How long ago was it that everyone thought the world was flat? Longer ago than 1993, that’s for sure.
Granted. Seven years is still a long time though. And my point still stands about not getting his facts straight.
Nessie Lives!
But you see, you can’t just have ONE “Nessie”. You have to have enough to sustain a breeding population for 1000 years. Under the theories of genetic drift, you woulf have to have at LEAST 50 “Nessies”. And if there were 50+ in Loch Ness, sighting would be a daily occurance, we’d have a skeleton, and prob even 1 in a zoo.
There are MANY crypto-zoological creatures that might well exist (bigfoot, yeti, that dino-thing in africa, etc), so let us not waste time & money on one that can not!
(My personal 2 most likely are the tasmanian tiger, and the tasmanian wolf).
Only 1000 years! That is a nice round figure. You probably meant 10,000 years (end of the last ice age, and age of the loch) so I’ll let you off.
Genetic drift, eh? Is that a term you made up or can you qualify? And why would I (the Loch) have to have 50, wouldn’t 3 or 4 do? Surely that would depend on what type of creature she is, as to gestation period, ‘litter’ size, death-rate, etc.
- Sightings are not quite that frequent but there has been at least one case I know of three individual sightings in one day.
- Why would we have a skeleton? The loch reaches 800ft deep at parts. There are caves under the water, and if there are 2+ creatures then I doubt the others would leave a carcass lying about if for no other reason than self-preservation.
The loch is about 23 miles long, an average of 1 mile wide and 600ft deep, contains approx 2 cubic miles of water (more than all the rest of the lakes and rivers in the whole of the UK put together), and is set in the Highlands of Scotland. It is not surrounded by roads, the population density in this area is not high and so the likelyhood of seeing Nessie on a day-to-day basis is comparable to - I really didn’t want to say ‘needle in a haystack’ but it looks like that’s the best explanation.
Some people are fortunate enough to see her, and my thoughts are that they cannot possibly all be hoaxers. Why would they want to? They’re not all Scottish locals with desire to see the tourist money pour in. Neither are they prepared to sell their stories for fame and fortune.
Not all of them are fortunate enough to have perfect vision and I’m sure there have been plenty of hopefuls who genuinely believe they saw something but it was just a boat/piece of wood etc. But that still leaves maybe 10-20% whose recollections cannot be explained. Why COULD she not exist?
BTW. anyone ever heard of a Cadborosaur?
Nessie Lives!
DaphyDuck wrote:
Care to enlighten us on which facts the Skeptic’s Dictionary entry didn’t get straight?
Two points:
The “flipper” photo was examined a few years ago by some scientists who were doing research in Loch Ness, but not because of the monster. It had to do with some kind of worm found in the loch, but no mention of the loch can go by without some mention of its most famous resident.
They took the original photo of the flipper and did some computer enhancements on it. It ended up looking like a stick.
The “flipper” photo has been greatly embellished to make it look more like a flipper–much as was done with the “Mars face.”
This documentary was shown on Discovery in the past 5 years.
And to Danielinthewolvesden, I think those two Tasmanian critters are the same.
Hey Daphy-- the “monster” has allegedly been sighted for about 1000 years.
Also, the Loch has NO direct link to the sea, so it is land-locked. Unless you count the canal. But no creature can migrate through that.
By the way; genetic drift is the introduction of inherited , random birth defects in a given population of organisms. A breeding population with little genetic variation will tend to perpetuate these defects more easily than one with wide variations. In short, less “inbreeding” = fewer birth defects. So shut your snotty , teenaged yapper Daphy; at least until you know how to use an encyclopedia. 
You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment."-Bill Hicks
“You should tell the lies, live the truth and expose yourself.” - Bill Clinton
I’m not letting YOU off. Are you saying that some large animal was trapped in the loch after the ice age? Sorry, kid, but sea level went UP after the last big Ice Age ended 12,000 years ago. In order for an animal to have been trapped in the loch, it would have had to have been there when the sea level was up.
Lots of ice, low sea level. Loch is cut off from the sea. Nessie can’t get in.
Very little ice, high sea level. Loch is now accessible from the sea.
(It’s possible, though, that the sea level was high enough 1000 years ago when the Earth was much warmer than it is now (which is what enabled the Vikings to sail to Greenland).)
Besides all that, Nessie’s ancestors could not have gotten into the lock BEFORE the Ice Age because the Ice Age CREATED the loch. The loch was created by glaciers moving across the rocks, the ice gouging a deep basin in the bedrock, following the natural faults and weaknesses. When the Earth warmed up again, the glaciers melted, leaving the water behind.
