Technical accuracy of size comparisons

[theropod]

I want to remind everyone that this thread is supposed to be a platform to discuss the technical accuracy of size comparisons. I know I haven’t been using it much recently, because frankly I have more important matters in my life than checking each and every comparison he makes (so be warned that most of the comparisons he has recently posted are probably not scaled correctly). But the point was to use this thread to point out when a comparison isn’t replicable based on the sizes the one who made it claims to have scaled to.

So if you want to tell dinosauria that his size figures themselves are wrong, no problem, but maybe we should have a separate thread for that, as it is quite an extensive topic itself.

[kekistani]

Feb 24, 2020 2:36:57 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Feb 23, 2020 23:45:58 GMT 5 kekistani said:

11: >asks to drop it

>is told to stop replying and the conversation will stop

>still replies

Big Kek

1: I meant they were not longer, not that they were shorter.

They were most definitely longer.

And the neurals are not Acrocanthosaurus level - they are intermediate between Tyrannotitan and Acrocanthosaurus but closer to Tyrannotitan. And again, there is reason to think that this recons' greater size would mean larger neural spines due to the extra mass. 

Which is implausible because no such neural spines from similar and closely related species exist.

2: SIW's is very much on the table, for the many reasons I have explained.

See cerato's post, and no, it isn't.

3: It is very possible that it would outweigh Sue; the skeletal is fairly robust and that is what isometrically scaling from a similarly built animal suggests.

Inaccurate skeletal=inaccurate weight.

4: I get it, a difference but a small one.

Precisely

5: No copypaste going on here.

Repetition does not neccessarily mean copy-paste

As for the 'again', I don't intend to be using it as ad nauseum although I may be doing so unwillingly. I can just drop the point(s) where I or we have been repeating back and forth w/o getting anywhere.

YOU ahve been repeating your points. I just repeat my answers because of your use of ad nauseam.

6: Yes, I do do that. The reason I say this, however, is to point the differences may be either nonexistent or opposite to what we think. We can certainly keep using exact weights, but that's just something to keep in mind.

I don't really care

7: My point would probably be that this animal's relatives (Tyrannotitan) suggest large neural spines, further backed up by the larger size of the recon which would suggest making the spines larger and thicker.

This animal's relatives also do not have such prominent neural spines (Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus) at such size. There is no evidence for it, and the skeletal does not back itself up.

8: The GDI fixes it - GAT's skeletal as is does have the animal to 8%, but the GDI has edited soft tissue based on other recons AFAIK. Only 6.5% is needed in the GDI for a 9 t animal.
BTW, the reason I consider 8% larger MUCPv-95 unlikely is due to the mass of the animal that GAT's recon gives it, not the nature of the fossil - at 6.5%, it's already a 9 tonne animal and it doesn't make much sense for giant cursorial theropods like carnosaurs and tyrannosaurs to exceed this, since they would need too much food and be too slow to chase it. 
Although the bone itself suggests 6.5%, it could well belong to an animal 8+ percent larger with a proportionately smaller head and jaw.

A GDI from an excessive skeletal does not provide good standing for a 9 tonne giganotosaur. I find an 8.8% MUCPV-95 unlikely because the fossil does not imply it was this large at all and unlike you I go with what is known, not unsupported what-ifs.

9: That's not 'excess' musculature - the exact amount is debatable since it does not fossilize. It's very possible that's what the animal was like in life, while I find the recons of ~6.8 tonnes doubtful (not impossible however) as they have relatively less muscle in parts than one would expect (Scott Hartman's Giganotosaurus belly and pubis is a good example of this).
As for not the full skeletal, it's just shadowed out as a schematic AFAIK. There is a difference between skeletals and schematics, and schematics only show the preserved bones with everything shaded that isn't preserved. They are perfectly usable as well.

That IS excess musculature-as there is no evidence for it it is better we go with conservative estimates. Scott Hartman's Giganotosaurus is perfectly fine and is accurate.

10: This is not deliberate.

