What drove bird evolution?

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Perhaps he's referring to some ability birds have to let air from their lungs flow out their anuses.

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Pushing fluids through valves is tricky business and they are specifically designed, or designed not, to allow certain quantities of throughput. Jydraulics is a funny business; buit it would not suprise me at all if a birds rate of fluid flow through the heart was high enouigh to require special engineering. To assert a valve is designed for a high throuput sounds valid to me.But none of this implies intelligent design, IMO.

There is no human record saying that chickens were ever good flyers. They were domesticated from Thailand many thousands of years ago and spread from there. (Why did the chicken cross the road?) If you check your geography of that area you'll find much of Thailand was (is?) dense tropical jungle. Strong, fast flying birds don't do well in dense vegetation. Chickens, on the other hand have strong legs that enable them to run fast through dense undergrowth to flee predators with flying as a secondary strategy. Those legs and claws will also be used to attack your face if cornered. Cockfight anyone? And chickens don't migrate, so they have no need for a strong flying ability.Ducks on the otherhand are migratory, but they can't run for beans. Strong flight characteristics are essential for survival as well as their swimming abilities.And just what the heck is a "normal bird"? I guess humming birds aren't normal 'cause they can fly backwards. And road runners aren't normal 'cause they don't have to fly to get away from Wile E. Coyote (*beep beep*).(:raig

Are you kidding?The guy who spearheaded the operation says that it was his village's cottage industry. Moreover, read the story of their "discovery":

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Dr. Javier Cabrera Darquea, received a small carved rock as a gift for his birthday. The carving looked ancient but when Dr. Cabrera saw it the first thing he thought was that it was a drawing of an extinct fish.

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From that moment on, hearing of the extreme interest that the good doctor showed for that rock, local natives approached him with the fantastic news that if he wanted more stones they had a few and could sell them to him.

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from Page not found | Skeptical InquirerSo, in fact your claim is quite incorrect; they did know that at least one gullible gringo (besides yourself) wanted them and would pay for them. It wasn't simply speculation; it was their direct observation.The stones have never been dated so it's impossible to say when they were carved. Moreover, the pictures on them are not accurate depictions of dinosaurs, generally, but rather about what you'd expect if the only dinosaur you ever saw was on TV or in a kid's book:

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As compensation for these shortcomings, however, one could read a very revealing interview with a Basilio Uchuya and his wife, Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana, two peasants from Callango, published some years ago by Mundial magazine (Anonymous 1975). In it, Basilio and Irma admit that all of the stones they sold to Cabrera they had carved themselves. As for the subjects to be depicted on the stones it was easy: they chose illustrations from comic books, school books, and magazines.

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But here's the thing - none of the Ica stones are carved:

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Cabrera objected that andesite is too hard to carve well by mere mortals using stone tools. "True," says Carroll in his entry on the Ica stones, "but the stones are not carved. They are graved, i.e., a surface layer of oxidation has been scratched away.

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There's certainly nothing difficult about using sandpaper and other tools to grind off a layer of soft oxidation. As for the appearance of "ancient age":

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That yellowish, ancient layer that covered the stones was as easily obtained, said Basilio: once the etching was done, the stones were placed in a poultry pen and chickens did the rest.

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So, in other words, the source of the stones' apparent age, much like the rest of your claims and your general behavior on this board, is chicken shit.

The debunking debunked:http://members.cox.net/...book-disputing_the_hoax_claims.htmI mean, I've posted this here before. To go on claiming that these stones are forgeries is basically dishonest.

CSICOP debunked (exposed as an ideologically committed witch-hunt organization) by one of its founding members:Starbaby

And what does this have to do with the particular issue? If the Mars effect hasn't been dealt with correctly does that say that the issue here hasn't?It does, of course (if true), cast some doubt on all proclamations from the source but it doesn't, by itself, prove anything about this one.Examine the particular case and deal with it. Do not go off on tangents.

>And what does this have to do with the particular issue?It has to do with the squished frog citing CSICOP sources as proof that the Ica stones are forgeries. That's the post above my two.

But the article you posted is talking about the Mars effect. If the Mars affect debunking was done poorly that does mean you have to check the information the CSICOP gives you more carefully.However, you have to do that anyway. In this case you have to review the information given on this topic. What is wrong with it?

NosyNed, that is all off topic of bird evolution. All of you get back on topic.

LOL. I think that the whole topic has been exhausted.

This simply isn't a substantial refutation. The stones aren't carved, they're graved. Graving is a simple matter and it certainly wouldn't have taken an entire villiage "23 years" to engrave all these stones, particularly with modern tools and sandpaper, the marks of which were found on the stones.Your article substantiates the stones in absolutely no tangible way. That they are forgeries is the inescapable conclusion of anyone with sense.

What on Earth would that have to do with anything? Maybe you didn't read the bibliography at the bottom of the article:

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References
Anonymous. 1975. "Confront: . . . Las hizo Basilio Uchuya." Mundial, No. 6, January 17.

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Cabrera Darquea, Javier. No date. The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica. Ica: Privately Printed.

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Carroll, Robert Todd. 2002. "The Ica Stones," in: The Skeptic's Dictionary (skepdic.com/icastones.html).

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Chauvet, Jean-Marie, Eliette Brunel-Deschamps, and Christian Hillaire. 1996. Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave: The Oldest Known Paintings in the World. New York: Harry N. Abrams.

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Polidoro, Massimo. 2002. "A Pterodactyl in the Civil War." Skeptical Inquirer, 26(3), May/June 2002: 21-23.

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These are the sources you must address, not CSICOP.

they were apparently quite a hit with the tourists, and ica stones became a very profitable business. they don't appear ancient. the carvings aren't worn at all, and the surface of the rocks aren't chipped at all. they also contain dated -- not accurate -- depictions of dinosaurs that never lived in the area. triceratops, for instance, was a popular dinosaur in magazines, but never lived in south america.

well, it doesn't look like a sauropod to me. they didn't stand that way, heads raised and dragging tails. they balanced head and neck against the tail, and both remained more or less straight out from the body.in other words, whoever drew it didn't see a dinosaur, but saw a 19th century misrepresentation of one.

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well, it doesn't look like a sauropod to me. they didn't stand that way, heads raised and dragging tails. they balanced head and neck against the tail, and both remained more or less straight out from the body.

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A book on Indian rock art sold at the Utah State Park park visitors center notes:

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There is a petroglyph in Natural Bridges National Monument that bears a startling resemblance to dinosaur, specifically a Brontosaurus, with a long tail and neck, small head and all." (Prehistoric Indians, Barnes and Pendleton, 1995, p.201) The desert varnish, which indicates age, is especially heavy over this section.

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There were two basic types of sauropods, i.e. brachiosaurids and the diplidocids. Simply from the bone structure, the former appear to have held their necks and heads upwards, the later outwards.In our gravity, of course, neither would be possible. A sauropod holding his head upward would be impossible because of the blood pressure requirements to get blood to a brain 40' above its heart and holding his neck outwards would be impossible because it would involve hundreds of thousands of foot pounds of torque.