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

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You forgot the mysterious particles that have no evidence in uspport of their existence - the ever elusive CREATON, and of course, the ever popular (but apparently made-up) MORPHOGENIC FIELD!

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That's it! The creaton flux is responsible for accelerated decay! Why didn't we think of that before!(Okay, back on topic...sorry about my outburst)

SLPx, Edge,I was being facetious when I called Archie a reptile. It was in response to;

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No Edge, they also has some fully developed birds, including the Archeopteryx lithographica, Sinorsis sinensis, and Confuciusornis sanctus. Very nice fully developed birds.

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The point being that Mr Borger was oversimplifying the situation, in that there were two options, 1/It was a fully developed bird, & 2/ It was a fully developed reptile, rather than seeing the continuum of forms tha SLPx speaks of. If he can say "it's a fully developed bird", the issue rests there, but he has to ignore the intermediate-ness of those forms. By pointing out the reptilian features I could place it either as a bird, or a reptile in PB's two option reductio ad absurdum scenario, so why not a reptile, it has reptilian features? What PB was supposed to see was that he had missed the point.I wonder how many more posts Peter will refuse to state his definition of "transitional form" as predicted by the real ToE, yet continue to assert such a thing doesn't exist?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Ah - no matter, it still brought up a good point.It reminds me of Fred Williams' claim that mosaics are actually evidence against evolution - mosaics like Archie, for example...No amount of refutation changed Williams' mind, either.

Dear friends,Point is that I already knew that Archaeopteryx is currently classified as bird (from Dr Walter Boles).Best wishes,
Peter

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Dear friends,
Point is that I already knew that Archaeopteryx is currently classified as bird (from Dr Walter Boles).

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Best wishes,
Peter

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And your point is? In fact, probably we could find dissenting opinions on this such as:Dinosauricon – Dinosaurios... where Archaeopteryx is classified with the dinosaurs. You will notice also that archie was originally classified as a dinosaur and some specimens were considered to be compsognathus for a time. In fact, I have read on TO that Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (both, I believe, creationists) have argued that archie is actually a hoax composed of dinosaur fossils with feathers attached. Just how do you explain all this confusion?

"... where Archaeopteryx is classified with the dinosaurs. You will notice also that archie was originally classified as a dinosaur and some specimens were considered to be compsognathus for a time. In fact, I have read on TO that Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (both, I believe, creationists) have argued that archie is actually a hoax composed of dinosaur fossils with feathers attached. Just how do you explain all this confusion?"
--Maybe they were referring to Archaeoraptor? If they were talking about Archaeopteryx, they've probably asked to be ignored.
--A recent article in Discover (February 2003) entitled Plucking Apart the Dino-Birds (Discover Dialogue between Kathy A. Svitil & Ornithologist and Evolutionary Biologist, Alan Feduccia), is very interesting. Fedducia thinks birds are not descended from dinosaurs and this is briefly discussed in the dialogue.------------------[This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 01-31-2003]

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--Maybe they were referring to Archaeoraptor? If they were talking about Archaeopteryx, they've probably asked to be ignored.

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I don't think so. I am not competent to classify organisms, but the point is that there is and was confusion on the point. Sort of what one would expect of a transitional.

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--A recent article in Discover (February 2003) entitled Plucking Apart the Dino-Birds (Discover Dialogue between Kathy A. Svitil & Ornithologist and Evolutionary Biologist, Alan Feduccia), is very interesting. Fedducia thinks birds are not descended from dinosaurs and this is briefly discussed in the dialogue.

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That is possible. I believe that Feduccia wants birds to branch off prior to the advent of dinosaurs. In other words, they would have a common ancestor. This is not a problem for evolution, thought it would alter the lineage.

Hi Edge,For commited cladists birds are dinosaurs.Best wishes,
Peter

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For commited cladists birds are dinosaurs.

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For committed creationists, it is simply impossible for archaeopteryx to be a transitional.And for committed geologists, well, we're just committed...[This message has been edited by edge, 02-01-2003]

Dear Edge,quote:
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For commited cladists birds are dinosaurs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------E: For committed creationists, it is simply impossible for archaeopteryx to be a transitional.PB: Archaeopteryx is simply another MPG. As mentioned, from ToE I would have expected the A. Pseudornis, A. ornis and the A. euornis. From the fossils found it is claer that functional DNA elements/sequences -although plastic- don't change over time since the fossils are dated between 130 and 140 My BP (10exp7 generations), and therefore it is in acord with GUToB rule 1.: And for committed geologists, well, we're just committed...PB: Seeya mate
Peter

So, is the Archaeopteryx mpg ancestral for reptiles or birds? Or do you simply make up mpg's whenever the need arises? Or ar reptiles and birds the same "kind"?

Didn't he told you? One MPG=one phylum. However, he keeps humans and chimps separate.

Andya,Birds & reptiles are in the same phylum, it'll be interesting to learn how Peter would trace the ancestry of the "MPG" of these 2 clades, though.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

"For commited cladists birds are dinosaurs. "
--This is what Fedducia doesn't agree with as he illustrates in the Discover article.From the article:Many of today's paleontologists say birds are dinosaurs--specifically, the surviving members of a group called theropods. But is it true? Alan Fedduccia, an ornithologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, doesn't think so. He and a handful of other skeptics argue that birds evolved from an early dinosaur ancestor, making them only slightly closer relatives of T. rex than lizards are. Feduccia shared his views with Discover associated editor Kathy A. Svitil.

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Why don't you think birds are descended form dinosaurs?
First, the time line is all wrong. These alleged dinosaurian ancestors of birds occur 25 million to 80 million years after Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird. Second, by the time you get to dinosaurs, you are dealing with fairly large, earthbound creatures, which means they would have had to evolve flight from ground up, rather than from the trees down. Evolving flight from the ground up is biophysically impossible. Third, many of the features of birds and dinosaurs--the hands and teeth for example--don't match.------------------

FYI I agree with Feduccia also. The dromaeosaurs which dinosaur experts claim to be bird ancestors are committed runners. And IMO top-down flight evolution is more plausible than bottom-up. Take a look at Microraptor gui, this fossil showed a stage before Archaeopteryx. I agree with Feduccia, Chatterjee, and Mayr. And Darwin's original proposal of flight evolution is top-down (in bats, analogous to squirrels).