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Re: AAT:A method to falsify
pete (VINCENT@REG.TRIUMF.CA)
16 Oct 1995 10:01:46 GMT
Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu) sez:
`[about suface/volume, mass, and heat loss in water...]
` If they do so, they are placing their AA scenario into the realm of
`real-world science. If physiologists ever got hold of a mass estimate, they
`will immediately have something to work with, a quantifiable prediction that
`the AA-people have given to the scientific community to "chew" on. Frankly,
`I am not sure that the pro-AA group would want to put their aquatic scenario
`is such jeopardy.
Consider, however, the cormorant: it is a warm blooded animal, whose
mass is 10kg or less. It is covered with feathers, true, but these
feathers, unlike most seabirds, contain no oil, and so do not shed
water. These small birds dive in temperate, almost to arctic, water,
and get soaked to the skin. They then come out and stand about for
as much as an hour with their wings outstretched, waiting for them
to dry off enough that they can fly. They do this even in the winter,
and I watch them doing it here on the banks of the Fraser in south
Vancouver (we are blessed with rich and diverse wildlife within
the city limits). Whatever thermal indignities a hypothetical
aquatic ape may have endured, they cannot begin to equal those that
the cormorant copes with daily. In our soft, coddled, civilized
world, we tend to underestimate the endurance of animals living
without such luxuries.
--
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vincent@triumf.ca <== faster % Pete Vincent
vincent@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca % Disclaimer: all I know I
% learned from reading Usenet.
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