And there's also a book from 1979 or 1981, “The Flight of Dragons” by Peter Dickinson which is a essentially a critical thinking exercise into the how and why for the existence of a physical, fire breathing dragon (from the review, I'm guessing it was written more for the juvenielle audience, than for adult researchers) Link

And from 2004, Dragons' World: A Fantasy Made Real (shown on Animal Planet) Link
Quite possibly based around the theories in the book.

Of course I've seen neither of them, so any other reviews would be appreciated.

now there's a blast from the past, i remember the cartoon movie 'the flight of dragons' from when i was a nipper, loved it....didnt know there was a book too, gonna check that out. A great fantasy story set when a d&d style game inventor gets sucked into his own game.

The dragons in it ate limestone to produce the gasses in the stomach to achieve flight, and the flaming was like a release valve to reduce lift, and make toast etc. If i remember correctly wasnt it made by the same folk that made LOTR cartoon?...I seem to remember a third film called 'wizards' which was lesser known, but superb.....with a great one-liner at the climax.

dont remember the 2004 thing tho, unless that's the documentary everyone keeps mentioning, i saw that one.

Thanks for the memories.
im orf to purchase a copy of FOD and Wizards....

Many societies on earth, completely detached from one another, have depicted some sort of lizard we do not recognize as being one of the animals of earth at some point - so Dragons MUST be real? What a gigantic fallacy...

I'm lost. Primarily still on the "what is a dragon" subject.

Dragons, in every description there is, are just an exaggeration physically and spiritually of real documented animals. Admittedly, that doesn't rule our their existence completely, you could argue that a snake is like a massively exaggerated worm.

4 legged and winged dragons are, lets put it bluntly here, the most stupid suggestion of a "real" beast that anyone has ever suggested was or is real. Think about the physics of this, for god sakes. And more importantly the biological ignorance.

And then you all go and do that really irritating thing religious people do where you create a theory which is reached in a completely illogical way but blankets every argument. "They aren't from our world so how could we possibly understand." What trollop. The problem with a statement of such is, whilst it "makes sense", the method of reaching such an outrageous statement is invalid. "Well it can't be this, so it must be this... because this has no argument against it because of lack of human understanding in the matter."

It's the same thing as when people ask why if a God is so all loving he brings death and disease to the world and the people he created... And you get back such trollop about how because he is all knowing and all powerful we will never understand his intentions or what is best for us. Such irrelevant conclusions drawn because you believe on illogical grounds and feel a desperate need to "prove" the truth. You're not proving anything. You're not even making sense.

Because religion mentions "dragons" as magical and such, they have to be? Another r******ed assumption.

Maybe I'd understand more if I could take it seriously that people in this thread believe in the magic and spirituality used to argue the existence of dragons so much.

See, I thought, we were all clever enough to treat them as animals... But since we are treating them as spiritual creatures, I guess that makes anything and everything about them plausible and logical.

Nope, sorry, wrong again. If you have ever been to China, which obviously you have not, the dragon is not as much of an icon as you make it out to be. I have been all over Asia, many times, and have never met anyone who believes dragons are real. They are a metaphorical symbol, and nothing more. They respect what the dragons represent, but they do not worship, or believe in, dragons. In the past, yes, and few superstitious old timers probably still beleive. But, to say that they believe in mythological creatures is an insult to the intelligence of their entire culture.
They are a fictional tale, and everyone is aware of this, except you.

Wrong. You know nothing of this.

In China today people cannot insult dragons. It is against the law. Western programming and media that are disrespectful to dragons are forbidden. This is even stated in the Dragon article in Wikepedia where it accounts a dragonslayer tv commercial was immediately banned.i

It actually is against the law to insult the culture or disrespect the culture which happens to include dragons. That doesn't mean they believe they are real.

It is a communist country dude. The commercial you refer to is a Lebron James commercial in which he defeats dragons. Of course they don't want a western being shown fighting and winning against dragons.

But still. Many people disbelieve in it does not make it fake. Many people in the past believed that the earth is the center of the solar system. The earth did not suddenly pop into the center of the solar system, making it real. The sun remains in the middle of the solar system. And the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe is already proven. And can be proven using the technologies we had now(and did not have in the past). We may be able to find dragons when technologies are better. At least that is what I think.

I'm really not sure what point it is you're trying to make, but I wouldn't use examples of being wrong to prove you're right.

To this point, science has proven the nonexistence of dragons. Science isn't decided in a whimsical manner, it's serious business. Peer reviewed and sorted. That mankind was wrong about ethno/centric beliefs from the middle ages doesn't prove science is now wrong. Gosh, it was science that proved the sun was the center of the solar system.

Oh truly, science has proven the nonexsistence of dragons has it? when was this? or is it just another thing that skeptics like you use to crush the hopes and dreams of people who do believe in the dragons?

To this point, science has proven the nonexistence of dragons.

Ok give me the link or anything what says that science has proven the nonexistence of dragons.

The fact not a single bone or remnant of any creature remotely resembling a dragon.

What? You mean it's possible a shark with laser beams hasn't been discovered? Well then, it's possible one of those exists, too. It's simply that nobody but me realizes it!

Do you see how silly is your position?

So you mean that is your scientific proof? I really did think you had something real to back up your point. Some real scientific proof. So no proof is your proof? Then I will say. It is not mine.

What mine?

When you all read my book yall will just realise I was right the whole - Dragons were originally Dinosaur descendents, called Dragnosaurs until the Early Cretaceous when they developed fire breathing properties and becam true dragons, and their earliest Dinosaur anscestor was Coelophysis, a mutant variant of which (Derepedosaurus) had two extra freak limbs, which despite being awkward and ugly were a helpful adaptation and began the age of dragons.