As for the alleged size of Nessie, I’ve heard it’s supposed to be anywhere from 12 to 40 feet long. You put 50 animals that size in a lake, especially one that is supposedly an aquatic reptile (and would have to come to the surface to breathe like a dolphin or a seal or a whale) and I guarantee you SOMEONE is gonna get a VERY good look at one. It’s only a matter of time.
After all, the ocean is a LOT bigger than Loch Ness and people often see dolphins and whales. If we can find them any time we want, why can’t we find Nessie?
Because it isn’t there.
Feel free to correct me at any time. But don’t be surprised if I try to correct you.
Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor wrote:
Not even eensy weensy little fishies?
Hey, wait a minute! Clinton didn’t actually say that!
He may not have said it, tracer, but it is a philosophy near & dear to his heart ( or maybe another organ, kinda lower down). 
You should tell the truth, expose the lies and live in the moment."-Bill Hicks
“You should tell the lies, live the truth and expose yourself.” - Bill Clinton
Daphy: maybe 10000 might be a good figure, but I meant 1000, as that is about the 1st “documented sighting”. Prior to that nessie could have been living only in the ocean. Also, you can look up the term “genetic drift” in any good population biology text, or others. If you know your science, you know nessie can not exist. (My degree was in envir sci.)
Mjollnir: Nope, the T. Wolf was recently (officially) “extincted”, about WWI, the T. Tiger is known only from legends, fossils, and a few “sightings”. T. devil, still extant.
NO, when did I say that???
Whereas there is no sea passage from Scandanavia to Greenland now!?
Yes, if you take a look up the page I already mentioned that.
What’s the contradiction between these two quotes… anyone?
Because, my friend, if you take this 50 number, that someone pulled out of their ar$e, and multiply it by a big number then you get the dolphin population of the world. Add that to the fact that we know where dolphins live and their tendency to like humans and you get lots and lots of dolphin sightings.
The thing about the Loch is that noone has yet been able to accurately map the subterranean landscape. We don’t know if there are caves behind the edges of the Loch 400 feet down, we don’t know if there are sumps hiding Nessie’s living room. Visibility is zero 15 feet down, sonar can only do a small area at a time and we are not looking for a stationary object. Not to mention the fact that Nessie probably doesn’t want to be seen. With so much space to hide in she doesn’t really need to try hard.
Define find - see? electronically tag? capture?
Nessie Lives!
(and “incognuity” should be a word!)
The errors in this text are largely due to the ignorance of the writer rather than factually incorrect. Copious stereotyping and generalisation lead to misinformation (see text 1. and 2.). Few sightings are in very poor weather and for just seconds as most people would avoid ridicule and dismiss them as waves/wakes/floating logs (how many floating logs have you ever seen?)/boats/etc. than claim to have seen Nessie.
- I have no problem with there being more than one. there ya go, it’s 10 - not 50!
- recent studies show approx 27 tonnes of fish in the loch - 9 times more than was previously thought (ie. in 1993!).
- what scientific evidence proves that nessie is a fish?
Despite this piece being one of the longer ones in the dictionary. It’s still short of conclusive to the absence of a large creature(s).
Nessie Lives!
(and “incognuity” should be a word!)
-
Try 1400+ years the original sighting was by St. Columba in 565 A.D.
http://www.myspace.co.uk/nessie/graphics/map2.jpg
Strange, I could have sworn that says River Ness up the top there - you know… right next to the Caledonian Canal. I think you’ll find it in every map showing this area.
-
Do you think Nessie knows what ‘birth defects’ means? What about the possibility of asexual reproduction common to other amphibious types?
-
Oh dear, I thought this was a mature discussion. Och well, there’s always one!
Nessie Lives!
(and “incognuity” should be a word!)
The Daphinous Duck wrote:
Okay, then, if there are 9 times the weight of fish in Loch Ness than was thought when the report was written, what would be the maximum body weight of a predator using the report’s old calculations and the new food supply estimates?
I doubt that the relationship is linear, i.e. that 9x as much fish means 9x as large of a sustainable predator. ANd even if it were, that still limits any Loch Ness predator’s weight to a maximum of about 6000 pounds. A 3-ton aquatic predator would certainly be nothing to sneeze at, but if we were to believe that such a creature is 20-40 feet long, it would have to be very narrow – no wider, proportionately, than a crocodile, and maybe even snakelike.
