Aquatic Animals Re: Aquatic elephants. Was re:Tears

H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
20 Oct 1995 00:51:28 -0400

>On a scale of 0 to 100 hundred [100 =most affinity for water]
>assign numbers to these animals

I get this feeling that people don't follow up to my posts
of this type because they fear falling into a trap [sometimes
rightly so :-)..]. Actually this is not a trap.

so here I'll go first. Feel free to revise. I think i can
reasonably justify within 10 points or so the numbering
scheme I have.

elephants 80-90
hippos 100
lions 40-50
humans ???
gorillas 40-50
pigs 80-90
sea otters 100
polar bears 80-90
dogs 60??
penguins 80-90
sheep 40-50
camels 10-20
???? (mouse) 0-5

There is some kind of a desert mouse that is so efficient
that it's urine practically comes out solid. That's the mouse
that I rate 0-5. Camels would be close to this mouse/rat.

I rated hippos, penguins and sea otters the highest; they could
have been rated at around 95-100, I guess, etc etc.

The numbers could be moved around but I think the ranking would
pretty much stay. I see a pattern. It's that simple. Bears
are much more bipedal than any of the other predator animals
on the list. Penguins are more bipedal than other birds.
Elephants, hippos and pigs are more naked than other animals
of the type. It's easy enough to see. There's a correlation.
Is it causal? If analogical reasoning always works then
why not here? The question is simple enough.

-- 

Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey