Can you spot the fallacy? 2

If a sauropod has no ligament support for its neck, it has to hold it up using muscle-power entirely. How much energy does this use? Well, energy is the capacity to do work, so doing work is the thing that uses up energy. But work done is force applied times distance moved; and since all the sauropod is doing is holding the neck steady (not raising it), the distance moved is zero whatever the force involved -- so the work done is zero, and the energy used is also zero!

Whoever first made this argument is a very stupid individual. But seeing as I do not know who it was or how to admonish said person, I will move on to correct his fallacy.

It has been a debated point about the feasibility of support by the neck muscles and bone support structure on a sauropod. But this problem is dealing with work, which is actual force time distance (not "distance moved"). The neck was moved to it's current position at some point and did work, and anyone who has ever held a bucket of water or something heavy in any state of stasis for any period of time knows that work was done. The work in done on your muscles. How?... well let me explain.

When your muscles contract the myosin filament attaches itself to the actin membrane, using Ca(calcium)I believe. The entire muscle does not contract all at the same time. In a situation where a neck is in stasis, the muscle fibers rotate contractions so as to facilitate blood flow and relaxation of the muscle fibers. So in actuality, the muscle is continuously doing work. On a side note, cramping occurs when the muscle will not relax properly, this happens when blood flow is constricted and that happens when the muscle is over-worked, or the organism in question has not been eating its Wheaties.

Also, if we view this problem from a physical(as in physics) will find that work is being done in any form of stasis that opposes gravity. In the case of the sauropod, it is a given that the neck muscles are working against gravity, the gravity of the planet earth, which has fluquated very little in the time between the dinosaurs and now. So in order that the neck does not fall to the ground the sauropod continually applies work to the weight of his neck to keep it where it wants it. And since the earth is continually spinning, one could make a case for the centripical force applied as well, but that would just be silly.

So on both a physical and biological level, I have shown how the above statement is fallicious and just stupid, because it over simplifies a more complex situation.

So there!!!