total length was about four feet and two inches, and that it was covered with blubber about one-half inch thick. I infer from Mr. Ruck's description that the connective tissue and blubber were essentially the same as in the flipper, or fore limb, of cetaceans.
This led me to believe that it was covered by typical soft tissues, not that it was a freak bone protruding from the skin with some random blubber smeared all over it. So, the blubber wouldn't have been the outermost tissue layer.

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 199 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 9:14 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
14174dm
Member (Idle past 1108 days)
Posts: 161
From: Cincinnati OH
Joined: 10-12-2015


(1)
Message 202 of 443 (782286)
04-21-2016 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 188 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 4:52 PM


Re: FRAUD #2 REVEALED
Just a few thoughts -
My grandfather would have been about 25 yrs old at the time of the picture. He was 5 ft 4 in. Not enough different from your 6 ft to significantly change the ratio but enough to cast doubt on that method of estimating the length of the "leg"
A second check on your length ratios would be to investigate the proportions of a humpback whale. The numbers for width of the tail flukes I found online range from 10 to 18 ft. Your grid looks like 4 ft from centerline to right edge of flukes (8 ft wide total) which is below the range expected.
Another check (which I couldn't find) would be how far from the tail to the genitals proportional to the overall length.
You are assuming the leg is parallel to the grid. Given the obvious three dimensional curve to the body behind the man, why would you assume parallel? Why not perpendicular to the body and therefore at an unknown angle to the camera? If parallel, why is the leg brightly lit while the whale below the body centerline in heavy shadow? For example, why can you see the man's toes but not his heels? I think the leg is more or less parallel to the man's left foot.
Since your reference to Piltdown man includes the fact that scientist were casting doubt on Piltdown's authenticity in less than a year, do you have corresponding published refutes to Andrew's paper? Since he included pictures and measurements, other experts would be able to point out the true source of the bones (cows, humpback phalanges, etc).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 188 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 4:52 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 203 of 443 (782316)
04-22-2016 8:34 AM
Reply to: Message 183 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 1:18 PM


Re: The Real Evidence of Whale Bones
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Percy, I hate to prove you wrong, but if you look at Message 132 the first lines are:
You are seriously confused. Message 132 is more than thirty messages before your Message 168 that was about the Struthers paper and that was the message I replied to.
That's fine. I expect you and Bluejay to hold strongly to your "perhaps...." even though you provide no evidence for them.
You've provided no evidence of fraud. At best you've found a mistake, at worst it is you who is mistaken.
The Struthers paper was not about atavisms. It was about hind limb rudiments that appeared in all ten right whales that he dissected. To him they were obviously hind limbs, quoting from On the Bones, Articulations, and Muscles of the Rudimentary Hind-limb of the Greenland Right Whale:
Granted, I never said it did. I said it lays foundational facts for future papers about atavism.
No you didn't, and no it doesn't. The word "atavism" doesn't even appear in those posts from you. And the Struthers paper is about standard morphology of right whales, not atavisms.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 183 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 1:18 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 210 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-23-2016 3:17 PM Percy has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 204 of 443 (782339)
04-22-2016 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 188 by AlphaOmegakid
04-21-2016 4:52 PM


Re: FRAUD #2 REVEALED
Now, the deck boards and structures provide the perfect alignment for the parallax grid as shown. He used 6' or 72" for the man's height to obtain a scale measurement of the "leg". As you can see the in situ "leg" is only 24" outside the body. At most the leg is 1/3rd the man's height however tall he is. That means for this "leg" to be 50" long, the this man is 150" tall (12.5 feet).
Have him redo it with the "leg" coming out perpendicular to the deckboards rather than parallel to them. That would be more accurate and I'm curious how much that changes the length.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 188 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-21-2016 4:52 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 205 of 443 (782359)
04-22-2016 12:42 PM
Reply to: Message 200 by Blue Jay
04-21-2016 9:18 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
And what exactly do you think you can glean from the fact that it was repeated four times? The publication is at least a third-hand source about the living whale's dimensions: if the information was wrong at the primary source, it will be wrong every time it's repeated after that.
Exactly! And my claim is....There is no scientific evidence of terrestrial hind leg atavism in cetacea.
The picture is not scientifically sound with the verbal testimony, and the bones are not scientifically sound with the inference of legs.
You confirm my argument that this paper does not have scientifically accurate and verifiable data at any level, The inference of "legs by Andrews is nothing more than pure speculation and is easily questioned and the most detailed facts of the tale cannot be substantiated from the evidence before us.
So this paper provides no scientific evidence for atavism. The tale is anecdotal, and the scientific inspection of the legs is sophomoric at best by Andrews. None of this would publish in any of today's journals! (well maybe I will retract that and say none of this would meet the normal standards of publication in today's journals).
Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 200 by Blue Jay, posted 04-21-2016 9:18 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 206 by Blue Jay, posted 04-22-2016 3:16 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 206 of 443 (782383)
04-22-2016 3:16 PM
Reply to: Message 205 by AlphaOmegakid
04-22-2016 12:42 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
Hi, AOkid.
I agree that your hoax hypothesis is valid. But, you still seem to believe that imperfection makes data invalid.
How about you get your son to rerun the parallax with the suggestions offered by myself, Cat Sci, and 147...4... that number guy? If the new result is consistent with the original claimed measurements, your arguments are pretty well invalidated.

