Theropods and Birds showing a change in kinds

No, I'm sorry, but if you don't accept the dating of fossil evidence, that invalidates any argument that you want to put forth regarding the order and relationship of that same evidence.You can't have it both ways. I'm not asking you to justify your rejection of radiometric and other dating methods. However, if you really believe that all the fossil evidence is recent and roughly contemporaneous, then you have no basis whatsoever to claim that any particular fossil predates another.Pick one or the other.

Modern birds are classified as dinosaurs and are complete dinosaurs, so I really don't see your point. The fact of the matter is that fossils like Archaeopteryx have a mixture of non-avian dinosaur features and modern bird features. Can you please tell us why this is not a transitional fossil? What criteria are you using to determine if a fossil is transitional or not?

I think what hurt his reputation was being wrong. How much attention do you think the average biologist pays to creationists?In what way do you think he contradicts himself?

Can you name any other fake primitive bird from China that managed to temporarily fool a couple of paleontologists?So far as I know, no primitive bird fossil that has got into the scientific literature has subsequently been exposed as a "Piltdown bird". If you know better, let me know.And if this had happened, you would know about it, would you?

Because creationists, who would have played absolutely no role in uncovering the hoax, and not one of whom could tell a real fossil from a fake fossil from a hole in the bleedin' ground, would never shut up about how this proves that all biologists are stupid and EVIL-UTION IS A LIE OMG!!!

Archaeopteryx does not in fact have all the characteristics of modern birds.---The problem with this, as with every similar creationist attempt at shoehorning, is that the extremal members of the two groups thus artificially constructed are closer anatomically then they are to other members of "their own" groups.A coelurosaur such as Compsognathus is much closer anatomically to Archaeopteryx than it is to another theropod dinosaur --- T. rex, for example. And Archaeopteryx is much closer anatomically to Compsognathus than it is to, for example, a sparrow (or any other living bird, for that matter).Or to put it another way, if Archeopteryx is a bird, and Compsognathus is a dinosaur, then Archaeopteryx is a bird with almost completely dinosaurian features (since it's almost exactly the same as Compsognathus), and Compsognathus is a dinosaur with almost exclusively avian features (since it's almost exactly the same as Archaeopteryx).Placing the division where you do therefore has nothing to do with anatomy and everything to do with the creationist need to draw a line somewhere. Anywhere.

Perhaps you could elaborate on this.* Lungs: the evidence shows that dinosaurs had the same sort of lungs as birds. Why should there be something "in between" two structures which are identical?

* Femurs: well, since you've decided that Archaeopteryx is a bird, and that coelurosaurs are not, could you explain to us what the anatomical difference is between the femurs of the two? If there isn't any, then my remarks about lungs apply.

* Balance structure: I don't know what you mean, please explain. And, again, will you please let us know if Archaeopteryx, which you deem a bird, really has a different "balance structure" from a coelurosaur.

So, the omniscient creator really screwed up by giving baby birds down, eh? Either that or he's just trying to kill as many cute little dicky-birds as possible.

You do not explain why the same dreadful fate does not befall the adult ostrich when she gets wet. Is there something in particular which makes wet down a poorer insulator than wet feathers? Or why either should be inferior to naked skin?

But see here.

And, for some reason which you can't quite explain, the mere existence of therapods with feathers doesn't support a link between therapods and birds.

The value of your example is vitiated by being totally made up.

My bet is that he can't name any fake, primitive bird from anywhere that fooled paleontologists. Archaeoraptor did fool a few amateurs, but the first qualified paleontologists who examined the fossil recognized it as a fake at first glance.

They proved it with CT scans and concluded that the fossil was composed of 3 to 5 separate fossils.

Discover: What about all the other evidence for feathered dinosaurs?Feduccia: When we see actual feathers preserved on specimens, we need to carefully determine if we are looking at secondarily flightless birds that have retained feathers and only superficially resemble dinosaurs, or if the specimens are in fact related to dinosaurs. That’s a difficult issue to deal with right now, given the existence of fake fossils.Discover: So far, only one feathered dinosaur, Archaeoraptor, has been publicly acknowledged as a forgery. You think there are others?Feduccia: Archaeoraptor is just the tip of the iceberg. There are scores of fake fossils out there, and they have cast a dark shadow over the whole field. When you go to these fossil shows, it’s difficult to tell which ones are faked and which ones are not. I have heard that there is a fake-fossil factory in northeastern China, in Liaoning Province, near the deposits where many of these recent alleged feathered dinosaurs were found.Journals like Nature don’t require specimens to be authenticated, and the specimens immediately end up back in China, so nobody can examine them. They may be miraculous discoveries, they may be missing links as they are claimed, but there is no way to authenticate any of this stuff.Discover: Why would anyone fake a fossil?Feduccia: Money. The Chinese fossil trade has become a big business. These fossil forgeries have been sold on the black market for years now, for huge sums of money. Anyone who can produce a good fake stands to profit.

You really gotta give us links to this stuff

Please substantiate this assertion or withdraw it.This allegation of professional dishonesty is baseless. (At least I think that misconduct or ignorance is what you're trying to imply.) It also doesn't make sense. Don't creationists commonly accuse paleontologists of promoting false fossil evidence, rather than trying to cover it up to hide their mistakes, or using fakes to support a "failed theory"?

Assuming that this is the case, it might imply merely that plumulaceous, downy feathers were evolved for thermoregulation in a low-humidity environment when getting wet was rarely a problem. Also, simple observation seems to suggest that feathers can't be that poor at insulation. Despite maintaining higher inner temperatures than mammals, even small birds seem to have little problem surviving at the highest latitudes. Snow petrels happily breed right at the sorth pole, and they're less than half a metre long.

Many dinosaurs have been found with downy feathers — all oviraptoriformes seem to have possessed at least some, and there’s a new taxon reported in Nature last year which not only seems to have possessed downy feathers, but also appears to be a maniraptoran theropod from before Archaeopteryx. (Incidentally, does anyone have access to Nature so that we can confirm this article says what I think it says?).

here is indeed something to link these structures to feathers. Unlike other epidermal coverings, feathers are composed almost entirely of beta-keratins. When the 'dinofuzz' filaments of the theropod Shuvuuia were examined to determine their makeup, it was discovered that, they too, are composed almost entirely of beta-keratins (Schweitzer, M. H. 2001. Evolutionary implications of possible protofeather structures associated with a specimen of Shuvuuia deserti. In Gauthier, J. & Gall, L. F. (eds) New prespectives on the origin and early evolution of birds: proceedings of the international symposium in honor of John H. Ostrom. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University (New Haven), pp. 181-192. - found on Tetrapod Zoology ). One more coincidence if these are believed to be non-homologous structures.If it turns out that the possible filaments found in ornithischian dinosaurs and pterosaurs are, in fact, the same things as found in theropods, this might simply suggest that beta-keratin filaments are a primitive ornithodiran* trait, originally evolved for insulation and/or display. In this model, it would be the later specialisation of these structures into true feathers in theropod dinosaurs that paved the way for the great evolutionary radiation of birds.

*My new word for the day. Ornithodira is the clade that unites dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

Okay — to clarify though, everybody agrees that theropods appear in the fossil record long before birds. What’s a matter for dispute still is whether the specific type of theropod birds are believed to have evolved from appear before them.

As pointed out upthread - this isn't really true. Bats and dolphins have quite distinct sonar structures. All that's been discovered is that one gene involved in sonar seems to possess the same mutations in the two different animals.

Won't stop bullets either. Pure crap, down.