You're certainly very good at it for not being deliberate

As for what you said and the part about Sue I did not address, the reason why that is implausible is due to the size of the animal - as I went over earlier, it makes little ecological sense for cursorial theropods to get much over 9 tonnes, since they'd get too slow to chase their food and need too much of it

Read what I said again. It appears you believe I actually think that Sue had-20% more muscle mass than restored. You are not very good at perceiving what people actually MEAN or SAY, are you?

. There's also differing musculature - all Sue skeletals I know of seem to have sufficient musculature and they get masses ~8-8.4 tonnes, give or take some, while the 6.8 tonne Giganotosaurus are lacking in the musculature.

According to you, at least.

11: I was referring only to that last point.

Well you aren't dropping using your "points" ad nauseam anyway

But you know what, I seriously doubt either one of us can convince the other as we've gone on and on and on nonstop for what, 5 days? on both here and elsewhere. I'm calling it a draw for now.
Use Franoys if you so choose, I won't fault you for it. But I doubt all this bickering will actually get us anywhere.

This is a draw for you the same way WW2 was a draw for Nazi Germany. I really don't care about this, but it's quite funny to see you try to argue and fail. As long as you reply I will reply. All you have to do is drop the argument.

[dinosauria101]

I'm not dropping the arguments, this just isn't getting anywhere.

I'll continue using what I prefer, and you continue what you prefer. Simple as that!

[kekistani]

Feb 24, 2020 3:16:36 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I'm not dropping the arguments, this just isn't getting anywhere.

I'll continue using what I prefer, and you continue what you prefer. Simple as that!

Continue using inaccurate reconstructions if you wish. I'll stick to stuff that's actually scientifically accurate.

[Ceratodromeus]

Feb 24, 2020 3:16:36 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

I'll continue using what I prefer, and you continue what you prefer. Simple as that!

If what you prefer is considered being moderated, including your own comparisons, it is not "simple as that". You need to focus on the quality of your posts and not quantity.

also, since it was already exposed in since deleted comments on a different thread that you think Brolys was "the best" and "actually did justice to a giant carnosaur", you've shown an incredible incapacity to make an unbias and neutral comment on the matter; the latter 3 pages of this thread are yet another damning emphasis.

[Infinity Blade]

As for everybody else, I'm a bit too lazy to reply to every other point

Convenient.

As I've stated earlier, kleptoparisitism/scavenging could never be the primary source of energy intake for a truly colossal theropod (theropods that size would legitimately have to hunt more). It's just that there's not really any basis that a Tyrannosaurus at 13 meters would epically struggle to capture any prey. In fact, theropod brought up a good point earlier; we should not be making arguments that "animal X could not reach *insert specific size here* because I think it would be too big to function", particularly when the supposedly impossible sizes do not deviate greatly from those of known individuals.

[theropod]

Mar 23, 2020 3:25:24 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

EDIT: theropod, if I didn't make it clear in my post, it's the mass of a 13 meter Tyrannosaurus that would make life very hard for the animal and therefore it's implausible due to its increased needs but limited ability to meet them. The length isn't the problem.

You didn’t understand my post. Whether you were talking about length or weight is totally irrelevant, as I clearly expressed by writing "length B/weight C". Whether you wanted to say that "theropods over 13 m are impossible", or that "theropods over 10 t are impossible", it doesn’t matter, the point is you are picking an arbitrary number, saying "everything that big is impossible" and then just using that as though it were evidence.
It’s the arbitrary making-up of limitations that have no basis on science that I was commenting on, not the inconsistency with your claims about other animals, which is a different matter altogether: while frankly I find it hard to believe that you would have brought up that same argument had someone made a case for a 10-11 t carnosaur, your underlying motivations are not of relevance here, what you post is.