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 205 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-22-2016 12:42 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 207 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-23-2016 11:08 AM Blue Jay has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 207 of 443 (782442)
04-23-2016 11:08 AM
Reply to: Message 206 by Blue Jay
04-22-2016 3:16 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
I agree that your hoax hypothesis is valid. But, you still seem to believe that imperfection makes data invalid.
How about you get your son to rerun the parallax with the suggestions offered by myself, Cat Sci, and 147...4... that number guy? If the new result is consistent with the original claimed measurements, your arguments are pretty well invalidated.
OK, I had a long discussion with my son, so let me see if I can explain this. Compositors do this type of work every day. They take things out of scenes and put things into scenes. Often things are shot on green screen, and then a scene behind them is matched together. Parallax (camera angle) and shadows are all manipulated so that the components of the final images match for our eyes.
The image of the whale with "legs" is two dimensional and pixilated. Our eyes see things relative to three dimensions. So our eyes/brains interpret the picture from multiple elements in the picture including all the parallel lines and perpendicular lines which help us convert a two dimensional image into a three dimensional image within our minds.
Nuke is a software tool for compositors that takes this knowledge and basically does what our brains does to two dimensional images and creates a three dimensional framework of relationships within elements in a two dimensional image.
The grid on the deck creates a two dimensional relationship for the camera angle/parallax. The man provides the third dimension, because of his height.
My son doesn't draw any box around the "leg". What he does is draw the box around the man. He used 24" wide and 24"deep (but these dimensions don't matter much, because he is not using them to scale. Once the box around the man is established, that creates a 3-D relationship within Nuke.
He then picks the box on the man and the drags it to the "leg" like in Photoshop, and the software looks at all the math and relationships and draws the box automatically on the "leg"in three dimensiosns. All he does is force the "height of the man axis" to be the "length of the "leg"" axis, because this is our scale.
The box around the "leg" has a three dimensional relationship to the "leg" that has nothing to do with it appearing to be parallel to the whale, or the parallax grid. Within the software it is just floating in space.
Now, if you are honest, when you look at the whale, the "leg" appears parallel in our brains also. That's probably because it is, based on parallax. He also said, for the leg to appear shorter, yet be longer, the angle would have to point more towards the camera angle. Which if you look at the picture, the camera is left of the man and that angle would be much greater than 90 degrees rotated out of the side of the whale.
Remember, when I measured, I measured shorter. That's the literal appearance. When my son measured, he measure longer, because that's what it is. Also, in your mind imagine the "leg" pointing out 90 degrees from the whale and visualize the 24" depth box on the man. In your mind, slide that box down to the "leg", and you will recognize that the"leg" is no more than 24" long.
Pretty neat Huh?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 206 by Blue Jay, posted 04-22-2016 3:16 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 208 by Blue Jay, posted 04-23-2016 2:32 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 208 of 443 (782449)
04-23-2016 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 207 by AlphaOmegakid
04-23-2016 11:08 AM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
Hi AOkid.
AOkid writes:
Now, if you are honest, when you look at the whale, the "leg" appears parallel in our brains also. That's probably because it is, based on parallax
So, in a nutshell, the three of us who have said that the leg looks closer to perpendicular are just being dishonest?
I realize that eyes can get things wrong, like that whole meme with "the dress" from last year; and observer biases can distort images, which probably explains most Bigfoot sightings and wild claims from amateur birdwatchers... but you're pushing credibility when insist that everybody except you must have just got it wrong.
AOkid writes:
The box around the "leg" has a three dimensional relationship to the "leg" that has nothing to do with it appearing to be parallel to the whale, or the parallax grid. Within the software it is just floating in space
Right. But, look at the box that was drawn. The base of the box is not resting at the base of the limb: it's sitting at a shadow line. That's a red flag. And the shadow line is quite strongly curved, which would mean either that the cross section of the leg is approximately circular from our perspective (suggesting that the limb is nearly perpendicular to us), or the shadows are being elongated by a very low angle of incident light. Low incident light is not consistent with the rest of the shadows in the image, so the better explanation is the circular cross section.
And there's still the matter of the flukes, which 14174 pointed out are measured by this analysis as outside the normal range for humpback whales, despite this being described as a typical-sized specimen.
To me, these observations in combination cast reasonable doubt on the software's results. And now your son's response basically sounds like, "welp, that's what the software said, and I can't anything about that." He's telling us that there's no way to manually set the angle to what we think it is, and calculate length based on that? If the result of something like that comes out close to 4'2", that would kind of tie all the bits of evidence together, wouldn't it?
Using the "fishiness" test you used to initiate this investigation, I might be saying things like, "isn't that convenient? The software won't let you test our alternative hypothesis, so I guess the only thing we can do is accept the analysis that supports your hypothesis."
-----
I also want to make one more concession here. I think the color of the"leg" is very odd. I guess it's possible that an atavistic limb could be unpigmented, but now I wonder if you were right that there was something done to it to make it that bright.
And I still think somebody should look into that phalanges hypothesis you mentioned.
To your knowledge, has this case ever been subjected to a serious hoax investigation before?

