Archaeopteryx and Dino-Bird Evolution

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you evos assert birds descended from dinosaurs. This is counter-intuitive: very large animals (dinosaurs) evolving into predominantly small animals (birds) = nonsense.

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Aside from the fact that that statement demonstrates a profound ignorance of evolution, the point that he is making is wrong. Archaeopteryx is within the dromeosaurid group of dinosaurs, which is the group that contains deinonychus and velociraptor. The dinosaurs from this group weren't the size of T-Rex, velociraptor was 3 feet tall.A recent fossil found that archaeopteryx had a hyperextended second toe (velociraptor's sickle toe). It obviously wasn't as pronounced as in velociraptor or it would have been noticed before. This is significant because dromeosaurids are the only group of animals with hyperextended second toes, thus archaeopteryx is clearly a dinosaur. Yet archaeopteryx has feathers and a wishbone and a brain that was suitable for flight (based on CT scans of the skull), thus it is clearly a bird. If this animal is not a convincing missing link, then there is no such thing as a missing link, there is no fossil we would ever find that would convince you, and congratulations you are a stubborn creationist whose position bares no relation with the facts.

This illustrates what makes me crazy about creationists. See, this is a legitimate discussion of what makes an feathered dinosaur a bird transition or not and where archaeopteryx fits into all of this. My problem with creationists is that they don't do this, they dismiss these fossils. They dismiss it as just a bird, just a dinosaur, or, most egregiously, a fake. They don't look at the fossil evidence as we do when we discuss it.

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The fact is, Archaeopteryx was not a bird-like dinosaur; Archaeopteryx was a bird -a perching bird. Period.

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Archaeopteryx was NOT a perching bird, but this is an understandible being that it comes from a recent specimen which shows that it does not have a reversed hallux, which is the opposing talon feature allows birds to perch. Since it wasn't a perching bird, it was probably a runner like dromeosaurids (velociraptor) which is the dinosaur group to which archaeopteryx is most closely aligned. There are several features of archaeopteryx that place it with dromeosaurids, among them is the hyperextendible second toe, which is only found in dromeosaurids. If archaeopteryx fossils didn't show feathers we would have thought they were just another small dinosaur, that's how much like a dinosaur it is. If archaeopteryx isn't transitional then there is no such thing, since it is a near perfect mosaic of dinosaur and avian traits.The fossil evidence for several transitions is very good; fish-amphibian (eusthenopteron, tiktaalik, acanthostega), reptile-mammal (dimetrodon, thrinaxodon, probainognathus), whale (pakicetus, rodhocetus, basilosaurus), horse (hyracotherium, mesohippus, miohippus), and last but not least we have an excellent fossil record (australopithecus afarensis, homo erectus, paranthropus boisei).