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Author Topic:   What drove bird evolution?
AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 16 of 145 (118362)
06-24-2004 4:24 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Monsieur_Lynx
06-24-2004 4:13 PM


Topic!
Half of your post is not on the topic of this thread. Others please disregard. Thanks.

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coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 476 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004


Message 17 of 145 (118463)
06-24-2004 11:14 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by AdminNosy
06-24-2004 4:24 PM


Re: Topic!
Phew! I was in the process of writing a response to his post when I realized it's off-topic. Wouldn't want my arse kicked by an admin.

The Laminator

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 18 of 145 (118500)
06-25-2004 12:15 AM
Reply to: Message 17 by coffee_addict
06-24-2004 11:14 PM


Re: Topic!
Damm rights! I'm feeling a little cranky about that right now.
What good is a moderated forum if we don't moderate just a little now and then. It seems to me that topic is a pretty basic way to keep things organized and allow a framework in which the posters can force each other to follow other guidelines -- like supply evidence. Just keep everyone on topic and they either run out of things to say if they can't handle the topic. Allow topic to wander and the ones with a weak position shift the goal posts.

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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 19 of 145 (118545)
06-25-2004 1:36 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by AdminNosy
06-25-2004 12:15 AM


What?
You're suggesting they should supply evidence and answer questions?
You push that and there will be a lot of very short threads here.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 20 of 145 (118564)
06-25-2004 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by jar
06-25-2004 1:36 AM


Re: What?
Well, not to far. We need to let individuals have a fair amount of tether.
I'm not going to pretend to be consistent either. I kinda let things go sometimes and jump in others. I seem to be the only one without a life right now so it's up to me to beat on things a bit.
I actually used a short suspension for the first time the other day. One has to watch out for what the power can do but that doesn't mean I'll not wield it now and then.
I will always be much more lenient towards the creos than the evos in the topics (on average). I might be quicker to move a proposed thread by an evo than a creo. I hope it's a bit unbalenced on the creo side. If the evo's don't like it --- well tough!

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redwolf
Member (Idle past 5790 days)
Posts: 185
From: alexandria va usa
Joined: 04-13-2004


Message 21 of 145 (124262)
07-13-2004 4:47 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by PeriferaliiFocust
06-21-2004 7:35 PM


Birds Evolving??
What drove bird evolution??
The basic answer is nothing. If there's anything in this world which provably could not evolve, it's flying birds.
Any other sort of creature, in order to evolve into a flying bird, would need a baker's dozen highly specialized systems, including wings, flight feathers (which are totally unlike down feathers or anything else used for insolation), the system birds use to rotate flight feathers on upstrokes, a specialized light bone structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs, specialized tail, specialized tail feathers, a beak ( since it will no longer have
arms or hands with which to feed itself), specialized general balance parameters etc.
For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until the day on which the whole thing came together, so that the chances of obtaining any of these things by any process resembling evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.
In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe isn't long enough for that to happen once.
All of that is the best case of course. In real life, it's even worse than that. In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori. In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march
towards a future requirement which evolution requires.
And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first, having been disfunctional/ antifunctional all the while, would have DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 22 of 145 (124275)
07-13-2004 5:52 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by redwolf
07-13-2004 4:47 PM


Re: Birds Evolving??
Jeez, redwolf, did you read any of the other posts on this thread before you wrote this reply?

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1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 23 of 145 (124277)
07-13-2004 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by PeriferaliiFocust
06-21-2004 7:35 PM


PeriferaliiFocust writes:
Will somebody please tell me how birds came to be?
Birds came to be the same way other organisms came to be as they are today, through the process of random mutation and natural selection. If God simply created birds as they are today then how does one explain the fossils records of early birds such as Archyoptrix? What drove bird evolution was evolution IMO.

"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

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redwolf
Member (Idle past 5790 days)
Posts: 185
From: alexandria va usa
Joined: 04-13-2004


Message 24 of 145 (124306)
07-13-2004 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Chiroptera
07-13-2004 5:52 PM


Re: Birds Evolving??
quote:
Jeez, redwolf, did you read any of the other posts on this thread before you wrote this reply?
Yeah, but I was feeling charitable and didn't say anything about them.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 25 of 145 (124340)
07-14-2004 12:13 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by redwolf
07-13-2004 4:47 PM


a beak ( since it will no longer have
arms or hands with which to feed itself),
Isn't that a claim debunked by the existance of birds without beaks?
Of course, they have claws on their wings. But one hardly has to posit a beak as necessary for flight.

