Hi, RAZD.
I didn’t even see this reply, and it’s really old now. But, I’m kind of bored right now, so I might as well stir up the old pot a little again.
Also, this serves as a bump for dragon material, which has recently cropped up in
TOE and the Reasons for Doubt.
RAZD writes:
Hi Bluejay, I think you are reading more into his argument than exists.
This was kind of an odd thing to say to the person who was taking a more conservative stance on the topic than you were.
Bluejay: Wirkkalaj thinks ancient humans saw dinosaurs and made artwork about them.
RAZD: Wirkkalaj thinks ancient humans saw dinosaurs and made perfect anatomical reconstructions of them.
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RAZD writes:
Bluejay writes:
Wirkkalaj's argument is that dinosaurs influenced ancient cultures and art, not that the ancients were particularly good at anatomical illustration.
I went back over all his posts on this thread and did not see that argument.
You know damn well Wirkkalaj was arguing that the ancients saw dinosaurs and made artwork of them, not that the ancients were good at drawing dinosaurs. Even though he made one statement about the accuracy of the reconstruction, this is at best a peripheral issue in his argument, and defeating that one statement wouldn’t even come close to defeating his overall argument.
You were willing to accept that inaccurate reconstructions of jaguars and eagles don’t mean the ancients didn’t see jaguars or eagles, but, in the case of dinosaurs, you demanded higher standards. Why? Was the perfection/accuracy of the art really the issue here?
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RAZD writes:
Bluejay writes:
Your entire line of argument is easily defeated by Wirkkalaj suggesting that the artisan was carving based on an anecdote, or from memory long after the sighting.
A position that also destroys the argument that they are drawn\carved etc from first hand knowledge, as he is quoted as arguing.
Which also wasn’t the core issue of his argument. He doesn’t have to argue that the artists carved the dinosaur while looking at one grazing in a nearby field in order to argue that ancient humans saw dinosaurs and depicted them in their art. The discrepancies can be chalked up to bad memory, bad art skills, or fixation on one particular aspect of the animal at the expense of others.
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RAZD writes:
Depiction (A) shows a dinosaur
this depiction compares to (B) a known dinosaur
Therefore humans and dinosaur (B) co-existed
And there can be no anatomical errors (spikes on the head instead of the tail, head too large, etc)
Why can there be no anatomical errors? I hear first-hand bug stories all the time about cockroaches six inches long and spiders with twenty or more legs (neither of which has ever been documented)... I’m very familiar with the inability of people to properly diagnose the weird stuff right in front of their eyes.
Look at this carving of a human:
|
A Sheela-na-Gig (depiction of a nude female) from a Medieval church in England |
Here all of its anatomical inaccuracies:
- huge head and eyes
- no ears
- arms longer than legs
- genitalia longer than legs
- head wider than body
- head round
- no forehead
- no eyebrows
- no hair on the head
- no breasts
Does this mean the artist never saw a human?
Why do you demand that depictions of dinosaurs be more accurate than depictions of humans or jaguars? Can’t they be authentic without being perfectly faithful reproductions?
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Disclaimer: Sure, humans certainly never saw dinosaurs. But, discrepancies in the details of ancient artwork are not a good way to support this, because the quality and accuracy of ancient artwork are
always suspect anyway.
-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.