Transitional fossils and quote mining

granny magda, I bow to your ability to better state what I mean than I myself can.bravo.

So, let's look at the evidence, and please - don't wave it away:1) found with other dinosaurs
2) dated to the same era as other dinosaurs
3) multiple specimens, not a hoax
4) features which are "avian"
5) features which are "dinosaur"So you can take a look at ALL that and say... "feh, scientists, what do those schmucks know?" Arphy...that's EXACTLY what gets me riled up.It's a bird AND a dinosaur AT THE SAME TIME.Sorry for caps, but you're saying, and I'm going to stress the point, that it's just a bird because the majority said "it was a bird"."just a bird" and "a bird" are ENTIRELY different. Yes, really. Yes, really really. No, this is not a cop out. Yes, really really really... Yes, if you want to believe in a special creation by a supernatural power, that doesn't change the facts that led Darwin to the theory of evolution and natural selection. Yes, really really (ad nausaeum). Great! Case closed! Glad that's over wi- now hang on a darned minute!That is not what we're talking about at all! Get thee to that thread if you want to debate that absurd IDiot maxim.

That sort of thing makes me boiling mad - if the saying "there are no atheists in foxholes" can be banded about, then there are no theists in hospitals.What makes me even more boiling mad is when it's true - anti-vaxxers, kids with diabetes dying, with treatable conditions suffering, all because their parents believe that god will personally heal their children.If that's not bad enough, it causes innocent kids with well-meaning parents to suffer and die (whooping cough? In the 21st century, in the western world? really?).But I digress.

Hi greyseal and thanks for the kind words.If I may digress for a moment as well, you'll probably enjoy this; Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

I mean it too!and yeah, that made me laugh I'm trying to find the one I found recently about the words of scientists being taken to mean something more than what they said...it starts with a scientist curing 20% of cancer cells in a rat's tail, which gets full-blown as "scientists cure cancer!!!1111eleven", or thereabouts.

I believe that was an SMBC cartoon. Indeed! Here is the cartoon itself Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Eat .TTFN,WK

In fact, some palaeontologists are moving to the view that some theropods should be classified as birds

quote:

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Birds are now all classified as living dinosaurs, but some palaeontologists argue that there is a case for classifying dromaeosaurs as birds. As Norell himself says, "If animals like Velociraptor were alive today our first impression would be that they were just very unusual looking birds."

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- reference

that's the kitty!

Platypus and echidna eggs are soft and leathery like reptile eggs, though, whereas bird eggs have a harder outer shell.

No, it's kind of Animal-ly. Most animals lay eggs. Those that don't either keep them inside either giving no nourishment (ovoviviparous) or giving nourishment (viviparous).

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

I'm not sure that this is saying what you think it says. Calling something a "bird" doesn't mean that it's like birds alive today, and in fact the participants of the conference you refer to made this point again and again (by the way, I have a copy of the proceedings).As for Feduccia, he's on record as saying that:

wow, that brings us right back to square one and the quote from Feduccia which Arphy is parroting.And Arphy IS parroting - that quote is dredged up from the quote mines of AiG where many a twisted scholar spends his days sifting through the words of wiser men looking for something, no matter how badly quoted and inaccurate when taken deliberately out of context, to agree with their viewpoint for, apparently, nothing more than a ludicrous argument from authority.Even Feduccia knows that his quote will be misused, and deliberately so.Why, then, is it still on ICR's, AiG's and every other IDiot and creotard's website as gold-standard anti-evolution propaganda?Arphy, as I and every other durned libral atheist hate-monger is very obviously going to hell and as such obviously evil people, we don't need to be listened to by folks so enlightened as they, can you ask AiG and ICR why they have a known bad quote on their books?surely, in the christian way, they'd prefer to admit their mistakes and remove it.

Let me revise that list:

• Unfused bones in the skull.
• Antorbital fenestra.
• Teeth.
• Cervical vertebrae articular surfaces not saddle-shaped.
• Coracoid is not strut-like.
• No carpometacarpus.
• Unfused trunk vertebrae.
• Gastralia.
• Only 5 sacral vertebrae.
• Fused pubic bones.
• Fibula reaches ankle.
• Fifth Metatarsal.
• Long bony tail.

Strange as it may sound, a large number of birds have vestigial claws on their wings, so that's not a significant claim, but I'm unaware of any living bird that has claws on all three digits, as was the case in Archaeopteryx and theropod dinosaurs.And just to further emphasize the point, here's a list of traits shared by coelurosaurs (a group of theropod dinosaurs) and living birds:

• Postfrontal bone in skull absent.
• Prefrontal bone in skull absent.
• Epipophyses on cervical vertebrae.
• Wishbone.
• Deltopectoral crest distally projected.
• Bowed ulna.
• Perforate acetabulum.
• First metatarsal does not reach ankle.
• Bipedal.

They're doing religious apologetics, not science.Accuracy is not required, as it is in science. In religious apologetics it is required only that the words agree with their a priori beliefs.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

What's striking about Alan Feduccia is that he has written a book called 'The Origin and Evolution of Birds'The Origin and Evolution of Birds | NHBS Academic & Professional BooksAnd yet, searching for his quote in post 1 of this thread throws up a whole series of creationist websites that use the quote to 'show' that there is no evidence that birds evolved from reptiles.This is one of the worst examples I have seen of dishonest quote mining. These folks are supposed to be Christian!