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 26 of 145 (124346)
07-14-2004 12:33 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by redwolf
07-13-2004 4:47 PM


Re: Birds Evolving??
Any other sort of creature
lets take a look at some, and see how unique birds are.
including wings
bats
flight feathers
that's one specialized system!
(which are totally unlike down feathers or anything else used for insolation)
wrong, but moving on.
the system birds use to rotate flight feathers on upstrokes
anything that gets goosebumps, including us.
a specialized light bone structure
lots of things, but especially theropodal dinosaurs
specialized flow-through design heart and lungs
what?
specialized tail
my neighbor's dog.
specialized tail feathers
covered that
a beak (since it will no longer have arms or hands with which to feed itself)
beaked dinosaurs, such as triceratops and protoceratops. turtles. and LOTS of animals eat mouth-only. everything your dog rex to tyrannosaurus rex.
specialized general balance parameters etc.
what does that mean?
For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until the day on which the whole thing came together
alright, let's look at that list again!
including wings
long fore-arms are better for catching prey. sounds like a function to me.
flight feathers (which are totally unlike down feathers or anything else used for insolation)
flightless flight feathers have all kinds of uses. warmth, catching insects. gliding.
the system birds use to rotate flight feathers on upstrokes
sexual displays.
a specialized light bone structure
less weight means faster. faster means better at catching prey, and less likely to become it.
specialized tail
shorter tails allow more upright posture, which means better at catching insects with the flightless flight feather
specialized tail feathers
also sexual displays. like, you know, a peacock.
a beak (since it will no longer have arms or hands with which to feed itself)
good at shearing stuff.
In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori. In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march
towards a future requirement which evolution requires.
where to start. may i suggest reading some dawkins? functionality changes over time. a little functionality is better than none. no specializations are suddenly developed, but gradual adaptations from pre-existing forms.
And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first, having been disfunctional/ antifunctional all the while, would have DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.
evolution is not uni-directional. de-evolution is evolution, whether you like it or not. you can't accept one and not the other.
that, and we have a fossil record chock-full of half bird, half dinosaurs.

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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 27 of 145 (124354)
07-14-2004 12:45 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by redwolf
07-13-2004 4:47 PM


Re: Birds Evolving??
oh. here's another good example of the error in your thinking. we'll use dembsky's 747 even. this should be fun.
the specialized components of a modern jet airliner are as follows:
  • the jet engine
  • the wings
  • verticle and horizontal stabilizers with control surfaces
  • navigation system
  • wheels
  • throttle and stick
  • etc
is it possible any such airliner exists with more primitive forms of these things? of course. what about the wright brothers' planes? the classic one you see uses an internal combustion engine borrowed from cars (and a poor example of one too), big propellors, and lack of control surfaces (wing-warping used instead), and no stick or throttle at all. the thing the practiced on before powered flight was a glider, and it lacked the engine and props. the wing were made of canvas, and certainly not nearly as functional as the modern wing.
it still has the features, just in less functional forms. and it works, barely, but it lead to developement of all modern flight. transitional forms exist even in technology. a jet may be useless until it's complete, but it's based on the designes of ram-jets/rockets and the propellor. not having an control surfaces is bad when your wings are made of metal, but just fine when you can bend them more freely.
these systems all developed out of changing need and single advancements in technology. no one sat down and dreamed up the 747 out of thin air, but based it previous designs, and previous inventions. even the wright brothers' did this.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 28 of 145 (124361)
07-14-2004 1:20 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by arachnophilia
07-14-2004 12:33 AM


specialized flow-through design heart and lungs
what?
Perhaps he's referring to some ability birds have to let air from their lungs flow out their anuses.
They would be much like Redwolf himself in this regard, if they could do that.

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redwolf
Member (Idle past 5790 days)
Posts: 185
From: alexandria va usa
Joined: 04-13-2004


Message 29 of 145 (124425)
07-14-2004 8:53 AM


flow through hearts and lungs...
Try educating yourselves...
http://www.nhm.org/birds/guide/pg004.html

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 30 of 145 (124435)
07-14-2004 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by redwolf
07-14-2004 8:53 AM


Re: flow through hearts and lungs...
Of course having read that they might notice that they only have a 'flow through heart' in the same way that many other vertebrates do, i.e. one which blood flows/is pumped through, so perhaps you should have educated yourself similarly before you posted. The lungs are an interesting feature but not neccessarily required for flight, see bats once again for a counterexample.
TTFN,
WK

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