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Author | Topic: Birds and Reptiles | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
There are some questions about that paper.
Here is what paleozoologist Darren Naish has to say. HE has quite a few criticisms of the arguments, and notes that the claims about bird ancestry don't even appear in the paper - bur are in the press releases. Which rather sounds like an attempt to hype up a paper that isn't really strong enough to back up the claims made to the press.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: By which you mean according to your OWN version of the Eden myth, since the actual story places the curse on a single individual and its descendants and does not include a partial version of the curse being placed on anyone, let alone hundreds or thousands of species.
quote: But not the differences which convince taxonomists that snakes are NOT descended from dinosaurs at all. Nor do we ignore the fossil evidence contradicting your hypothesis - as you do.
quote: Of course you are wrong here. The evidence of a relationship IS accepted as evidence of a relationship. It is NOT however accepted as evidence sufficient to establish snakes as descendants of dinosaurs - and I have no doubt that you would be quick to agree with that assessment if it were convenient for you. And that's on top of the evidence you ignore - or the fact that you have needed to make ad hoc additions to the myth to even accommodate the fossil evidence that you have accepted. So be honest Buz and accept the fact that your evidence is hopelessly weak and the evidence against your hypothesis is very strong. And THAT is why your silly hypothesis is rejected.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: No Buz, pointing out facts that you want swept under the carpet is NOT "obfuscating" your position.
quote: Since serpents ARE snakes this is needlessly redundant. It is also not nearly sufficient to show that snakes are descended from dinosaurs.
quote: By which you mean that the Eden myth only mentions serpents. That is not significant evidence.
quote: Of course this assertion is false, as has already been shown in discussion here. You might like to look at this Message 145 for instance.
quote: Obvious rubbish [i]shouldn't[/i[] get funded. Haven't you noticed that ALL your arguments for your hypothesis rely on a very superficial examination of the evidence and that serious problems appear when the evidence is looked at in more detail ? Think that over - the evidence you put forward in SUPPORT of your hypothesis is, in reality, against it.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Buz, so far as I can see the only point you've made that is really true is that the old Linnaean taxonomy didn't consider birds to be reptiles - you're not even really correct about what the Bible says . But that's more a historical accident - Linnaeus didn't really know about dinosaurs, and if he'd known what we know now things would be different.
As for the rest of your post it seems that you assume that all dinosaurs were like crocodiles and therefore the actual similarities between real dinosaurs and birds are themselves assumptions. That just doesn't make sense. The similarities are found in real dinosaur remains and if those don't fit your idea of what a dinosaur is like, you're the one making false assumptions. Really all you seem to be doing is whining that scientists look at the evidence instead of unquestioningly accepting your opinions.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: More like irrelevant. As I have already pointed out this classification was made without the benefit of the evidence we have today. It was a mistake. If we must defer to expert opinion we would do better to use modern experts who ARE fully aware of the evidence - and THEY generally classify birds as dinosaurs.
quote: There's plenty of reason to think that both birds and snakes cohabited with dinosaurs (and without your ad hoc additions to the Bible your hypothesis would rule out snakes and dinosaurs cohabiting). Early birds had teeth and chickens still retain parts of the capability to grow teeth. And as has been pointed out the bone structures of some dinosaurs were closer to those of birds than snakes or lizards or crocodiles - even to the point of being hollow. The issue of digits has been dealt with - so I won't repeat it here, because the argument and the answer get quite technical. As to the other article all I will point out is that the basic argument is flawed. It assumes that the "ground up" hypothesis is the only way for birds to have evolved from dinosaurs. But that is false. The rival "trees down" hypothesis is still valid and supported by the microraptor fossil. And you will note that the article admits that there are fossils, currently classified as dinosaurs that are very bird-like. I guess that those fossils aren't just assumptions after all !
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
Summing up:
1) It is claimed that the Buzsaw hypothesis is consistent with the Eden myth, aside from the question of whether this should be taken as evidence we must note that there are significant scientific and theological problems with the claim. For instance the story includes the presence of humans, while the scientific evidence is strongly against the existence of humans at the time the dinosaurs went extinct. Theologically the story requires the extension of part of the curse placed on the serpent to numerous species, which creationists would regard as including a number of different "kinds". There is nothing in the story that suggests that this is even reasonable - why should God afflict numerous animals not even related to the serpent with this curse ? 2) It is claimed that taxonomy supports the hypothesis, however this rests on a superficial look at an old classification based on evidence that turns out to be inadequate. Even older taxonomy does not hold that snakes are closely related to dinosaurs. (ABE: in addition, even the last few holdouts denying that birds are dinosaurs accept that birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than snakes are). 3) It is claimed that physical resemblances support the hypothesis, however this is based on a failure to appreciate the diversity of dinosaurs - even to the point of writing off actual fossils as "assumptions". Again this is based on taking a highly superficial view of the evidence and refusing to accept the great bulk of the real evidence. 4) Although it has not been mentioned in this thread it was claimed that the Buzsaw hypothesis explained the extinction of the dinosaurs. However this was not really true since it offered absolutely no reason to think that the curse would be extended to all dinosaurs. It was also worse than rival hypotheses since it utterly failed to explain the many extinctions of non-dinosaurian species which occurred at the same time. Therefore, all 4 lines of argument FOR the Buzsaw hypothesis in fact work AGAINST it. Edited by PaulK, : Minor addition (marked) plus a couple of typoes corrected
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: There's no sense in relying on experts who were unaware of large amounts of relevant evidence, Buz. So you can either use the opinion of modern experts or the evidence itself. Both are firmly against you. Although I must admit that the fact that scientists aren't gullible enough to fall for Wyatt's rubbish is hardly a reason NOT to trust their views.
quote: As usual "debatable" means "a fact that Buzsaw refuses to accept".
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Of course you are stretching the truth more than a little here. There were no significant discoveries. Moller wasn't present on Wyatt's original expedition and isn't even credited with any "discoveries" in the material I've seen, We also know that Moller is hopelessly (and wilfully) ignorant of Egyptology to the point of endorsing Wyatt's nonsensical rewrite of Egyptian history. The reason why scientists DON'T bother to investigate is obvious - there's nothing that would justify the expense. And let us not forget that when the evidence is available a more detailed look almost always refutes your position. Why expect this time to be any different ? Don't forget that is all it takes to falsify Wyatt and Moller's rewrite of history (which YOU don't dare discuss). And I notice that you STILL have produced no evidence that ANY scientist thinks that birds and dinosaurs did not cohabit. (the "birds are not dinosaurs" crew think that birds evolved even earlier than mainstream paleontologists believe, so appealing to their views on that point would be especially stupid) Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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