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Author Topic:   101 evidences for a young age...
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2688 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 89 of 135 (518282)
08-04-2009 11:25 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by RAZD
08-04-2009 6:17 PM


Re: reality testing
Hi, RAZD.
RAZD writes:
And yet none of the dragons or other depictions really look like an actual dinosaur. Please look again - closely - at the depictions you have posted and see if they accurately portray known dinosaurs.
Actually, I disagree with you on this.
Here's an ancient Mesoamerican sculpture that's supposed to be a jaguar:
The sculptor had to know what a jaguar looks like, and had likely seen them before, but the statue still came out like this.
Edited by Bluejay, : Replacing "carving" and "carver" with "sculpture" and "sculptor": it just sounds better that way.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by RAZD, posted 08-04-2009 6:17 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by Coyote, posted 08-04-2009 11:30 PM Blue Jay has not replied
 Message 112 by RAZD, posted 08-09-2009 7:04 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2688 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 91 of 135 (518285)
08-04-2009 11:51 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by wirkkalaj
08-04-2009 7:48 AM


Re: Saddle up yer Tricerotops Pardner
Hi, Wirkkalaj.
Welcome to EvC!
I think you'll notice that the concept of a dragon is not the same in different parts of the world.
The Chinese dragon, for instance, is described as having the head of a camel, the antlers of a deer, the body of a snake and the claws of a rooster. The scales are actually compared to fish scales, not reptile scales.
It doesn't coincide in any way with dinosaurs, or with the dragons of European folklore, other than it looks like a big reptile to people who don't know any better.
-----
Therianthropy (mixing human and animal traits) is another common motif in beast lore around the world: centaurs, werewolves, many of the Egyptian gods, Ganesh, kitsune, Amerindian animism, etc. In fact, I think it is more widespread than dragon myths. Would you consider this widespread mythological motif as evidence of the actuality of therianthropy?

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by wirkkalaj, posted 08-04-2009 7:48 AM wirkkalaj has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2688 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 123 of 135 (519014)
08-10-2009 1:43 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by RAZD
08-09-2009 7:04 PM


Re: reality testing
Hi, RAZD.
RAZD writes:
However, the argument is that these depictions are anatomically correct, thus demonstrating knowledge of the living animal.
I disagree with this. Wirkkalaj's argument is that dinosaurs influenced ancient cultures and art, not that the ancients were particularly good at anatomical illustration.
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.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 112 by RAZD, posted 08-09-2009 7:04 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 08-10-2009 4:25 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2688 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 131 of 135 (530129)
10-12-2009 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 125 by RAZD
08-10-2009 4:25 PM


Re: reality testing
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.
-----
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?
-----
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.
-----
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?
-----
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.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by RAZD, posted 08-10-2009 4:25 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by bluescat48, posted 10-12-2009 12:16 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied
 Message 133 by greyseal, posted 10-12-2009 1:41 PM Blue Jay has seen this message but not replied
 Message 134 by RAZD, posted 10-12-2009 4:18 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2688 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 135 of 135 (530223)
10-12-2009 5:43 PM
Reply to: Message 134 by RAZD
10-12-2009 4:18 PM


Re: reality testing
Hi, RAZD.
RAZD writes:
Because only with anatomically correct representations can you conclude that they co-existed.
But, you can't expect too much of ancient people. The quality of, for instance, the Angkor-Wat carving, if interpreted as a stegosaur, is consistent with the quality of the other pictures depicting other creatures.
By the way, Stegosaurus was endemic to North America, so there's no way the Angkor-Wat carving was based on Stegosaurus: however, there are Old World stegosaurs that have horns on their shoulders, very near to their heads, e.g.:
Kentrosaurus
If they only ever saw such an animal with its head down in the grass than I suspect it would look like it had horns on its head.
Again, it's just apologetics, but I think it's only fair to grant that we can't really expect much more than that level of quality from the ancients. I don't know what else the carving could be interpreted as, other than a stegosaurid, so it at least shows that the ancient Cambodians knew about stegosaurs.
But, the best argument against this isn't to point out its anatomical inaccuracies, because everything back then was carved with anatomical inaccuracies.

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 134 by RAZD, posted 10-12-2009 4:18 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
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