Case at hand: You claim a 10 t theropod could never exist because it could not function properly. As evidence you cite…absolutely nothing. All that while we know fairly confidently that 8-9 t theropods did exist, and population statistics would at least heavily suggest that slightly larger sizes were reached as well.
You totally failed to give any reason why a 10 t theropod should be impossible while a 9 t one is not, and yet you use this as an argument to support your claim that the Scotty specimen wasn’t that large (which, again, it probably was not, but based on the size of the skeletal material, not on any speculation as to whether that size is possible or not).

What if I were to just claim "a Triceratops over 11 t is impossible as it could not function properly", would you accept that as evidence?

Basically here we’re simply trying to make you understand how scientific thought processes work, we’re not even all arguing that the point you are trying to make (Scotty wasn’t 13 m long) is wrong, just that your argument is invalid.

[kekistani]

Mar 23, 2020 16:15:05 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Mar 23, 2020 9:36:06 GMT 5 kekistani said:

Which was not 13m based on the evidence we have. (inb4 "it's PAUSSIBEL Im on TEH ROADE of PASSIBILITY YOU CLOSE-MINDED DRIVER ON A ONE WHEY STRET")

That's using Scott Hartman's 6.5%, but we have no way of knowing if the animal really was that large.
That's not even my point. For, say, the holotype, it's complete enough that we know it's true size for sure.

Yeah, but we have enough evidence to where it's safe to say it wasn't 13 meters.

[dinosauria101]

Yeah, we do. It's 12.32 meters.

[kekistani]

Mar 24, 2020 1:23:11 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Yeah, we do. It's 12.32 meters.

Precisely. So MucPV-95 was not 13 meters, even if you are referring to CH-1.

[dinosauria101]

Mar 24, 2020 2:51:41 GMT 5 kekistani said:

Mar 24, 2020 1:23:11 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Yeah, we do. It's 12.32 meters.

Precisely. So MucPV-95 was not 13 meters, even if you are referring to CH-1.

We have no way to know for sure. You may prefer 2.2% or so, but I'd trust Hartman's 6.5% - he is, after all, a qualified researcher who is very good at this stuff.

I really wouldn't write off 13 meters or more if I were you.

[kekistani]

Mar 24, 2020 3:17:20 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Mar 24, 2020 2:51:41 GMT 5 kekistani said:

Precisely. So MucPV-95 was not 13 meters, even if you are referring to CH-1.

We have no way to know for sure. You may prefer 2.2% or so, but I'd trust Hartman's 6.5% - he is, after all, a qualified researcher who is very good at this stuff.

I really wouldn't write off 13 meters or more if I were you.

See my previous comment to see what this basically is saying

Almost as bad as Denis SMH

[Ceratodromeus]

Alright, well, someone's going to have to say it.

The point is you flamboyantly use eccentrically large figures with little backings for some animals you very clearly have a favoritism towards whilst scoffing at the idea of a 13m Tyrannosaurus using poorly constructed arguments based off of a very rudimentary understanding of biology and ecology. It's that simple. You can try and back out of a discussion as you usually do(e.g. im too lazy/ this is going nowhere/etc) but at the core of it, your argument(s) are pretty bad and your understanding of basic principles has shown no clear signs of understanding or improvement.

Edit

I really wouldn't write off 13 meters or more if I were you.

You can try and step back from your initial statements all you want, but the fact remains that the logic you're using is faulty and rhetorical.

You can say "i wouldn't write off 13m for Tyrannosaurus if i were you" as well, but i'd suspect you would take issue with such statement(s). Hypocrisy.
also....
Sigh

I'd trust Hartman's 6.5% - he is, after all, a qualified researcher who is very good at this stuff

www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority

[dinosauria101]

kekistani, do you have anything that suggests Scott Hartman's 6.5% for MUCPv-95 is not a defensible figure?

For Cerato, no, I won't write off a 13 m Tyrannosaurus either.

[Ceratodromeus]

Mar 24, 2020 4:28:15 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

For Cerato, no, I won't write off a 13 m Tyrannosaurus either.

Seriously, there is no way a Tyrannosaurus can reach 13 meters, unless it was a very gracile specimen

Checkmate.