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In his famous book 'The Origin of Birds', Gerhard Heilmann concluded that 'although birds have several characteristics in common with dinosaurs birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs. His reasons was fairly simple: birds have furculae and dinosaurs don't, and it would not have been possible for these structures to reevolve once they have been lost.' [Unless one assumes a shared MPG, but that would be GUToB]. Therefore, Heilmann says birds have not evolved from dinosaurs.
True, there are modern theories suggesting that birds and other dinosaurs have a common ancestor. Is this the hypothesis that you now prefer?
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More recently the bird-dinosaur link has been picked up again -- in particular by Jacque Gauthier -- and in fact evo's now believe that the birds are in fact a group of dinosaurs.
Yes, more support for the common ancestor for both birds and dinosaurs. I'm beginning to think you like this idea...
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Among the most spectacular findings of the past few years are perhaps the chinese dinosaurs of the Liaoning region; the dragon birds. They include the Proarchaeopteryx robusta, the Caudipteryx zoui, Sinornithosaurus mellini.
An alleged common feature and support of a dino-bird link of these organisms is that they have feathers. Recently, I had a very careful close up look at the original chinese fossils, and for at least 2 (of 5 exposed chinese dragon birds) it is doubtful that they had feathers at all.
Hmm, is this based on your observations, or that of others?
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The other fossils do indeed have feathers but a careful look at the fossils demonstrates that these organisms do not have wings at all. (one of them is pictured with its very long arms swinging from tree to tree like a Tarzan-like-bird-man; talking about imagination)
So, if one is to claim that these are the transition forms leading to birds than one has to exclude the possibility of loss of wings, which is much more likely from a scientific point of view.
Or loss of wings by a particular family of birds... And the problem with this is what?
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Have a look at the Galapagos Cormorant. If this bird was only known from the fossil record one could take such fossils for transition forms towards complete development of wings (feathers and design are already bird) or did it loose its wings.
But you leave out a critical piece of evidence: the timing of gain or loss of wing structures. This WOULD be a clue.
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All there is is speculation and biased interpretation. From an evolutionary stance one could take them as transition forms (as you do), however I am not that gullible. I say it is just another MPG.
And, of course, your MPG hypothesis is not based on speculation or biased interpretation? Or are you saying that we must wait for all of the evidence to come in before creating a working hypothesis, as some absolutists around here seem to indicate?
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Recently, it was demonstrated that dino and bird embryology is distinctly different, and makes the link even more unlikely (will look up the reference for you).
That would be good. But wait, isn't it just based on speculation and interpretation? Perhaps you could also explain why this is a problem.