Dinos and Humans hand in hand

I'm starting this thread to save several others from spinning off topic.Randman recently posted this linkhttp://www.s8int.com/dinolit1.htmlIt's to a site that claims to have evidence in art of mankind and dinosaurs being alive at the same time.Yes, I know it's a crackpot site, but I think it's useful for showing how people see what they want to see. So I'm going to discuss the images seen there. Please check out the site if you wish to discuss it.I've gone over the picture once again and have several comments.First - Many of these have no context whatsoever. It's clay figures with no timeframe association, no cultural association. I am perfectly willing to admit that Mrs. Huffington's 6th grade art class can make figures that look like dinosaurs. What's the point?Second - Others are clearly unclear. Several of these images are blury at best. There's one set that's a couple of lines on black background. These are the creationist ink blots, you will see what you want.Third - The site offers a number of "points" as if they were disproving something when in fact they are just reconfirming what we already know. For the record - There were camels and elephants in N. America when people got here. There were and still are crocs in the Nile. Etc.Fourth - Several of the "dinosaurs" are pots / pipes with long handles / spouts. A long handle is not evidence of a long necked dinosaur. It is evidence that the pot was probably put in a fire.Fifth - The site hinges on the idea that "dragons" are in many cultures, but this is a phalacy. We have assigned the word "dragon" to the mythical creatures in different cultures mythology even though those creatures have strikingly different appearences and characteristics. Additionally, the dragons of myth talk / breath fire / fly without wings / fly with wings and have four legs / horde gold / hang out with unicorns. None of this is done by dinosaurs.To offer up this site as evidence on par with 10 billion fossils and the entire geological profession is kind of embarising for you Randman.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.AbE: And nice job in spinning off a new thread. Thanks Nuggin.This message has been edited by AdminBen, Tuesday, 2005/10/18 05:04 PM

The Anasazi Apatosaurus Petroglyph shown on Page 3 is interesting.I've seen that picture in several places and two things have always struck me.The first is that it looks suspiciously like the sort of dinosaur representation you see in early animated movies - say between the World Wars. Although it isn't Gertie The Dinosaur it's not a million miles away either.The second is that the picture looks strange somehow. I finally tracked down why. I had always assumed it was a photograph of the actual petroglyph but it isn't. The Objective Ministries site quotes the source as "Field drawing of an Apatosaur petroglyph found at Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah" from "Prehistoric Indians" by Barnes and Pendleton, 1995 page 201. So all we really know from that picture is that somebody drew what they saw on a rock and it looked to them like a big dinosaur (specifically an Apatosaurus).If you look for actual photos of it on the web it appears more than a little different. A typical example is this one. Now I understand this is not from a professional photographer but even so, the difference is striking.I did find a photograph that looks like the drawing at Apologetics Press, but it contains this note underneath it - "To help you see the image, we have enhanced the color of certain portions and circled both the human figure in the upper left-hand section and the dinosaur figure to the right.".Without actually going to see it yourself or getting hold of a really high quality photograph I'm not convinced you can say it looks like a dinosaur. In the first picture I linked to it's not even clear that the last two thirds of the tail is actually even connected to the body.

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I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

We covered the Anasazi drawing many, many, many moons ago.It's a classic example of Creationist gullibility at best and rank outright fraud at worst. Like the rest of that site is simply another example of the total complete vacuity of the whole Creationist and YEC positions.You can read about the drawing in this thread

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Stones of the Ica have been debunked as forgeries on other threads here. The first picture shows nothing that relates to a dinosaur so much as an ill drawn animal, which (given the location) could just as easily be a sea lion or the like. Any images of dinosaurs that are carved or drawn can also be reconstructions from bones that are in plentiful supply in many areas, especially ones that would not show any unpredictable features. For such a pictograph to be compelling for me it would have to show a feature that was then found to exist but which doesn't show on the skeleton.There are others that could as easily be a giant sloth as a dinosaur, and much more likely.Another interesting perspective can be found in a book by Adrienne Mayor called The First Fossil Hunters and which concerns fossils as the source of several greek myths (griffins, cyclops, etc), and I have seen a portion of the cover from her book as "evidence" on one of these 'creatortionista' websites.http://www.amazon.com/...il/-/0691058636/103-8500812-6605468There were some discussions on these things a while ago. Perhaps they could be consolidated into a column debunking each one (te dium) -- do a search on Redwolf's posts (Ted Holden).When it comes to validating artifacts, context is everything. Bare objects are worthless, unless there is a substantial part of the artifact that can be dated (and not a part that could have been added for that purpose).The biggest problem is {scientific skepticism} versus {wanting to believe myths}

