Dragons

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by lixluke, Mar 18, 2005.

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Did dragons really exist?

  1. They definitely existed.

    6 vote(s)
    9.8%
  2. They definitely did not exist.

    17 vote(s)
    27.9%
  3. It is possible they existed.

    27 vote(s)
    44.3%
  4. I have a different opinion.

    11 vote(s)
    18.0%
  1. lixluke Refined Reinvention Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,072
    The Animal Planet is giving a special on the animal which happens to be my Chinese Zodiac sign and the only animal in the Chonese Zodiac that is 'mythical'.

    My regular zodiac sign is also mythical.

    They claim that all these different cultures that have never had contact with eachother describe the same aimal as if it were real.

    Although there has been no fossil evidence, biologists were called in to explain how dragons would realistically breath fire, fly, and behave assuming they really existed. The biologists claim it would be completely possible for an animal to conduct such behaviors given the proper biological make up.

    Do/Did they exist?
     
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  3. john smith Tongue in cheek Registered Senior Member

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    833
    I dont actually no anything bout dragons (apart from whats in 'dragon heart'!)

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    , jus find the subject real intresting, but aren't dragons just a myth to scare badly behaved boys?? Although id like to belive,i find it hard.

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  5. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    How could they breath fire?
     
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  7. john smith Tongue in cheek Registered Senior Member

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    833

    they have special diets and digestive systems. The food they eat produces methane and sulphur, which resides in their stomach. They can then expel the gas at will (similar to the way we burp). Metallic edges to their teeth can be snapped together to produce a spark. The gas is then expelled into the spark, producing fire.

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    rather obvious,isnt it?!

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    :m:
     
  8. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    6,585
    the mythological meaning of 'Dragon' is like a poem--which mythology is, in its original sense (it was sung), ie., having many associations. it is Goddess, and Energies of the Earth, Guardian of the Earth.....Patriarchy demonizes woman and Nature etc., thus we see depictions of St George slaying the Dragon, Greek heros slaying them, etc .....
     
  9. Yorda Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,275
    The unicorn is another kind of animal like the dragon. It's the animal manifestation of the 4th of the 4 faces of God, the element earth. In another kind of zodiac, they use the bull instead (taurus).

    The dragon is the 1st of the 4 signs, the element fire. In another kind of zodiac, they use the lion instead. Dragons are not real animals. They're symbols, combinations of animals, like the sagittarius. The sagittarius represents someone who lives above his animal body and desires. He uses his animal "body" only to reach the goal.

    The sons of God teached the same thing wherever they went. The 4 elements explain the basic principles of the construction of the universe. There are for example 4 different main colours and 4 different winds. Sometimes though, they are divided only into 2 aspects, the negative and positive. In the zodiac, these 4 principles are extended to 12 phases for more precise understanding.
     
  10. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    20,855
    Dragons are real, I keep one in my attic. He's invisible.

    Or is it a she?
     
  11. shaman_ Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,467
    I have always thought it quite likely that the myth of dragons started with people finding dinosaur bones in ancient times.
     
  12. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,083
    They still exist as archetypes.
     
  13. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,105
    I think I concluded what a Dragon was from the film "the 13th Warrior", at one instance of the film the warriors are trying to hold a settlement against an oncoming horde. There is some mention about a giant serpent, and what the film make depicts as this giant serpent is the files of men in this horde snaking down the mountain side.

    The very same visual interprettation I would guess of the terming of dragon, Twightlight and a large number of men in ranks. Each man wearing plate or scale armour. From a distance they would look like scales themselves.

    Flags would be flying and perhaps make it look like this precession was flying and the head of the line would have torches to see their path down the mountainside (potentially just those at the head to conceal the numbers)

    I did even question that perhaps the Dragon costumes that are used in Chinese New Year celebrations might have come from that very root, in the sense that an army could conceal it's numbers and be perceived a beast in those that feared it's mysticism.
     
  14. Xevious Truth Beyond Logic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    964
    We've had plenty of experience in recent time of animals supposed to be extinct and / or mythical which turn out to be entirely real, particularly in the ocean depths. The Giant Squid once had the exact same mythical lure and status as the Dragon. We know now they are real. We also know the true story of the whaling ship Essex, which was rammed by a sperm whale and sunk. The Coelcanth was once thought extinct.

    The Red Panda in China was once considered a ficticious legend. When European explorers reported the physical features of the Platypus, they were thought total crackpots until one was brought back for study. I could go on and on, but too many times has science laughed about cryptic species and been shamed.
     