The seriousness in that post MUST be a joke, right?

The fact not a single bone or remnant of any creature remotely resembling a dragon.

What? You mean it's possible a shark with laser beams hasn't been discovered? Well then, it's possible one of those exists, too. It's simply that nobody but me realizes it!

Do you see how silly is your position?

You can't assert that a proposition is true, only because it hasn't been proven false.

And whilst you cannot assert that because it has not been proven true, it must be false, that's not what I'm doing.

My argument is that you have no reason to assume their existence.

I agree, in China dragons are only seen as a symbol in their culture, and that's the only reason they still include dragons in the things that they do. It's not that they still believe in them it's becuase they were always a part of their culture and they want to continue the traditions in their culture.

Even today, we still see, photograph, sound with sonor and record the 'voices' of unknown creatures that fit the description of our ancestors' 'dragons'.

What proof do I have?? Common sense. That is all that is needed. And tell me, which makes more sense? That the billions of people on this planet who know that dragons do not exist are right, or that one overzealous kid with a wild imagination, and a belief in fairy tales is the only one who knows some deep dark secret, and is going to educate the rest of the planet?? Please, do some research to try to back up your beliefs before making claims that they are real. People have been researching dragons for centuries, and guess what, STILL NO DRAGONS!!!
Like I said before, just because you and DC want this to be real, does not make it so. Some day, when you are older, you are going to look back at this belief with embarrassment.

Examples?

You may agree, but it does not mean you are right. Many Chinese people, and orientals in general believe dragons are real, albeit spiritual creatures. They are mentioned in Buddhism just as they are part of the Bible based religions. Every one of man's early religions seem to acknowledge dragons.

With that mentality, I suppose you can say anyone with any religous beliefs (MOST of which have dragons as well), are just as foolish as 'God is not any more provable than dragons. I hate to tell you this, that there are people way smarter than anyone on these forums, brilliant scientists in fact, that believe in their religions, and these religions do acknowledge dragons.

Actually the "billions of people" who you are throwing around MOSTLY have religious faiths, all of which acknowledge dragons. Pure atheists are not that common,maybe not even a billion.

The fact that you 'cannot catch an angel' will not convince the billions of believers that angels do not exist. And if the belivers in angels actually knew more about their religion, they would know that many of these 'angels' are actually 'dragons' in the orignal texts.

Ok give me the link or anything what says that science has proven the nonexistence of dragons.

Again, they acknowledge them as metaphors, or symbols, NOT as flesh and blood creatures.

Champ is one example that meets all of those criteria.

YOur only helping to prove my point. I ackowledged that dragons are a big part of thier culture, but obviously you don't know much about their religions.
They do acknowledge dragons, but like I said, not as being real creatures. They are a SYMBOL of wisdom, and strength, and nothing more than a symbol. People know they do not exist, but contnue to use the symbol of the dragon because of tradition. They also use a phoenix as a common symbol in their culture, so does this make a good argument on the existance of a fiery bird that rebirths from it's own ashes?? No, because it, like dragons, are a metaphor.

I simply don't understand how you can use the bible to prove the existence of dragons...

Specificly the point of since people believe in the bible they must therefore believe in dragons... well i'm a Christian yet i... don't believe that dragons are around these days

Dragons aren't justt represented in the bible shush, there many modern sightings. And not to mention so many lake monsters world over, at least one must be a dragon.

no accounts of phoenixes being bribed with wine to move boats, as there are for dragons.

How does Champ fit into the general description of a dragon, firstly? It's rather loose of you, especially after you told me I was being ignorant in stating I saw no resemblance between "stereotypical" oriental dragons to the western kind.

Aside that, come on, post some hard proof. I want those photos, links to the sonar and sound clips, etc... post them in this thread to support your (lame) argument?

EDIT: Oh and I do believe I asked for examples. That's plural. You speak as if it's common sense and knowledge and that proof is everywhere - well, prove it! Post the mountains of proof you suggest exist. Your waffle is useless without it.

Of course! i mean there must be at LEAST one. And if that doesn't work out we can just include other cryptids and claim that they are dragons in disguise... because you know, dragons are constantly avoiding humans... althought apparently back in the day we used to feed them and offer them sacrafices but now for some reason they've decided to live in deep water or in texas and feed on plankton and mexicans



Im just curious how big was the dragons that got bribed with the wine?

Sounds like an unintelligent dragon.

Mexicans, possibly, Plankton no. Jacues Cousteau said Sperm Whales eat the equivalent biomass in squid each year equal to the whole population of the human race, so there should be plenty for the dragons too.

The size of the dragon in that account was not disclosed, but evidently large enough to move a junk (chinese ship) off of a sand bar, which is why it was given the keg of wine.

yeah i was joking about the plankton... however the majority of my post was sarcastic and once again i don't see why dragons would trade a life of being dominant and commanding humans around to living their lives in hiding?

Isn't a keg of wine a bit small for a dragon large enough to move a junk?

According to many of the ancient legends, including the Bible, the dragons 'work' for, and are subservient to a creator being. Once the human race was civilized, they no longer needed the dragon gods, so they were ordered away, though still observed in the shadows ever since.

I believe a fifty gallon keg might give a fifty foot dragon a pretty good buzz for a while.

It is not so silly. Many scientists of the 19th century seriously proposed that dragons were real because of the multitude of sightings/legends around the world combined with the new discoveries of dinosaurs,

Science says we may someday solve the aging process and become virtually 'immortal', something ancient man often already credited to the dragons. This would explain the continiued sighting but lack of bones.

And perhaps it is a dragon ritual to eat their own dead. Reptiles are capable of dissolving the bones of their prey.