False scientific claim rebuttal thread.

[Cross]

Created this thread to help out with counteracting misinformation and pseudoscience regarding animals and fanboyish rumors.

I'll start by sharing a post of mine from my Google+ paleontology community. 



So recently, I had been involved in a number of unrelated discussions pertaining to the giant lamniform shark Carcharocles megalodon. Many of the people who have argued with me have insisted that the shark could attain dimensions in excess of 30 meters (100 feet), though that is not what I'm going to focus on. What I'm going to focus on are the claims that Carcharocles megalodon is still alive and is thriving in the depths of the ocean.

Firstly, and I'm sure anyone who has a functioning brain is aware of this, if there were truly a large 14+ meter hypercarnivorous lamniform shark in the oceans today that has a warm-blooded metabolism such as Carcharodon carcharias (the Great White shark), there should be compelling evidence to suggest so. To cite an example, there should be dozens of baleen whale carcasses by now if there truly were a giant predatory lamniform in excess of 14m, as baleen whales (genera Balaenoptera, Megaptera, and Eobalaenoptera) constitute a large percentage of the pelagic water's biomass, and they also constitute up to nearly 80% of the diet of Carcharocles megalodon based on traumatic pathological data recovered from large whale fossils.

A common argument brought to this subject is that perhaps megalodon prefers the depths of the ocean, far deeper than the territory of carchariniform and typical lamniform sharks such as Galeocerdo cuvier, Carcharinus leucas, Carcharodon carcharias, and Carcharias taurus.

This is implausible due to a number of factors. Firstly, lamniform and carchariniform sharks (and all sharks in general) have cartilage skeletons that provide very little resistance to abyssal water pressure, this is why large sharks are rarely seen in abyssal areas, as their cartilage skeletons cannot withstand the water pressure at those depths. Simply put, a large framework of cartilage will not withstand abyssal water pressures. Only very small sharks such as rat-tail sharks and goblin sharks are adapted to abyssal depths, as they are far smaller than regular pelagic sharks (smaller surface area provides very little room for pressure to take effect) and have a higher pectoral gill count than typical sharks. So to put things simply, it's impossible that a large cartilaginous fish (at least, one much larger than a goblin shark or squaliform shark) can survive in the deeper parts of the ocean. Squaliform sharks can, however, Squaliform sharks are not as a active predators as lamniforms and carchariniforms,

Centroscymnus coelolepis. Also, for a shark to be able to survive in Bethypelagic or Abyssopelagic depths, it would need to evolve a liver with high oil content as squaliform sharks do.

But I'm not suggesting that there is indeed a 14+ meter predatory shark with an oily liver in the Bethypelagic or Abyssopelagic zones. I'm merely stating that an oily liver would be necessary if sharks were to venture to those depths.

And finally, I'm aware of a common argument that people use to insist that C. megalodon still exists, along with The Kraken, Cthulhu, Mermaids, and Kaiju.



The argument they use follows the same basic structure and point :



" We've only explored 5% of our world's oceans, we don't know what's out in that other 95%. Anything can be out there, so you can't tell me that there aren't mermaids and megalodons yet ."



Now this argument is stupid as it contains one large logical fallacy : Using the absence of opposing evidence as evidence for something's existence. Basically, they're saying that since we can't document the unknown, that means that literally anything can exist within the unknown due to the fact that we cannot necessarily confirm its non-existence.

So I'm going to demonstrate how pathetic that argument is.



" Since you can't confirm that mermaids and living megalodons don't exist at the bottom of the ocean, that means that they could still be there at the depths of the ocean . "





Now, I'm going to substitute "mermaids and living megalodons" with something else so you realize how stupid it sounds.









" Since you can't confirm that Optimus Prime and Michael Jackson don't exist at the bottom of the ocean, that means that they could still be there at the depths of the ocean "







I rest my case

[theropod]

The commonly cited 12m figure for C. subauriculatus is pretty meaningless–the biggest known fragmentary specimens are most likely bigger, the most complete specimens are smaller.
www.paleo.keepfree.de/archive.html#subauriculatus

[Deathadder]

Can I put nonsense listed in the bibel?

[Deleted]

Aug 5, 2015 18:27:00 GMT 5 Deathadder said:

Can I put nonsense listed in the bibel?

This is a thread to rebut pseudoscience. That isn't actually pseudoscience. Pseudoscientific claims by creationists are fair game though.

[Deathadder]

Thanks, that is sort of what I meant.


I don't have time to go into detail but I'll give an example.
The earth is 6000 years old. This is the common thought widely accepted by creationists. It's roots stem from the thought that Jesus created man 6000 years ago, this has been proved wrong by many things many times in many places. Like things as simple as carbon dating and fossils both can show a structure or organism being far older them 6000 years.

