I liked the idea of it, and they told an alright story, but the acting was TERRIBLE, in the first one more so than the second. The two being interview tried WAY to hard to sound like normal people being interviewed and ended up talking in the same slow, with a few awkward pauses like they're trying to come up with what to say, then fast rhythm the entire movie. The context for the second special as a faux news broadcast was also really weird. To my mind there's never been a special live news show created for a specific event so that takes away from the authenticity of it. They should've just continued it with another mockumentary.
Surpheal said:
Ultratwinkie said:
Its a mockumentary, and every one of the researchers were paid actors. Just so you know.
Its a hoax, a joke played on you by the discovery channel. Just like the documentary on how dragons existed and how they killed their own babies to maintain "dominance."
Its like April fools, but not in April. They do it every so often to get ratings up.
This is in fact the second time it was shown on the Discovery Channel for Monster Week. The first time it was played, so many people thought it was real that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a few others, ran replies that there is no evidence of mermaids existence.
There was also another one of these mocumentaries from Discovery that did the same thing with dragons.
I am astounded that there are so many people who actually thought these things are real. I enjoy them as mockumentaries, fleshing out the detail of a mythological species in a scientific manner and what, like what was done with zombies in the Zombie Survival Guide, but isn't it painfully obvious that it's not real?
Hmmm....probably not. Even though evolution throws some pretty unusual stuff together, I just don't see it happening! Some of the mermaid tales, apparently, stem from sightings of manatees and types of ray by sailors....lonely....lonely sailors!
There's a creature from legends here in Ireland called the Merrow. Similar to a siren, except they were found in rivers and lakes. They would lure young men to the water, with no bad intentions, to swim and "dance" with them, under the water, not realizing that men can't breathe like them. They thought that men struggling to breathe was just them dancing...and they always got sad when they stopped. They would cry for the man, and then look for another partner, who wouldn't get tired so easily.
No real point to the story, just slightly interesting!
If you think about it for a minute you'll realize it's impossible. Fishes showed up as early as the Cambrian period, around 500 million years ago. Humans started evolving from SIMIANS roughly 2 million years ago. It is evolutionary impossible to have something like a "homo mermaid", since we're directly linked to primates. There's no leeway. Besides, mammals and fishes are two different animal kingdoms overall. Why would a mermaid have breasts if it has the reproductory system of a fish? Or does it, and if it doesn't, where's the genitalia? Why would the species become intermixed in the first place? It would have to happen in as little as 2 million years, since that's how long humans have been around. And a mutation of that kind isn't going to happen in that time period.
Out of all mythological creatures (excluding Bigfoot and the Yeti) Mermaids have the 3rd highest chance of existing. Now before you all go crazy the percent of mermaids existing are like .00000000000000001% out of 100%, the only reason is because the ocean being so massive we may find something yet. So in the short I do not believe in them.
Now the long part. Next to Bigfoot and the Yeti, a mermaid could actually make logical sense if you view it the way the show explains evolution. Apes had to flee into ocean because of some threat or climate change, adapt to survive by growing fins and gills, BOOM mermaid. But it is still very very very unlikely they could exist. So I understand how people could believe in them, but I do not.
It seems like it would be vastly more likely for mermaids to evolve independently, like dolphins, or walruses, or something, than for apes to return to the sea. Then again, I can't see how arms, hands, noses, etc. could become an adaptive trait in the ocean, so maybe you're right. Suddenly I feel like watching "Water World" again. <.<
see, all this aquatic ape theory, and human evolving from fish sounds just fine and all, but only to people who belive in evolution would be able to comprehend an idea like this. as for the people such as myself, i can see how some animals changed there body to adapt to there climate, but humans have always been relativley the same. it may very well be possible for an animal of anphibious origin to turn into a mermaid, but im seriously doubting that animal would be an ape. and as for the humans evolving from fish... bullshit. im srry but that just doesnt happen.
so recentley, i went on a discovery binge and came upon a series about mermaids and self proclaimed evidence of wich blah blah blah. i was really into it, until every video they showed as evidence was incredibly fake! i mean what the hell. if there is evidence of this fairytale, then what try and pull a fast one with the same computer graphics you've been using the entire show. what BS is the discoverey channel trying to prove. i mean, ive got a open mnd and all, but hell, you can tell these kind of things from miles away. I want you guys to explain this nonsense to me.
