Dinos and Birds Closer then Ever?

[bizzt]

what do people think of this Article
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... news_rss20

It seems to present that there is a closer match between Birds and Dinos!!!

[Mystical]

I don't know. Made me think of the duck-billed platypus. Did the beaver evolve from the duck, or the duck from the beaver?

[sandy_mcd]

Did the beaver evolve from the duck, or the duck from the beaver?

No.

[Ark~Magic]

This is nothing new, sir.

I also recall that they discovered some preserved dino skin and some dinosaurs allegedly had feathery covering rather than scales. I think some of the dinosaurs such as the raptor and others like it may have been related to birds. I don't think it matters, we classified them as totally different species, but if they're related, so what? I think the finding of birds and dinosaurs always being related may suggest that there was no major transition.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

This is nothing new, sir.

I also recall that they discovered some preserved dino skin and some dinosaurs allegedly had feathery covering rather than scales. I think some of the dinosaurs such as the raptor and others like it may have been related to birds. I don't think it matters, we classified them as totally different species, but if they're related, so what? I think the finding of birds and dinosaurs always being related may suggest that there was no major transition.

This may indeed be the case, there may not have been a major transition between certain types of dinosaurs and the first birds to have inhabited this planet.
However the dinosours in question of do represent a group of orgnisms which were not present at the onset of the Dinosaur age. The fossil evidence suggests that these dinosaurs evolved from therapsid dinosaurs which in turn developed from more primitive forms in the early Jurrasic.

Hoever given that the entire linege of animals no longer exists we can only try to peice the puzzle together from the relatively few surviving fossil specimens.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

This is nothing new, sir.

I also recall that they discovered some preserved dino skin and some dinosaurs allegedly had feathery covering rather than scales. I think some of the dinosaurs such as the raptor and others like it may have been related to birds. I don't think it matters, we classified them as totally different species, but if they're related, so what? I think the finding of birds and dinosaurs always being related may suggest that there was no major transition.

This may indeed be the case, there may not have been a major transition between certain types of dinosaurs and the first birds to have inhabited this planet.
However the dinosours in question of do represent a group of orgnisms which were not present at the onset of the Dinosaur age. The fossil evidence suggests that these dinosaurs evolved from therapsid dinosaurs which in turn developed from more primitive forms in the early Jurrasic.

Hoever given that the entire linege of animals no longer exists we can only try to peice the puzzle together from the relatively few surviving fossil specimens.

The epitome of circular reasoning, part II.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

what do people think of this Article
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... news_rss20

It seems to present that there is a closer match between Birds and Dinos!!!

I think these ancestors come after their supposed descendents though....I think this idea comes from cladisticis, which is circular reasoning worse than BGood's....

[bizzt]

what do people think of this Article
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... news_rss20

It seems to present that there is a closer match between Birds and Dinos!!!

I think these ancestors come after their supposed descendents though....

Good Point

[BGoodForGoodSake]

what do people think of this Article
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... news_rss20

It seems to present that there is a closer match between Birds and Dinos!!!

I think these ancestors come after their supposed descendents though....

Good Point

This may indeed be the case, there may not have been a major transition between certain types of dinosaurs and the first birds to have inhabited this planet.

I beleive I stated the above, which means that these groups of animals were contemporary. Anatomically indistinguishiable from each other. At some point they began to diverge but at this point there were just specialized dinosaurs. It is now thought, by some, that from this group developed velicorapters and more modern birds.

Whereas before it was proposed that birds may have evolved from velicorapters.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/cl_iconsstillstanding.htm

Archaeopteryx: The Missing Link:

Grounded.

Tamzek claims that fossil theropod Dromaeosaurs (Protoarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx) provide unequivocal evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. However, the skeptic must ask the question, is this really the case? These are interesting fossils, but they do not provide enough evidence to get the dino-bird hypothesis off the ground. In fact, the heavy tails and large bodies of theropod dinosaur bodies are the exact opposite of the type of organism we would expect to evolve into a flier92.

According to the report in Nature38, Protoarchaeopteryx, was a dinosaur with "down-like" feathers on its body, however one paleontologist called this down "dino-fuzz, [which] really could have nothing to do with the origin of feathers."91 Regardless, down feathers have no function for flight on birds. The only "vaned, barbed, symmetrical feathers"38 on Protoarchaeopteryx appear on its tail--no sign of feathers for flight. Caudipteryx has a few vaned and barbed remiges on one finger of the hand, but its arm is far shorter than that of a bird39--too short for flight. Because these organisms have some body structures which are well adapted to flight, but clearly didn't fly, these (and other) fossils have led evolutionists to believe that some of the primary complex structures specified for flying -- feathers, wings, and ossified bones -- originated for a purpose other that flight40. There are no elegant explanations here, but rather wishful thinking trying to force-fit the data to an evolutionary model failing to explain the origin of flight.