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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seriously. i don't mean to facetious: that's like every old depiction of brontosaurus, ever. if it's supposed to be a sauropod, whomever drew it certainly never saw one. we have a long history of bad paleontology, and the notion that dinosaus dragged their tails like cold-blooded lizards is an old and disproven one. we know now that sauropods work kind of like suspension bridges, anchored over their hips. their tails extended backwards, cantilevered out to provide counter balance for their necks. an apatosaurus would have looked more like this in real life: so basically, we have two options:1. it's a forgery done in the last 150 years or so by someone looking at bad information or ray harryhausen or gertie or a color book or the blanket i slept under as a child; or:2. it's something else.[edit]also, as a photomajor, i should point out how far a little dodging and burning can go, even avoiding full-blown photoshop trickery.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 10-18-2005 11:04 PM

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אָרַח

Lots of talk but little substance. The pics certainly look like dinosaurs. Sure, some are blurry. Some may even be forgeries, but the fact is there are depictions here that look just like dinosaurs along with written accounts.Simply claiming they must be forgeries is not an argument, but that seems to be what you guys are doing here.Btw, the depictions from the Indians of the reptilian bird of great length is probably accurate as the Indians in the southwest had "legends" or accounts of such a creature, depending on how you want to look at it.As far as more obvious myths on dragons having exotic qualities, the same goes often for more mundane creatures like bears. There are myths of animals we know existing having exotic qualities in certain myths, but the creatures are still real. They were just exagerrated.Dismissing all of the accounts of large reptiles (dinosaurs) a priori seems closeminded to me.

http://www.geocities.com/...ropics/Shores/1951/dinosaurs.htm

That message is simply a bare link to rehashes of the very same old material that was included in the first link.You offered no comment, no additional information.Such practices are against the rules and guidelines here as you well know.Cut it out!

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please note, that's not what i'm doing. i made a fairly coherent argument that shows that whomever drew that particular picture never saw a sauropod dinosaur alive.i am absolutely fascinated at the possibility of a dinosaur alive today. i just don't think this even hints at any such thing. i'm still holding out on mkele mbembe, personally

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אָרַח

The tail appears oversized in the carvings, but it still closely resembles a dinosaur and nothing else. To my knowledge, there is no credible evidence that the drawing is fake. It is considered real and protected by the state it is located in.Maybe the person that drew/carved the depiction only saw the creature dead, after it was killed by a hunting party or something, and thus the tail lies on the ground.That would be consistent with your notion that the person that drew the depiction didn't see the creature alive, but still also consistent with the evidence that the drawing predates by a long shot the modern discovery of dinosaurs.This message has been edited by randman, 10-19-2005 01:05 AM

some sauropods have incredibly long tails, even longer than the tail of apatosaurus pictured above. part of the key here is that they're shaped differently. so it's definitally stylized at the very least.frankly, it looks like a cartoon. i'm sorry. it's got and eye and a smiley face. but if it's REAL, i suggest that it might be a case of mistaken identity. look at the bible.ca picture. notice the most prominent part is the series of right angles that would NOT be found in a live sauropod. now look at this: a little bit of discoloration in the wrong place gives it legs. notice in the bible.ca one it doesn't have hind legs. apologetic press actually draws a line there where there isn't one on the rock. there's a dark splotch that continues up the tail where the "body" is, and the "rear legs" are cut off at a weird angle(i see a lot of subtlety when i look, part of my drawing background...) well, if it's meant to be a sauropod, the person who drew it never saw one alive. that's all i'm saying. so? well, if people hunted it, someone saw it alive. but if the artist saw it DEAD, he would have seen it like this:it's called "rigor mortis." the tendons and muscles tend to seize up in such a way that in dinosaurs makes the head and tail arch upwards -- not in that right angle patter on the rock.coincidentally, that's labelled "apatosaurus" as well, but it doesn't look like one to me. if it is, it's still got the "brontosaurus" skull on it. but the rest of it looks like a camarasaurus too, so i think the website just got their labels mixed up. i just chose it because it demonstrates rigor mortis in sauropods really, really well. who says dinosaurs were discovered in modern times? the earliest, i think, was in the 1700's, and the earliest significant find the 1800's -- but the chinese have probably been digging them up for a few thousand years.there's a popular theory that dragon legends and so forth are based on the fossilized skeleton of dinosaurs. if you ever seen some thecodonts (dinosaur ancestors) some look very close to chinese dragons...but anyways. it might be someone's take on a fossil find. which would also be consistent with the idea that, if it's a sauropod, the artists never saw one alive.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 10-19-2005 01:36 AM

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אָרַח

Great work. That's exactly the photo I was asking to see in my previous notes about context.Notice that even in the enhanced photo, the "body" is far from clear. It could just as easily be a snake as anything else.

If you are suggesting that dinos/dragons in art imply dinos in modern history, then you must accept that European tapestries with unicorns are dipictions of a real animal as well.

That link is just more of the same pictures.The image from Australia is interesting. You are aware that there were very large reptiles living in Australia during the megafaunal when humans first arrived there?I'm not saying that big lizards haven't been around recently. Heck, Komodo dragons are around right now