If this happened to be "Mermaids: Body Found" you should know that the video was intentionally fake. More for entertainment than fact. Mermaids aren't real until Jeremy Wade of River Monsters catches one on a rod and reel.
It pains me to cut away the content of your post since it was very well written and made me understand your line of reasoning.
Let me introduce this by explaining where I am coming from here. I am not what you would call an expert in evolution, I have had one university course and I have written one article debating the possible evolution of sex. The main thing I learned during that course is that I don't understand evolution and that I never have and probably never will. I am telling you this because it's so easy to lie about your educational background which makes all internet debates worthless since there's always someone who has taken a doctorate on the subject that's being discussed.
Putting that behind us, yes you're right. It is in fact impossible to prove mermaids don't exist, I or any marine biologist can't prove that it doesn't exist any more than you can prove that I never studied biology and that I am just an internet troll working at Burger King because I don't have any skills and did bad in school (not a great analogy since the claim of my education is technically falsifiable). We can say with 100% certainty that it can't exist, but actually proving something doesn't exist doesn't.
Now this next part isn't really relevant to our discussion, I consider that one to be won by you, but a little information about why the existence of mermaids is impossible.
Now moving on from that I just want to add a little to what you just said. I'll try to keep it at a simple enough level so I wont accidentally feed you wrong information.
I like that you mentioned temperature regulation and skin making it really unlikely that it exists, but that's not that much of an evolutionary constraint. Whales and dolphins have also evolved from land creatures and adapted to a life partially under water, so the skin isn't impossible. However their method of swimming is in fact enough to say they're not related to fish without comparing any of the other physiological aspects. Because it has evolved form a land species its movement patterns have evolved from one adapted to land. A whale is galloping under water which is unique. A penguin is flying under water which is unique to birds. A mermaid supposedly swims like a fish which would mean it has never evolved on land. While evolving water resistant skin isn't impossible I think there's an evolutionary constraint preventing it from developing both fish scales and skin at the same time, again, not entirely sure about this one.
If we ignore the part above and change our hypothesis that mermaids never were land dwelling creatures and developed in the ocean and we pretend that it's possible for them to develop water proof skin and hair (hair is unique to mammals, but we ignore that for now). There would be the selective constraint of developing arms. Arms is a structure that would always be disadvantageous in water which is why whales have lost their back limbs and modified their fore limbs after they went back in there.
Now I am probably missing something more here, but this is at least a part of why mermaids can't occur through evolution.
I have several points, firstly
seriously, I just want to say if you're in any doubt I honestly 'know' that mermaids don't exist, in the same manner that most people can debunk them, they make no logical sense for many of the reasons you posit, Mermaids 'should' certainly not occur from natural selection or even sporadic mutation and I have studied very basic evolution myself but I don't claim to be any expert on it, most of what I know comes from discovery channel programming and random internet usage, it's a fascinating subject but one i'll probably never cover ( the immortal jellyfish intrigues me, as does cellular water renewal, but that's for another discussion ) for the record, my backgrounds are study of engineering operations, mathematics sciences, technology and networking essentials and just literally now starting programming.
so as far as marine biology goes, you very likely do have me at a disadvantage even if you're a first year student.
I hadn't actually considered the scales vs skin point, and I do trust that evolution isn't so random as to completely change one whole part of an animal, but not another if it did.. well everything would look like a half mutated pink and green striped gryphon, with one wing a flipper and a tuft of hair for no apparent reason right?
I can't imagine such a creature being too successful! so basic reasoning agrees with you on that.
but perhaps it is evolution itself that has stripped us of these odd half-breeds because they were 'that' odd we can't know until we dig up their remains now can we but then the duck-billed platypus was said to be a joke until people actually saw it, so why not? I mean, just look at this guy! he's amazing.
however, turtles have shells skin and scales in different places so perhaps 'skin' isn't impossible, but i'd guess it would not be pink and sun reactive, like ours and following evolutionary logic would probably be allot tougher, rougher and resistant.
so if they have land mammel-esque arms and retain them they likely have legs, but with webbed, three toed or flipper feet perhaps?