Which reminds me of a question I posed previously, “anyone ever heard of a Cadborosaur?”.
Having not had the pleasure of having seen her myself and therefore being able to accuse anyone (who states that she does not exist) of calling me a liar, I do not necessarily subscribe to the (I’d better watch how I use this word) “theory” (suggestion/idea - whatever) that she is a Plesiosaur/descendent, ie. Elephant body, giraffe neck, horse’s head, long, thick tail etc.etc.etc.
OK, logical thought now.
Since we have established that the Loch is NOT land-locked - we are talking about a creature that is not necessarily permanently resident in the Loch. This suggests Nessie need not subsist solely on the product of the Loch. Assuming she only eats fish! My mum always said “EAT YOUR VEG!!!”.
Nessie could be of an order that reproduces asexually - which would limit the number of creatures required to sustain a population. Alternatively, since she can leave the Loch, why not commute to a ‘mating ground’?
Nessie Lives!
(and “incognuity” should be a word!)
Nonsense. Daniel did not pull the 50 number out of his ‘arse’ or any other orifice.
The 50/500 rule is a well-established principle in conservation biology for exactly the reason Daniel stated. Significant losses in genetic variability take place in small populations. 50 individuals is considered the minimum effective population size to save any species for a significant amount of time. Notice that I mentioned effective population size, too. 50 has to be the number of breeding individuals, there may be more. You don’t have to take my word for it, either, see: Primack, R. B. 1995. A Primer of Conservation Biology, pages 110-116 contain a reasonably concise discussion of why at least this number is necessary. Even if there are 50 breeding individuals, the population will show a decline in heterozygosity of about 10% over 10 generations. If you’d like to propose that Nessie’s spineless (in the literal sense), then many invertebrate populations, with widely varying population sizes over time, would require something like 10,000 individuals (the 50 figure is usually used as a minimum for vertebrate species).
If you’d like to propose that Nessie (or perhaps, more appropriately, Nessies 
) have been around for at least 1000 years, there must be a considerable number of them.
As romantic as the notion of Nessie as the last of her kind is, stretching that out over a thousand years requires her to be quite well-preserved for her old age.
If there is indeed a population of such creatures (which I doubt), my bet is that it would have to typically live in the oceanic depths, and maybe Nessie would be just an individual that happens to like visiting the Loch, much like some Grey Whales stray into San Francisco Bay here in California every so often.
-Steve
“Banned by the Space Pope”
By mentioning the Ice Age, you implied that it had something to do with Nessie allegedly getting into the loch.
Of course there is. But it’s frequently clogged with ice bergs.It was much easier a thousand years ago to sail that passage because the climate was so warm, it was nearly ice-free year-round.
Feel free to correct me at any time. But don’t be surprised if I try to correct you.
Thanks wevets, I owe you one!
The river that attaches Loch Ness to the ocean is shallow, surrounded by homes, roads & businesses, with bridges, etc. It is not navigable. the idea of 50’ plesiosaurs migrating back & forth is a hoot.
Note, there could well be a “nessie”, hell, a 1000 nessies in the deep blue, just not in Loch Ness.
wevets : I’m not a biologist, and yes you’re probably right about this 50 number since that would appear (from the amount you go on about it) to be the accepted figure. Secondly, I do not believe that Nessie is the last of her kind, romantic as you say it would be, and crazy as I seem for going against the lack of evidence, give me some credit for having more than two braincells to rub together! Since you appear to know of these things - care to fill me in on the details of asexual reproduction. Not your view on how it couldn’t apply - just the details.
I concur absolutely.
jab1 : Oh, I implied it did I? Since I did not express it directly, I could have implied it. Looking back at my statement, I could have picked my words more carefully. So now I will. It was in reply to Danielinthewolvesden who it could be said implied that Nessie had only been around for 1000 years. So any implication on my part should have been to the tune of… ‘just because there has only been reported sightings since 565AD (1435 years ago), that doesn’t mean that she couldn’t have been visiting since the Loch was created by the ice age 10000+ years ago’.
Danielinthewolvesden : Where are you getting your facts and figures from as to the size of River Ness? I read on one of these Nessie www sites that the river is one of the greatest in the UK for average flow - which kinda goes against your ‘Nessie couldn’t swim up it let alone 50’ argument.
PS. spot the deliberate mistake!
Nessie Lives!
(and “incognuity” should be a word!)