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Author Topic:   "Archaeopteryx; bird or reptile, or both?"
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 31 of 34 (552505)
03-29-2010 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by rockondon
03-29-2010 3:15 PM


Hi rockondon, and welcome to the fray.
It has a jaw with reptillian teeth, absent beak, a long bony tail, a neck that attaches to skull from rear (like dinosaurs) instead of from below (like birds), a flat breastbone, stomach ribs, reptilian vertebrae, unfused wristbones (birds have fused ones), unfused ankle bones (ditto), sacrum occupies only 6 vertebrae (half the minimum for birds), and (my personal favorite) three bony claws jutting out from the middle of each wing. These are reptillian characteristics, not bird ones.
And then there are the list of bird characteristics, such as feathers and wings, characteristics that become more derived in modern birds, and that show archy was intermediate between reptiles and modern birds.
Unfortunately OutcastiNator was banned after this thread was started on 03-29-2005 - 5 years ago today.
Enjoy.
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misha
Member (Idle past 4627 days)
Posts: 69
From: Atlanta
Joined: 02-04-2010


Message 32 of 34 (552888)
03-31-2010 3:04 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Peg
03-27-2010 1:41 AM


Peg writes:
the biggest problem for evolutionists and Archaeopteryx is that it does not predate birds, because fossils of other birds have been found in rocks of the same period
if it was one of these so called 'transitional fossils' then it should have existed long before birds became a species, yes?
I hope you aren't saying that in order for a transitional fossil to occcur it must become extinct before its daughter species exists.
Those whom i've believed to be my parents all this time are still alive, according to you they must die in order for me to exist. So they are either not my real parents or they're ghosts. Creepy.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9970
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.6


Message 33 of 34 (552893)
03-31-2010 3:21 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Peg
03-27-2010 1:41 AM


the biggest problem for evolutionists and Archaeopteryx is that it does not predate birds, because fossils of other birds have been found in rocks of the same period
How is this a problem? Transitional features can certainly be preserved in sister taxa, as is the case for Archaeopteryx. Even Darwin talked about using sister taxa as a source for phylogenetic data:
quote:
In looking for the gradations by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal ancestors; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same original parent-form, in order to see what gradations are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having been transmitted from the earlier stages of descent, in an unaltered or little altered condition.--Charles Darwin, Chapter 6, "Origin of Species"
Archaeopteryx is a perfect example of a collateral descendant in which the transitional features have been transmitted from the earlier stages of descent.
To use an analogy, intricate stone tools (e.g. highly specialized arrow heads) was a transition between archaic stone tools (e.g. crude stone cutter) and modern technology. You can still find tribes where the use and construction of these tools has been preserved. These tribes did not make the jump to modern technology. Does the existence of modern tribes using primitive technology negate the transition between crude tools and modern technology? Nope.

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Fiver
Junior Member (Idle past 4963 days)
Posts: 26
From: Provo, UT
Joined: 04-17-2010


Message 34 of 34 (562267)
05-27-2010 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Peg
03-27-2010 1:41 AM


quote:
the biggest problem for evolutionists and Archaeopteryx is that it does not predate birds, because fossils of other birds have been found in rocks of the same period
if it was one of these so called 'transitional fossils' then it should have existed long before birds became a species, yes?
This is the common Creationist misunderstanding that "transitional" means the same as "ancestral". It does not, and the difference between these two is obvious and fundamental. There is a wide variety of feathered bird-like archosaurs, and even though only one branch of these eventually became ancestral to modern birds, every last one of them is transitional because it shows a clear mix of unique traits from both the bird and dinosaur clades.
Secondly, as others have pointed out, even if archeopteryx were ancestral as well as transitional, the fact that latter archeopteryx finds date to the same time as other birds isn't a violation of ToE at all. As has been said.. "We know that Americans can't be descended from Europeans because Europeans are still alive today!"
But most importantly, you are simply wrong: there are NO modern birds that date to the time of the earliest archeopteryx find. Every claim to the contrary that I've heard has fallen apart upon asking for sources and investigating the actual finds. Instead, the fossil record shows precisely what the ToE predicts: all birds dating to that era show a mix of archosaur and bird traits.
Edited by Fiver, : No reason given.

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