I'll go into more depth later.

[Cross]

@toph beifong As a Catholic evolutionist (yes, there's such a thing!), I tend to think that the thousandths place time range in the Bible is merely the result of medieval people having no concept of the millionths or billionths place, so my best guess is that they meant something a lot longer than a thousandths place figure.
BTW, if refuting creationism is what you want to do, then try the "Laughable and Ridiculous statements" thread by Creature386. I created this thread for refuting stuff like 15m tyrannosaurs and living megalodons. 

[Deathadder]

Really? Yoyr a catholic evolutionist? I thought I was the only one.

That is also a possible case.

[creature386]

Aug 5, 2015 18:27:00 GMT 5 Deathadder said:

Can I put nonsense listed in the bibel?

You can refute Biblical scientific foreknowledge that is sometimes used by fundies to prove Biblical inerracy (what an irony when remembering how much of science they must ignore for their young Earth creationism).

One can of course simply say that this picture makes false claims about science back then and tries to get scientific predictions out of poetic and ambiguous verses, but we can also try a more detailed rebuttal.

Let me try my best:

1. Let's look at the verse together:

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in

Circle is ambiguous as a flat Earth can also be circular. The Hebrew word "ḥūḡ" (translated as circle) was used in the following context in Proverbs 8:27.

When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

Note, this is the King James translation. Other translations say that he inscribed a circle. A sphere is nothing you can inscribe, the Hebrew word seems to refer to something two-dimensional rather than to something three-dimensional. It can of course also describe what you would see if you looked at Earth from space (then you in fact see something you could call a circle). However, this is way to ambiguous to be called a prediction.

Furthermore, the picture is blatantly lying as far as science back then is concerned.

A round earth appears at least as early as the sixth century BC with Pythagoras, who was followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others in observing that the earth was a sphere.

www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/history/1997Russell.html

2. You don't need divine knowledge to see that there are many stars (particularly if the verse is poetic). The "1100 stars" are very likely from Ptolemy.
Ptolemy in fact only catalogued that many stars:
africanhistory.about.com/od/scienceandmedicine/qt/StarCatalog.htm
His observations don't undermine believing that there is more than what we see.
In fact, Archimedes apparently believed that the universe must be big:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner

3. Some cherry picking is done here, Psalm 104:5 for example clearly believes that Earth is fixed in space and job says nothing about the Earth floating. Also, citation needed for the claim about science back then.

4. Quote mining, read the verse:

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

The invisible is clearly God, not atoms. And even if atoms were meant, Epicurus already believed in atoms back then, so the third column is again wrong.

5. The verse says that different stars have a different splendor or glory (however you want to translate this) and not a different size, chemical structure, lifespan ect. The verse cited is obviously poetic and has nothing to do with modern scientific observations.

6. More quote mining, let's look at the verses before (which means Job 38.18-20):

Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.
Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,

It should be clear that light and darkness are metaphorical here, as darkness obviously means death.

7. Citation needed for the claim about science back then. The verse seems to talk about the weight of wind and this again does not require divine knowledge, since one can feel a heavily blowing wind.

8. Again, citation needed for science back then. Simple observations on how objects exposed to wind can be blown into different directions refutes the idea of winds blowing straight.

9. Traditional medicine has nothing to do at all with science. Besides, the verse implicitly says that all living things have blood. You must believe that plants, fungi and bacteria are no life to take it literally, but science now suggests otherwise.

10. Citation needed (this is becoming tedious). You can easily see rocks in the sea, so one can assume that there are more underwater:

It was at best a 50/50 chance back then if the seafloor was flat or not.

11. Hm, the verse only says that the sea must get its water from somewhere, it hardly contradicts what is listed for science back then.

12. See 9. Medicine back then was not based on science!

[creature386]

Damn, just saw that this thread is only about animal related pseudoscience, so refuting the pseudoscience of some fundies is a bit out of place here.

[Cross]

AFGThugonomics on Youtube claims the following :

1. MSNMv-4047 should be 2-meters long fully restored since he claims that anything lower than this would have the preorbital region disproportionately bulky.

2. A privately owned skull in some dubious photographs shows that the rostrum accounts for approximately 50% the skull length. He uses this to argue that since the rostrum alone is roughly 1-meter long, the rest of the skull should be another 1-meter long.

3. Andrea Cau is not credible because Cau thinks that no theropods exceeded 12-13m (now invalid since he estimated Spinosaurus at 14-15m in a recent blog post). Other reasons why Cau is not credible is because he supports Ibrahim et al.'s (2014) reconstruction of Spinosaurus.