  15. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    13,105
    Seems this thread is progressing further into Cryptozoology. I thought I would just mention it incase theres something reading this thread humming and ha-ing that they know the particular word for it's study but it's on the tip of their tongue.
     
  16. Xevious Truth Beyond Logic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    964
    Theirs nothing truly wrong with crytpozoology. It's had it's false leads, it's crazy stints, but it has advanced science. Taken at it's litteral definition, all the mainstream scientists who worked on the giant squid or at the colecanth case were working in the field. It just gets a bad rep for it's association with cases like Yeti, Bigfoot, Ogopogo, and Nessie.
     
  17. Xevious Truth Beyond Logic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    964
    If Bioligists say it's possible and cryptic species are known to happen, by default their is a possiblity dragons existed. They could even have been as big as St. George said they were since we know that past life on this planet could be bigger than a 3 story building.

    The question is though, what evidence do we have to hypothesize they existed other than pure inferenc?
     
  18. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,946
    The problem with dragons is that while they could have physically existed, they can not exist within the boundries of biology. It's fairly easy to fill a bag with helium and make it move. It's quite another to squeeze enough helium into an animal bigger than a horse to make it light enough to fly. Two 'sacks' the size of lungs would do almost nothing. It's like tying a few party ballons to a cow and asking it to jump over the moon.
     
  19. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,946
    These are at least possible (not sure what ogopogo is though).
     
  20. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,083
    Maybe they didn't fly, but just glided from hilltops or trees (small ones). People like to overexagerate (sp). Besides I doubt that the difference between gliding and flying was known by most people. The first reptile-birds of the dinosaur era could only glide too.

    p.s. If you would increase a common bats' size a 100x would it be able to fly just as an identical copy of it just 100x smaller?

    ---
    *Just speculating here, I've no evidence for dragons.
     
  21. SkinWalker Archaeology / Anthropology Moderator

    Messages:
    5,874
    Doesn't the bat's relationship of body mass to air mass have to do with its ability to "fly?" If so, wouldn't the mass of air also have to increase 100x? Of course, air molecules can't increase that way... but would this be something that would need to be considered when scaling?

    Also, I would recommend: Mayor, A. (2001). The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Her book focuses on the bronze and iron age discoveries of various fossils in Anatolia, Greece, and even China that may have been the source of legend for mythical beasts such as dragons and griffons. I wrote a paper last spring on the Near Eastern origins of the griffon found in the Greek archaeological record. To quote from that paper:
    It seems that Aeschylus was the original skeptic!

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    Mayor's book also covered some information about the dragons of China and some fossil remains that appear to be represented in ceramic design, but my focus was on the griffon and I didn't take notes on the Chinese dragon. The cover of the book sports a Greek vase with a dragon-like monster that's known as the "Monster of Troy" vase. The head is white and clearly a skull representation and she points out that it was likely the result of a giraffe fossil eroding from the mountain/hill side. These fossils that occasionally erode out of the hilly regions of the Greek Islands and Anatolia (Turkey), she argues, gave rise to the myths of beasts like dragons and griffons.
     
  22. Thersites Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    535
    There is an upper limit on the size and weight of flying animals which is very quickly reached: if you double the size of a bird in every dimension you make it weigh eight times as much, but the wings aren't eight times as large. Compare the proportional size of the wings on a large bird- an albatross, say- and a humming bird and the way thetwo them fly.

    Peter Dickinson wrote a book The Flight of Dragons where he discusses completely straight-faced the qualities attributed to dragons and hypothesises how dragons worked.
     
  23. Xevious Truth Beyond Logic Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    964
    All we have to go on are some ancient legends which unfortunetly don't agree on this point. However, we do have examples as stated, of very large flying animals, and very large land animals. Who's to say they didn't get bigger? The largest flying creature I know about was a Pterosaur called Quetsalquantilus (spelling?). It had a wingspan of 40 feet, and was roughtly the size of twin-engine jet aircraft. That does fit the size description purported of some larger dragons. In practice, we do not know exactly what the dimentions of a Dragon were, as so far as proportions of wing-size, body size, ect.

    In my observation of the fossil record, the larger the animal is the fewer and fewer specimines and far less complete the specimines seem get. Furthermore, predatory animals are also far less common. Fossil rodents by way of example, are found in the hundreds. Only one Ultrasaurus has been found to my knowledge. Only 8 Tyranosaurs Rex specimines have been found, while plenty of Triceratops specimines have been found.

    I wish I had your knowledge Thersites, but surely their is still based on examples of size in the fossil record, something very much like a Dragon might have existed?
     

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