this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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The largest ape that ever walked the Earth, Gigantopithecus blacki, lived in what is now China and went extinct between 295,000โ€“215,000 years ago.

๐Ÿ“ Height: ~3 meters (9.8 ft)

โš–๏ธ Weight: 200โ€“300 kg (441โ€“661 lbs)

๐Ÿ“ธ Image: Paleo-anthro sculptor Bill Munns with his Giganto reconstruction in his Los Angeles backyard.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06900-0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantopithecus

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[โ€“] blackbrook@mander.xyz -1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

No, this is sloppy use of language, which worked the same 50 years ago. The only thing different today is the range of things that exist that we can infer that they really mean by their sloppy language. There were still ways to manipulate photos, before CGI. One might have called such a manipulated photo a 'fake photograph' in that day (though even that is arguably a little sloppy). But a non manipulated photo of a real physical model is not in any way a 'fake photograph'. You could say a photograph of a fake Gigantopithecus, or of a fake scene but that's not the same thing. Yes, we can infer what's meant when people carelessly slap adjectives on the wrong nouns, but it is sloppy writing.

Notice how much more accurate and well written OP's description is: "Paleo-anthro sculptor Bill Munns with his Giganto reconstruction"

[โ€“] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah nah.

I agree that its sloppy language but it would've been more descriptive in the 80s.

[โ€“] Wolf314159@startrek.website 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Dude I'm not arguing that it's correct or not, I'm saying that this is the way many people used to (and how some still do) use the language.

[โ€“] blackbrook@mander.xyz -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oh, sure, no disagreement from me on that. But this looks to me like something from a magazine, so one expects some level of professionalism. Now if this is some 12 year old's fanzine or something, ok, I feel bad for giving them shit, but a professional journalist should be embarrassed.

No u should ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™€๏ธ