I did not know hair was a mammal only thing, that's news to me but I guess it makes sense hair would be a massive drag under water ( no really don't pardon that pun it was terrible, sorry. )
so then, bald gery-green skinned half human half turtle... kowabunga? 'hums TMNT theme' essentially you've just proved if any mermaid exists it's likely a half mutant ninja turtle, you're officially awesome.
so, with the simple matter of evolution and all it's mystery out of the way ( and before tea too! ) as for serious attempts at 'proof' and things that people would accept, even if they are not mathematical or scientific proofs, because it's essentially near impossible to provide a proof here.
now back to the other point, I 'know' there are not mermaids but I cannot 'prove' it therefore the only conclusion I can come to is that I can't really ever 'know' anything ( that's a worrying development, eh? ) so I need a better tool than simple logical fact or fiction, it seems to me that all I can ever truly say is it's extremely unlikely considering the information provided but that doesn't really cut it,
the only way I personally could completely prove the existence or no-existence of something is to go and view it, or the absence of it and seeing as it's impossible to monitor the entire ocean and remote islands at once i am once again defeated.
I can only conclude that it is impossible for any one human to know beyond belief in logical abstracts that there is or is not a specific species of fish that resembles a fish-human.
( this is why I was discussing minuscule probability before in my earlier post ) but we've covered this, so let's see if there's anything we can do about it.
perhaps maths could still give an answer? flippers only make sense if a water animal, arms only make sense if a land animal ok this is useful, but it may not be a law of biology do we know that? can we prove it? seems to me we can't, perhaps you could elaborate but I see plenty of marine life with things resembling hands claws pincers and flippers with talons like birds so I doubt this is a law presentable as an equation
i'd bet there are far better attributes to base your math on, feel free to pick but I suspect the same will be true the answer will provide ever more circumstantial evidence that mermaids are statistically unlikely, but we knew that already so I don't see it really helping, as before the sample may be unrepresentative for many reasons but this is definite genetic/biology territory, so I defer.
more pure forms of genetics may do the trick, as I pointed out above I simply do not know enough about genetic sciences to even comment but from what I know of technology i'm reasonably sure it would be an overwhelming task even for the most powerful supercomputers but simply proving which genetic structures 'work' would answer many questions besides 'are there mermaids' so it may actually be worth doing.
another option for 'proof' is
with technology, ( specifically an application of smart environment technology ) consider several billion tiny 360* cameras dropped throughout the ocean with just enough power and light to capture one, giant contiguous picture as they descend as one into the depths nothing could logically escape their views and you could be certain to prove that mermaids do, or don't exist
if we powered them with energy harvesting technology and made them capable of slow descent we could also harvest data about the tides, global temperatures and many other interesting pieces of information along with our proof.
and we'll have invented Google ocean, which would be good for all those, such as myself who are interested, but only in passing about the ocean and it's contents.
also 'oceanguesser' would be fun, and a thousand times harder than geoguesser
'omg a sunken ship, find it's name'
XD
so, after a semi-serious look at the topic in rough detail, I can say with relative ( but not absolute ) certainty
-there are no mermaids
-logic can only take you so far
-humans are horribly flawed creatures that think way too much of themselves because our actual power is quite limited
I can actually logically 'prove' that I 'know' almost nothing.. so should I be worried?
and armchair science may never answer this question!
I'm pretty sure we agree here, unless i missed something and I like that mermaid now = ninja turtle.
congrats you win an award in awesome for that one.
so recentley, i went on a discovery binge and came upon a series about mermaids and self proclaimed evidence of wich blah blah blah. i was really into it, until every video they showed as evidence was incredibly fake! i mean what the hell. if there is evidence of this fairytale, then what try and pull a fast one with the same computer graphics you've been using the entire show. what BS is the discoverey channel trying to prove. i mean, ive got a open mnd and all, but hell, you can tell these kind of things from miles away. I want you guys to explain this nonsense to me.
If this happened to be "Mermaids: Body Found" you should know that the video was intentionally fake. More for entertainment than fact. Mermaids aren't real until Jeremy Wade of River Monsters catches one on a rod and reel.
Jeremy Wade is completely awesome. "River Monsters" isn't necessarily the most exciting show out there, but it's way more informative than a lot of similar fare.
OT: The "Mermaids: The Body Found" and such are so ridiculous. Fun stuff though, and I recall reading that the glut of whales washing up on the coast was a genuine mystery. Like all good lies, this mockumentary uses a bit of truth to appear legit.
