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Best!

Brett

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Were you fooled?


Were you? 

Did you watch that Megalodon Discovery channel special? Do you think Megalodon was real after watching it? You didn't? You don't appear to be alone. While all the articles seem to indicate that LOADS of people were, it appears this is based on an online poll done after the show… so it was incredibly scientific;) People ALWAYS take those seriously. (Meg's ARE real. I used to have a real tooth on my mantel, they're just no longer alive.) So where is all this outrage coming from, because I only seem to see it in articles and blogs… mostly science ones. Can it be that there really aren't lots of people who fell for it? Can it be that this is merely a few people who are outraged for people they believe fell for it? Is the science community actually manufacturing this? Maybe not intentionally, but they do seem to be the ones who are spearheading  this, they seem to the ones incredibly outraged for others who actually didn't fall for it or could care less. I'm sure a few people were fooled after all Mountain Monsters got picked up for a second season and that's all kinds of fake! But the majority of people I've talked too knew it was fake and one guy was left questioning wether it was real or not…


Yes, some of the science was off or based on older estimates, current thinking places them at around 52 feet (it's possible they were longer OR shorter, we only have teeth and a few vertabrae as sharks are mostly cartilage and don't fossilize well. It's possible they had GIANT heads!) But besides some of that, there was OTHER science that people seem to have missed. Underwater camera stuff, hunting of whales, Meg teeth whale tail bones, whale migration patterns and tagging and tracking animals, all real science. The 2 million year old whale was wrong, but that's kind of a tricky thing. They've known about the whale, but they didn't know who that whale was related to until they tested the DNA, it turns out the whale is not related to any other existing whale species, it's related to a line that was thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago. I can see how that would get messed up, but it's not right in the show. Some of the other science is, well… speculative. And it would have to be since it's explaining why we haven't seen this animal in 1.5 million years. Its OK to do this in books, just not on TV I guess.

It is funny that the other scientists in the special don't agree with the main lead in this throughout the whole thing they disagree. I liked that a lot. 

Meg lived in warm shallow seas! Or did it? Its true that all the fossils we're found have been from shallow seas, but was it strictly limited to those? Fossils underwater are hard to find and the majority of what we find is all from shallow seas because those shallow seas are now on the surface and easier to get to. By this logic, most known water animals lives in shallow inland seas, we know this isn't true with todays animals so it's doubtful it was true of the pasts. I have a hard time seeing a LARGE shark stuck in shallow seas while it pretty swims away into the deep ocean… These sharks lived for 25 million years, I'm sure they're environment shifted and moved with the continents.

Could they still exist? It's very, very doubtful they are still alive. I'm sure we would have found whales with Meg teeth in them, especially during the whaling boom of the 1800's. BUT it's possible they still exist in some form, the ocean is a very large place so I wouldn't rule it out completely. I'll just say this, we have more evidence for the existence of Megalodon than we do for Sasquatch. At least we know Megs lived at some point. We have never found a great ape species in the new world, not even in South or Central America.
Have at thee!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

When I saw the program on my guide, the info they gave made me think that it was just speculation and theories on an actual boat sinking all tied in to the possibility of a Meg for Shark Week.
10 seconds after the program started, I knew it was in the same vein as the Mermaid programs.

I watched it knowing it was complete crap, but entertaining crap nonetheless. I know people got extremely pissed off about the program, and I think it's because people, deep down, truly want to believe something that fantastic still exists.

Myself, I was simply quite sad at the fact that the discovery channel and many of it's like have had to sink to gimmicky programing to get ratings. I watched a little of that "Shark After Dark" program until they brought out two idiots to push their new shows. One named Tickle and the other moron who wouldn't wear a shirt. I had to stop watching for fear the stupid would rub off.

Brett said...

See, that's the thing, those people DIDN'T get upset. It's was ONLY the science guys who wanted disclaimers all over the place who got their panties in a bunch. The people who actual want Meg to be alive didn't bat an eye.

Shark After Dark was silly fun. But those other guys getting shows... it's funny that they ONLY seem to protest this kind of show and not ALL THE OTHER SHOWS ON THER CHANNEL! By not saying anything they are saying they are OK, but these 2 are BAD! BAD!

EstevaoArt said...

I totally agree with you. The Megalodon existing in our oceans right now is very unlikely but not impossible. I didn't fall for the documentary.

I totally fell for the Mermaid documentary they did a while back. I had to do my own research on the internet just to make sure they were faking it.

Side Note: I'm a believer in the "Aquatic Ape Hypothesis" Its the most logical reason as to why we stand up right and have a lot less hair on our bodies.

Take Care.

Brett said...

Hi Cedric,

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis has been proven false. There is no evidence to support it. We stand up because we descend from apes that stood and climbed like gibbons, we did not descend from knuckle walking apes but we share a common ancestor with them. The hairlessness happened for cooling after long chases/hunts. Happened about 2 million years ago (we know this because unlike most other species we have 2 types of lice that live on us. They have specific areas (pubic and head) so the hair had to have been gone between them. Pubic lice is actually from gorilla lice most likely picked up after killing and butchering (I hope!). While head lice is all ours.

It was and interesting idea but didn't hold up to scrutiny. Worked great for the Mermaids show though!

Best!

Brett