-Blue Jay, Ph.D.*
*Yeah, it's real
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 207 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 04-23-2016 11:08 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 209 by PaulK, posted 04-23-2016 2:41 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 209 of 443 (782450)
04-23-2016 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 208 by Blue Jay
04-23-2016 2:32 PM


Re: A Whale of a Tale!
I wondered if the leg had already been stripped of flesh and blubber leaving the bone. That would make it both whiter and shorter. Is that a possibility ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 208 by Blue Jay, posted 04-23-2016 2:32 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2875 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 210 of 443 (782451)
04-23-2016 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 203 by Percy
04-22-2016 8:34 AM


Re: The Real Evidence of Whale Bones
The Struthers paper was not about atavisms. It was about hind limb rudiments that appeared in all ten right whales that he dissected. To him they were obviously hind limbs, quoting from On the Bones, Articulations, and Muscles of the Rudimentary Hind-limb of the Greenland Right Whale:
Granted, I never said it did. I said it lays foundational facts for future papers about atavism.
No you didn't, and no it doesn't. The word "atavism" doesn't even appear in those posts from you. And the Struthers paper is about standard morphology of right whales, not atavisms.
--Percy
When is this going to stop with you Percy. Yes, I did!
AOK writes:
Message 145 You may want to notice though what is missing from Berzin's x-ray. And it is very important to the interpretation of these bones. You underestimate my knowledge in this area. I have all of these documents and the images. I will address what's missing in a later post, but you ought to see if you can recognize what's missing.
All you are doing is adding to the confusion of terms regarding polymelia, atavism, rudiments, hind limbs, hind legs, fins, and flippers etc.
So I will take another approach. I will start at what I believe to be the beginning. A paper ...
Struthers, J.-1881-The Bones, Articulations, and Muscles of the Rudimentary Hind-Limb of the Greenland Right-Whale (Balaena mysticetus).
This is readily available on the web in pdf format. Just google scholar search it and all I'm sure all will devour the details!
This paper establishes accurately the anatomy of large modern whales which have a two bone and one cartilage arrangement with muscles attached and tendons and ligaments all very nicely detailed. I will present some images from this paper, because it establishes many facts and data points about large whales.
You will be extremely happy that I will not argue with the data presented in this paper which I think is a fine piece of scientific work, but I will comment on some terminology.
Once this foundation is built, then I will discuss each paper in historical sequence as the data points grow....
No, this paper doesn't discuss atavism, but it is extremely important to understand this anatomy, before I present the papers that do discuss atavism.
My words are quite clear above.
Now, I have sent you the Japanese papers that I know you can't wait to defend. Have you posted them somewhere? If not, I will proceed with my cut and pastes.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 203 by Percy, posted 04-22-2016 8:34 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 211 by Percy, posted 04-23-2016 3:46 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
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