"Do you mean entire recently dead brown bears before the scavengers got to them or that no bones skin fragments or any other part have been found?" For the 3rd time, not one dead brown bear has been found in nature. Read again what I said. No bones, no skins, nothing, nadda, zilch. Period, as far as I know. Try listening for once. "And the more valuable its skin bones etc becpme as soouvenirs." Ummm, what exactly does this have to do with the statistics of what fossils are to be found in the rock record? "Really? Care to give a few examples and compare them with the enormous number of occasions when what everybody knew because it was obvious turned out not to be true when someone experimented with it?" We can argue this one back and forth untill we're both blue in the face but since you don't seem to know, let's try again (BTW I talked about this earlier in the thread incase you didn't bother reading) Let's see... Meteories are a good classic case. Giant Squid, Platypuss, ect. The idea that a human being could feel a magnetic field was once considered pseudoscience. Even the "Big Bang" theory was once considered a clandestined attempt to force the Bible on science. I'm surprised for all your tenacity over the superiority of science you forgot or ignored all of it's blunders. Science is a great tool, but it isn't the definitive word on anything which it can't measure, by it's own admission. In the case of Dragons, science can't give an answer because their is nothing to measure, as I said previously. I've fully admitted that. That doesn't mean that one day some fossils, or cultural anthropology might turn one up. It just means that good science has nothing in this case to work with.
"Dragons seem to have something in common with god: no evidence at all, but believers think that supports the theory." I never said Dragons existed. I was just kicing around the possibility. The facts to date say that their is no evidence that they existed. That does not mean DID NOT exist, that just means their is nothing to measure to evaluate the claim that they did, as I stated previously.
Give a source for this claim, please; i don't know how far you know. Where did you mention meteorites? In the case of giant squid Scientists were [and still are] sceptical about extreme claims- Melville claimed the had tentacles furlongs in length- they were perfectly willing to accept very large crustacea. The only argument among scientists about the platypus was the question of where it fitted in the animal kingdom, given that it exhibited anomalous characteristics. Unless you can show that human beings can perceive magnetic fields the claim that they can is pseudoscience- and that's being polite about it. The big bang theory gave and still gives the problem that there are aspects for which there may never be enough data to make a scientific statement. It contradicted much of the other evidence. That is why people were willing to accept it as a hypothesis but weren't going to take it seriously until enough scientific evidence appeared. In the case of dragons there is nothing for anything to measure. all there is is a fantastic hypothesis with no evidence in its favour and with many arguments against it. there is more evidence for pixies than dragons.
i was just wondering, if a dragon had an exoskeleton, and had the same gasses for lift(not sure on the specifics of the hypothosis on dragons make up) but would that even be possible? and if so would that account for the lack of a fossil record? along with the rarity factor.
Same practical problems of weight would apply. It is possible that a creature a little like a dragon could have existed. It's just that there is no evidence at all that any did and strong scientific logical arguments against it.
Firther to Xevious and brown bears: elephant corpses are- at first glance- surprisingly rare. J. H. Williams in Elephant Bill points out that actually scavengers are very efficient at disposing of bodies and that the circumstances where elephants are likely to die in the wild are such that the bodies will be scattered fairly quickly, so that only people who are fairly knowledgeable could tell which bones were left by elephants. Presumably quite a lot of brown bears die while they are hibernating so unless someone goes round looking in caves for dead bears and risks bumping into and waking live bears they aren't likely to find them.
Thats exactly what I was saying, Thersites. I think the main point we are disagreeing on is the philosophical point of wether or not Dragons should be ruled out entirely. Scientifically you can't do that from my perspective. You have to have an imprical proof that they did not exist, which is a fundamental impossibility. I think the disagreement just comes down to the point not even what is good versus bad science, but an issue of wether the unproveable should be considered non-existant. Thats philosophy, not science. No answers here.
yeah but mostly against the idea that there were dragons. I don't know what "I have a different opinion is really there for, since the other three cover every pretty much every possibility. (Unless dragons are aliens or something?!
The thing is, xevious, that there is very good empirical evidence against the existence of dragons in the physical laws governing flight and the size of flying animals cited above. If we were dicussing pixies, say, we could cite the small hominids allegedly found in Flores as evidence for the existence of such creatures. with dragons there are definite physical impossibilities which argue against the claim.
DRAGONS EXIST! I´ve the proof: do you know Oporto Futbol Club? Dont? Well, that club (FCP) has a dragon as a symbol and it was trainedby the great coacher Mourinho (now he is in Chelsea...great work there). That "little" dragon has eaten the most important leagues, including the most hard Uefa Champions League! eheeh. It was considerated the best soccer team of the world in last year (Real Madrid? pufff... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) It is my soccer club. it is my little dragon. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
ok, i was reading a book in the library on friday, and it says that da vinci, looknig to create a horrific image for a shield, collected several different animals(bats, lizards, bids, etc) and dismembered them, he the arranged them into the image of a dragon and painted this image onto the shield with a few alterations. this is clear proof that either he was a member of the illuminati in his teenage years, or the myth of a dragon originated from his painting.
I'm open to the possibility of the cryptozoological version: giant serpents/lizards that may have been construed as dragons by our ancestors. As for the intelligent fire-breathing drakes/wyverns, I truly don't think so. Pete's Dragon? Yes, I believe!
Are you insane?! Dragons have been known for some thousands of years before Da Vinci even was born. What, dragons in China because Da Vinci supposedly made a shield? Did he invent time travel too? Was he abducted by aliens? Oh I know, I know, today everyone reads that crapfiction DaVinci code. How many have read Da Vinci himself? :bugeye: p.s. Find better literature!
We don't have any definite data on what the actual dimentions of the Dragon are, which means again their is nothing to measure, nothing to prove or disprove. As was said earlier, the descriptions vary wildly. You can't refute the existance of Dragons if you don't have a clue what you're refuting. In the end, it's pointless exercise. I personally agree with Yonatan, who said that the Dragons of old might have been giant reptiles or serpents which were wiped out. Thersies, you are probably right that the Dragon we see in movies are far fetched. However, I still believe their is something to the legends far beyond merely images or myths.
Likewise you can't say a dragon might exist if you don't define what a dragon is. Might the European or Asian dragon exist... no. Might something else exist that you'd call a dragon... well that's up to the limit of your definition.
I think dragons existed but were made extinct by overhunting, loss of habitat space, and loss of adequate food sources. they most likely went extinct around the 900s or 1000s. herodotus talks about them in his book on natural history. one possibilty is that they were used in warfare, but were so rare, and were possibly killed off by overuse in combat or overexhaustion in long campaigns.
never read that book, but i read a few pages at random from a book on the display stand and saw that. forgot about chinese dragons in all of that. so yea. bcak ot the start
its in a book by herodotus, the father of history... ive skimmed through some of his book about natural history. he describes dragons quite vividly. anyway, i don't skeptify these things until there is definite proof that they dont exist. such as the 150-foot python. thats possible. same a charcaradon megalodon. its pretty much the same as a great white, just bigger. or Mokole Mbembe? the apatosaur decendant of the Congo River Basin. or what about the Kraken, probably just an oversized Giant Squid? There are many things in the deep, and in the dark forests, that we don't know about. Maybe we're not meant to know if they are there or not? Who knows? I believe that they exist, and nothing can convince me otherwise.
