IC & the Cambrian Explosion for Ahmad...cont..

^bump^

Peter,

quote:

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I only close topics that I have won.

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Do you think you have won here as well? You are conspicuous in your absence.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Sorry was posted in a wrong thread (#321 where is the evidence for evolution thread):--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hi Mark,In his famous book 'The Origin of Birds', Gerhard Heilmann concluded that 'although birds have several characteristics in common with dinosaurs birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs. His reasons was fairly simple: birds have furculae and dinosaurs don't, and it would not have been possible for these structures to reevolve once they have been lost.' [Unless one assumes a shared MPG, but that would be GUToB]. Therefore, Heilmann says birds have not evolved from dinosaurs.More recently the bird-dinosaur link has been picked up again -- in particular by Jacque Gauthier -- and in fact evo's now believe that the birds are in fact a group of dinosaurs. Among the most spectacular findings of the past few years are perhaps the chinese dinosaurs of the Liaoning region; the dragon birds. They include the Proarchaeopteryx robusta, the Caudipteryx zoui, Sinornithosaurus mellini.An alleged common feature and support of a dino-bird link of these organisms is that they have feathers. Recently, I had a very careful close up look at the original chinese fossils, and for at least 2 (of 5 exposed chinese dragon birds) it is doubtful that they had feathers at all. The other fossils do indeed have feathers but a careful look at the fossils demonstrates that these organisms do not have wings at all. (one of them is pictured with its very long arms swinging from tree to tree like a Tarzan-like-bird-man; talking about imagination)So, if one is to claim that these are the transition forms leading to birds than one has to exclude the possibility of loss of wings, which is much more likely from a scientific point of view. Have a look at the Galapagos Cormorant. If this bird was only known from the fossil record one could take such fossils for transition forms towards complete development of wings (feathers and design are already bird) or did it loose its wings. For the Cormorant it is pretty obvious. Maybe the dragon bird fossils were also fish eating organisms and used their extremities for propelling under water instead of swinging in trees. Who knows?All there is is speculation and biased interpretation. From an evolutionary stance one could take them as transition forms (as you do), however I am not that gullible. I say it is just another MPG.Recently, it was demonstrated that dino and bird embryology is distinctly different, and makes the link even more unlikely (will look up the reference for you).Best wishes,
Peter-------------------------------------------------------------------------------This message is a reply to:
Message 319 by mark24, posted 03-16-2003 06:12 PM

Peter,That's very nice, but your are ignoring the logical inference from the rest of the discussion. We have agreed that a hypothesis/theory is tested by it's predictions, we have also agreed that a prediction of the ToE is that, "a transitional is a form that possesses character states that are part way between two separate taxa, &/or a mix of discrete characters between two taxa." Archaeopteryx meets this definition. It contains well developed traits possessed by only birds & dinosaurs, "a mix of discrete characters between two taxa". The furcula, feathers, pubic peduncle, abdominal ribs, pygostyle etc. among other dinosaurian characters falls nicely into this definition.Or are you trying to renegotiate the premises we agreed?Your cites problem is that he can't see a furcula form gradually from the fossil evidence. This lack of observation is a lack of evidence, an argument from ignorance. Please address Archaeopteryx with reference to the agreed premises.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.