Reptiles of a feather, don't flock together

In fact, feathers have been also found a non-dinosaur lizard-like reptile90, however proponents of the dino-bird hypothesis think this feathered fossil is completely unrelated to the origin of birds and the alleged feathered dinosaurs. Why, then, should the alleged appearance of feathers on these post-avian Dromaeosaurs become the definitive proof of the dinosaurian ancestry of birds? Perhaps these "feathered dinos" are just what their squamate counterparts are: reptile chimeras unrelated to birds.

To throw some other bones into the dino-bird hypothesis, although both theropod dinosaurs and birds both walk on 2 legs and have some skeletal similarities, differences such as digit configuration, pubis bone, pelvis shape, teeth, and internal organ setup (the avian respiratory system is unique and far different than of reptiles) have all been raised as differences which challenge the dino-bird hypothesis43, 92. Wells also notes that cladistical methods which have established this alleged relationship ignore the fossil record, assume an evolutionary history, and ignore major problems with the implications that dinosaurs evolved to fly from the ground.

Who's your daddy?

Tamzek claims that Wells' only gripe is that Archaeopteryx is not a true ancestor of birds, however Wells' criticisms go far beyond that. Wells notes that the geological layer which bore Caudipteryx and Protoarchaeopteryx radiometrically dates to about 120 Ma41, while Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, is said to be about 150 Ma42--and even more modern looking birds appear soon after. In fact, the ordering of the fossil record has led some to suggest that these Dromeosaurs are not dinosaurs, but flightless birds descended from previous birds, such as Archeaopteryx.43 Other alleged even more bird-like theropods, such as Velociraptor do not appear until some 70 m.y. after Archaeopteryx92. Later in the avian fossil record, the extremely rapid appearance of the major bird groups, about 70-80 Ma, preceded by a long period where bird fossils are few and far between36 has been termed "bird evolution's big bang"44 by some paleontologists who say that birds evolved "explosively"44.

The alleged dinosaur ancestors of birds thus appear about 30 million years after the birds themselves, and we have no fossils documenting the diversification of the major bird groups. When considering the hypothesis that birds descended from dinosaurs, how sure can we therefore be sure that there really were reptilian ancestors of birds? From what, exactly, if anything, did birds evolve? Perhaps the weak constraints of evolutionary theory allow a hypothetical tree to still be constructed, but Wells is correct to assert that, "immense stretches of time are left with no fossil evidence to support cladistic phylogenies" (Icons, pg. 120). It is this lack of fossils which provides the basis for the Wells' critique.

Its Just So

Bird evolution is a great exercise in the storytelling of evolutionary theory. We are typically told "just so" stories by textbooks about how dinosaurs took to flight as birds. These stories, plausible though they occasionally may be, illustrate that evolutionary theory is a historical science, dealing with unrepeatable unobservable historical events. This is not a fault of evolutionary theory per se, but an inherent limitation of historical sciences investigating origins. Evidence for evolution must be based upon inference, and inferences make a much weaker argument than evidence from repeatable observations.

These bird and dinosaur-like fossils may fit the evolution inference (if we ignore aforementioned difficulties), but why couldn't these few clearly mixed-trait forms be mosaics which were designed? Mozart created symphonies with regular patterns that would suddenly go off in a burst of clear creativity. Is it possible that a Designer has distributed various traits among organisms in a regular fashion, but with the occasional beautiful chimera, testifying to the creativity of the Designer? This argument for inferring design is truly no weaker than arguments from homology for inferring common ancestry. This fact, combined with other empirical difficulties presented here, make Tamzek's claim of, "clear evidence that a transition between the [dinosaur and bird] classes occurred" difficult to accept.

Creationists are not alone

Wells' usage of this icon surely represents a break from mainstream biological thought, however, creationists are not alone in asserting the inappropriate claims of an alleged dinosaur - bird link. After Archaeoraptor, a feathered dinosaur displayed on the cover of National Geographic, was shown to be a fake, Storrs Olson, curator of birds at the National Museum of Natural History said:
"The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion."93
Though it would seem in the minority, Wells does find himself in the company of other authorities who would also assert that Archaeopteryx and the alleged dinosaur-to-bird transition have become icons for evolutionists.

Google is our friend

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Google is our friend

Read his quotes and mine very carefully. The idea of birds evolving from dinosaurs is a hypothesis. The evidence for it is mostly speculation based on limited fossil remains.

It is now thought, by some, that from this group developed velicorapters and more modern birds.

Whereas before it was proposed that birds may have evolved from velicorapters.

As you can see from my quotes you can see the tentative nature in which I wrote the connection between birds and dinosaurs. Actually you can see this in almost everything having to do with this subject. Even in the text books I assure you it makes clear that the connection is based on fossil evidence and is therefore based on inferences. This is why scientist argue among themselves when and how birds evolved.

I suggest you read more carefully before proclaiming that someone was pwned.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

BGood, I was referring to the article, not you. I ignored your post when writing mine. You just submitted yours first and I didn't see it when typing.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

BGood, I was referring to the article, not you. I ignored your post when writing mine. You just submitted yours first and I didn't see it when typing.

oops. sorry.

Oh in that case I am in agreement, any connections between birds and dinosaurs will always be tenuous and the actual details may be forever out of our reach.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Ahem...

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Ahem...

lol