Responding to some posts I have to say is impossible for me because they are full of words I just don't understand. But I am picking up bits and I've just posted on my other thread (fossils)what I hope is a sensible conclusion to what I have picked up so far.
I shall explain why I started this fossil/bird thread.
Out of all life you have to admit that birds are one of the biggest wonders. Especially in terms of that at one time there were no birds. These guys are animals that have developed/evolved wings and took to the sky, amazing.
In my naivity I thought that in the beginning we must have had creatures climbing trees. Now creatures wouldn't climb trees for no reason so I thought the reason could be to escape predators or to reach food. Some of the food could be airborn. So I got this vision of an animal jumping out from a tree trying to catch an airborn piece of food and splat! The animal ends up dead on the floor!
My problem then was. Somehow this creature has to grow wings in order to catch food. Perhaps predators are increasing in numbers and it just isn't safe to be wandering around the forest floor anymore. My understanding was, animals adapted to a new or changing environment through changing genes. Genes literally made changes in the physical appearance of an animal in order to survive.
That might sound so naive but I must have picked the notion that this was correct from somewhere. This I believe is a common notion among lots of people. But, if the changing genes to suit the changing environment was how things happened then my question was going to be, if these animals were jumping to their deaths out of trees then they wouldn't be able to change their genes and pass them on cause they were dead!
SO, my problem now is I can't quite get a clear picture in my head, knowing what I now know about true evolution, of how we can have an animal with no feathers, then an animal with feathers, I've changed my wording to feathers because reading earlier responses has made me realise I too have wings but no feathers. It's the feathers in order to fly that cause me a problem now. The case of the hairiest animals surviving in an icreasingly cold environment works in my head. BUT, I'm having problems with animals jumping out of trees. The animals that jumped out of trees and flew would survive and so reproduce. BUT, no animals are gonna jump out of trees, fly, and survive.
I think I've just got a puncture!
ogon