# RealityChuck, you're an ignorant twat. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 12, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567 "2012-02-12T00:27:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/141 "2012-02-17T23:36:41Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > A huge of majority of which never said they saw a cat raise its center of gravity over a meter. I would say that if queried a majority could do just that. > [@Frylock](#): > > I mean for all I know cats can do it. But I haven’t found any actual evidence that they can _other_ than reports from people predisposed to interpret what they’ve seen that way even if what they actually saw wasn’t a case of it. Here is the kind of performance most cat owners observe in their pets: [“Fabulous Jumping Cat”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_orEo5eQuM) Now, a standard door jamb is about 6’8" high, isn’t it? Ergo this kitty might be showing us a _five_ foot vertical jump. It occurs to me to mention my own eyewitness experience: A cat of mine reached with her paws a bird feeder suspended from a tree branch (nothing to gain purchase on to increase the height of the leap). I did not measure the height of the feeder, but it was a few inches over my head, and I am 5’9", so the cat’s leaping vertical reach was 6’ or greater. I did not measure the cat’s center of gravity, either, but on two legs it would be a foot or less. Factor in another foot for the difference bewteen center of gravity and paw reach and we have a vertical leap of around four feet. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/142 "2012-02-18T00:21:17Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I would say that if queried a majority could do just that. Think about what you’re saying. “Cats can jump higher than a meter. How do I know? Because everyone would say so. How do I know they would? Because cats can jump higher than a meter.” > [@](#): > > Here is the kind of performance most cat owners observe in their pets: > > [“Fabulous Jumping Cat”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_orEo5eQuM) > > Now, a standard door jamb is about 6’8" high, isn’t it? > Ergo this kitty might be showing us a _five_ foot vertical jump. Good! That’s exactly the thing that should have been offered in Blake’s discussion. But it never was. Blake was asking for actual evidence, and was getting anecdotes instead. A video like this would have been much more relevant. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/143 "2012-02-18T00:21:46Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > That’s been addressed–the animal apparently has a special mechanism which stores energy over time and releases it for the leap. **Blake** was of course talking about jumps that don’t involve such energy storage mechanisms. I confess all I did was scan the article for the vertical leap measurment statement. Maybe I’ll go back and make sure you got this special stroge mechanism stuff right. Then maybe I wont, since Ruby and the Fabulous Jumping Cat presumably lack such a mechanism, and they both look to be vertically jumping much more than any three meters. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/144 "2012-02-18T00:32:09Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > If _one_ witness picks Frylock out as the guy who robbed the bank I might not > give the testimony full credit. If _10_ witnesses do so then I am going to think > Frylock needs to spend a few years in jail. BTW It turns out this is a bad idea. People have on many occasions been falsely convicted due to such convergent eyewitness testimony which all turned out to be false. Granted in these cases there is a lot of fault to place that the feet of prosecutors and police procedures. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/145 "2012-02-18T00:49:32Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Think about what you’re saying. > > “Cats can jump higher than a meter. How do I know? Because everyone would say so. How do I know they would? Because cats can jump higher than a meter.” Here is what I actually said: “Cats can jump higher than a meter. Why do I say so? Because (of the reasonable conjecture that the SDMB eyewitesses are typical, and) millions of cat owners can corroborate so as a matter of personal observation.” Here is what you are saying: “Some eyewitness testimony is unreliable, therefore all eyewitness testimony is unreliable.” > [@Frylock](#): > > Good! That’s exactly the thing that should have been offered in Blake’s discussion. But it never was. Blake was asking for actual evidence, and was getting anecdotes instead. A video like this would have been much more relevant. Blake and you got evidence, eyewitness evidence. Now, I agree eyewitness testimony that Frylock robbed the bank is not as good as a video of Frylock robbing the bank (think disguise next time, Frylock). But the more concurring eyewitnesses the better, and good enough for the purposes of this issue. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/146 "2012-02-18T01:00:21Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > BTW It turns out this is a bad idea. People have on many occasions been falsely convicted due to such convergent eyewitness testimony which all turned out to be false. Granted in these cases there is a lot of fault to place that the feet of prosecutors and police procedures. Each case must be evaluated on its own merits. Bear in mind the example of identifying a human face is not really a very good analogy for judging the distance of a cat’s vertical leap, especially since there are so many objective baselines readily available to estimate the leap height against: refrigerators, door jambs, bird feeders, and the pet owners own height. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567/147 "2012-02-18T01:12:00Z")
> [@emcee2k](#): > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vprEInOl1o0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vprEInOl1o0) Thanks for the find. Based on the slow-mo image at 3:32 of the video, the kitty’s head reached 7’3" (87") and the length of the fully stretched cat was about 39" from paw to head top. (Measured against the ruling stick in the same frame.) ## So, the head top moved 48" vertical inches, pretty much straight up. That’s 120% of a meter. Pretty good. We can’t see if it’s a standing (rather than a running) jump, but I strongly believe it is. For those who don’t know, an F1 Savannah is a first generation cross of a domestic cat and a serval. That in no way disqualifies its jump, but it is a larger animal than a house cat. It looks like the animals in **Colonial** ’s video might also be Savannahs. In the video the foot markers were the TOP of the tape, rather than the bottom or middle, hence the judging of the jump at 7’3". [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/realitychuck-youre-an-ignorant-twat/612567.md?page=7)