Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site imsvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Catastrophic Evolution/ more on large animals and extinction Message-ID: <367@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Fri, 9-Aug-85 09:48:29 EDT Article-I.D.: imsvax.367 Posted: Fri Aug 9 09:48:29 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 05:52:56 EDT Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 148 In a recent article in net.origins, I wrote: > In recorded history, no entire species has ever perished >from a major continent other than at the hand of man. Ancient >man was not capable of this, especially not against >sabre-tooths, super-lions, Pterotorns etc. ONLY VELIKOVSKIAN >EVOLUTION CAN EXPLAIN EXTINCTION. Whole species became extinct >not from being unfit, but from being at the wrong place at the >wrong time as tidal waves rolled over whole continents and other >unhealthy events occurred. The largest animals were >particularly susceptible to extinction since they had the >hardest time getting to high ground or cover..... Wm. Jefferys of the UT astronomy dept. replied: >It is well established that the first people in the >Western hemisphere were responsible for the extinction >of most of the large mammals in North and South >America. They had nothing but stone weapons, but their >methods were extremely effective. I replied with an admittedly unfair challenge to the UT astronomy dept. to actually attempt a pteratorn hunt with spears. Before replying to some of the howls of anguish this has aroused, I would like to go over several very sound reasons for sticking with my original thesis. 1. Several useful animal species including horses and camels became extinct in the Americas several thousand years ago. No ancient tribe in its right mind would exterminate all of the horses in it's local. 2. The natives which the first white men in America encountered were living in perfect harmony with nature, killing only for food. Since one mammoth would feed a large tribe for a hell of a long time, there is no chance that these people exterminated the mammoths. 3. There is a hell of a difference between trying to kill a lone elephant, a straggler or lone bull, and trying to exterminate elephants generally. The latter would involve attacking HERDS of elephants in which the females would be attempting to protect the young, FAR more dangerous. 4. Attempting to kill the PREDATERS of the archaic world would require modern weapons. I just can't picture anyone killing a pteratorn or a north American super-lion (five feet at the shoulders) or an ice-age giant cave bear with spears. The status of archery in ancient north America is problematical at best. Consider first that bows only became truly significant in warfare around 1200 AD or so with the advent of the British long bow and also of the Mongolian laminated (wood and animal horn) recurve bow. Consider also that Fred Bear, one of America's foremost bow hunters and owner of Bear Archery Co., made several attempts to kill a polar bear with a modern 70 lb. hunting bow using modern aluminum arrows with steel tips. He had a buddy backing him up with a 300 magnum rifle on each occasion and it was only on about the fifth try that he didn't NEED that friend along. After all of that, try to picture ancient hunters taking on a pride of super-lions with reed arrows, using stone tips fired from a bow carved with stone knives. 5. Consider that rabbits and deer are tastier than elephants or super-bisons etc., have always been plentiful in north America, and can be trapped and killed without exposing the hunters to any extreme danger. Enough said. Okay, so much for seriousness, now for the fun: Peter DaSilva didn't believe my statements regarding Berkut eagles. He writes: >11 Inch talons? Have you ever seen an eagle? Have you any idea >how ludicrous this is? Of course, I meant total span, not eleven inches for each individual talon or claw which would be ludicrous. But I"m not making this up, Peter, honest. Read "Bird of Jove" by David Bruce, Ballantine Books, 1971, Lib. of Cong. cat crd number 70-136799. Berkuts are found in Khirgiz country in the USSR. They are the largest, and most savage and powerful of all eagles. The book includes photographs of the 24 lb. eagle Mr. Bruce brought back to England actually killing foxes and eye-witness accounts of Berkuts killing deer. Don Heller of Shell D.C. writes: >Killing a mastodon is actually pretty easy. Get about twenty >people and throw rocks at it and eventually you can force it >over the edge of a cliff. > I love it! Someone from outer space who heard this would naturally assume Mr. Heller had killed LOTS of mastodons and no longer regarded it as a challenge. Being something of a Walter Mitty fan myself, I can't even get riled at this one. In real life, of course, a thirty lb. boulder falling on a Mammoth or Imperial elephants head MIGHT have gotten his attention. Twenty people throwing rocks at him would undoubtedly have gotten him pissed off. People who know anything about Africa will tell you that the elephant is the ONE creature in the jungle that you do not EVER **** with, under any circumstances, for any reason. A friend of mine from Rhodesia described an event which occured ten miles from his home in which two idiots from New York city blew the horn of their little Ford Cortina at a herd of elephants which was crossing the road and taking their time about it. That, of course, to a bull elephant, is a challenge. When the elephants finished with the Cortina, it looked like a piece of modern sculpture; you couldn't tell what it was. The two idiots were luckier than they deserved to be, only cuts, bruises, and a few broken bones. They had to be cut out from under the dash with torches. In the original article, I wrote: >The problem for large birds is more appalling. I have actually >seen books which state that pterosaurs and pteratorns climbed up >mountains and then glided down again, a hell of a hard way to >have to make a living. Charles Forsythe of MIT writes: >That might explain why they died. Absolutely wrong. You missed the whole point. Let us for the sake of argument assume a uniformitarian world in which the FELT EFFECT of the force of gravity had never varied from what we experience now. Given that evolution (whether Darwinian or Velikovskian) is a process of adaptation to existing conditions, then this problem is not why they died, but why they would never have evolved in the first place. I haven't got the time or energy to reply point by point to everybody who tries to refute my articles point by point. However, none of Mr. Forsythe's points are any closer on than this one; I checked. //