More here on the comments section of this video, under the user "James Sullivan" : www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01v3kg8HLQ

[creature386]

I moved this to your pseudoscience thread because I don't think the arguments brought up in that discussion have the quality to be discussed in one of our profiles. I'd prefer to discuss about papers or blogs there, not about YouTube.
As for the claims, they include some pseudoscience character (i.e., many unfalsifiable "could be"s and some red herrings which I will examine below).
1&2 (I put them together for replying), 2 is the only support he has for 1) I fear I cannot follow him. AFG's strongest support for these proportions is a picture which you have proven to be photoshopped (the probability of a picture with a plain background being photoshopped is simply higher than that of one where more objects are present). Obviously, the picture with the man should be preferred and measuring it gives proportions that roughly agree with Dal Sasso. Moreover, I have not seen many details about that privately owned specimen, such details would be how much is known and how much is reconstructed (let alone on what basis it is reconstructed, I'm sure a lot of that was based on relatives as well).
This is just a perfect example of the balance fallacy. Claims coming from own measurements of the proportions of cherry-picked pictures of a privately owned skull (with little details known, other than that the skull is overall 1.2 m long and that it is a subadult) obviously do not have the same merit as claims by scientists that use skulls available to study.
3. Ad hominem attack to Cau.

P.S. As you mentioned my name somewhere in the discussion, AFG only knows me under the names Jinfengopteryx or SaurierSlash.

[Cross]

Nov 24, 2015 20:31:46 GMT 5 creature386 said:

I moved this to your pseudoscience thread because I don't think the arguments brought up in that discussion have the quality to be discussed in one of our profiles. I'd prefer to discuss about papers or blogs there, not about YouTube.
As for the claims, they include some pseudoscience character (i.e., many unfalsifiable "could be"s and some red herrings which I will examine below).
1&2 (I put them together for replying), 2 is the only support he has for 1) I fear I cannot follow him. AFG's strongest support for these proportions is a picture which you have proven to be photoshopped (the probability of a picture with a plain background being photoshopped is simply higher than that of one where more objects are present). Obviously, the picture with the man should be preferred and measuring it gives proportions that roughly agree with Dal Sasso. Moreover, I have not seen many details about that privately owned specimen, such details would be how much is known and how much is reconstructed (let alone on what basis it is reconstructed, I'm sure a lot of that was based on relatives as well).
This is just a perfect example of the balance fallacy. Claims coming from own measurements of the proportions of cherry-picked pictures of a privately owned skull (with little details known, other than that the skull is overall 1.2 m long and that it is a subadult) obviously do not have the same merit as claims by scientists that use skulls available to study.
3. Ad hominem attack to Cau.

P.S. As you mentioned my name somewhere in the discussion, AFG only knows me under the names Jinfengopteryx or SaurierSlash.

Alright, thanks for moving it and pointing this out (sorry if it ended up as irrelevant or useless when I originally posted it in the other thread).

Thanks for rebutting 1 and 2. However, from the time I posted this, I have since blocked AFG and muted the thread because I realized sooner or later that I was wasting my time since the people I was trying to talk sense into were clearly stubborn and ignorant beyond description, and that any attempts to prove them wrong using science and logic would be futile.

[Cross]

Another frequently used argument is that large animals would overheat if they had excessive body covering such as feathers, and this is often used to argue that large tyrannosaurs could not have been feathered.

While this may apply to certain terrestrial mammals such as elephantids and rhinocerotoids, this doesn't apply as well to feathered animals.

The reason being that feathers can actually both provide insulation and cool at the same time.
Aepyornithids are the largest terrestrial birds in history, and they lived in Madagascar. The climate in Madagascar was tropical, and thus was constantly humid and dry. Dense feathering can actually provide shade and protect the skin from extreme sunlight. Furthermore, while we have found feathered tyrannosaur specimens, we have never found scaly tyrannosaur specimens. So there is more evidence supporting the existence of a feathered-T. rex than there is supporting a completely scaly T. rex.

Additionally, I hear a lot of people argue that just because basal taxon X has integument A, this does not necessarily mean that derived taxon Y will also have integument A. This is the equivalent of saying that, since there are no specimens of Smilodon sp. presering evidence of furry integument, then we should not assume that it had fur simply because other modern carnivorans do have fur (which of course, makes no sense).

[Infinity Blade]

we have never found scaly tyrannosaur specimens.

Um, what about the skin impressions of Wyrex? Aren't those considered scaly in a way?

[Cross]

Nov 25, 2015 18:14:44 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

we have never found scaly tyrannosaur specimens.

Um, what about the skin impressions of Wyrex? Aren't those considered scaly in a way?

Yes, but these are from the ventral side of the body. Even animals with feathers usually are featherless on the ventral side of their bodies. 
How large is that skin patch? I can't seem to find any of the papers describing it.