I hadn't actually considered the scales vs skin point, and I do trust that evolution isn't so random as to completely change one whole part of an animal, but not another if it did.. well everything would look like a half mutated pink and green striped gryphon, with one wing a flipper and a tuft of hair for no apparent reason right?
I can't imagine such a creature being too successful! so basic reasoning agrees with you on that.
but perhaps it is evolution itself that has stripped us of these odd half-breeds because they were 'that' odd we can't know until we dig up their remains now can we but then the duck-billed platypus was said to be a joke until people actually saw it, so why not? I mean, just look at this guy! he's amazing.
Actually while the platypus looks kinda strange it actually makes sense when analyzing it from an evolutionary point of view.
however, turtles have shells skin and scales in different places so perhaps 'skin' isn't impossible, but i'd guess it would not be pink and sun reactive, like ours and following evolutionary logic would probably be allot tougher, rougher and resistant.
It's been some years since I had zoology, but I think turtles have the standard reptilian scales all over their body, but the composition an the size of the scales are differentiated so it looks like two different kinds.
Now the reason why the scales of fish along with the skin of mammals is impossible isn't because the genes for it are so different from each other. The same genes that cause the development of scales in fish also produce the skin and hair in mammals. It works as a promoter in DNA transcription of the genes that produce scales or hair and skin. Because of that both can't exist in the same organism.
so if they have land mammel-esque arms and retain them they likely have legs, but with webbed, three toed or flipper feet perhaps?
Arms and legs would always be at a disadvantage under water. That's why whales have lost their hind legs and modified the front ones into flippers. Compare a frog swimming to any fish or any aquatic mammal and it's clear that the frog's evolution of finger and toes only made sense when it couldn't be completely independent of water, yet live partially on land.
perhaps maths could still give an answer? flippers only make sense if a water animal, arms only make sense if a land animal ok this is useful, but it may not be a law of biology do we know that? can we prove it? seems to me we can't, perhaps you could elaborate but I see plenty of marine life with things resembling hands claws pincers and flippers with talons like birds so I doubt this is a law presentable as an equation
i'd bet there are far better attributes to base your math on, feel free to pick but I suspect the same will be true the answer will provide ever more circumstantial evidence that mermaids are statistically unlikely, but we knew that already so I don't see it really helping, as before the sample may be unrepresentative for many reasons but this is definite genetic/biology territory, so I defer.
Mathematical models have been used to a great extent and simulations have also been done on how the important structures could have evolved based on how important they are. There's a mutational rate, a selection gradient, co-variance, how many mutations it would take from A to B and then the minimum number of generations to go from A to B. Also yes, these things I present are laws within evolution biology which has substantial proof behind it. Both breeders in agriculture and scientists who's worked with populations ha ve confirmed these constraints that prevent evolution from ever going in the direction of a mermaid.
I'm not sure if I have really made myself clear enough here and I've probably managed to skip something, but I'm going to to make a summary of the points that explain why mermaids can't exist because there are confirmed constraints preventing them from ever happening.
Mermaids have features of 2 different taxa that each are unique to that taxa. These features could not evolve co-dependently due to the different historical contingencies that each taxa has gone through. The wings on bats and the wings on birds are examples of such features. They have evolved them independently, but they serve the same function. However with bats it's a matter of modification of fingers while birds have evolved them from structures that scientists aren't really sure why was evolved, the only certainty is that they weren't made for flight.
There's the selective disadvantage of how a mermaid looks, fingers, even with webbing would always cause reduced viability in the ocean because it requires a large surface area in order to increase efficiency while swimming.
There's genetic constraints, genes are restricted in how much they can change before they either wont change any further, cease to function or become lethal.
There's developmental constraints in the creation of the body coating containing skin, hair and scales.
There's no doubt and there's plenty of proof that mermaids have absolutely no chance of being the product of evolution on this planet. The closest thing we can get is probably our aquatic mammals.
Now I am missing a whole lot of details here and if I could explain it any better I would, but everything from the gene transcription to natural selection independently make mermaids impossible. Only one of the requirements is enough to make something impossible. A mermaid fails to meet any of the requirements to make it possible not just making it impossible, but extremely impossible.
I had a great time debating this with you either way. Educational theory claims that debating your point is one of the best ways to learn and I actually think I have gained a little more understanding of evolutionary development from this.
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