[VadeRetro]

It's in there, 5th paragraph from the bottom. Chatterjee does not, that I can see, think that what he is saying makes Archaeopteryx go away. The presence of feathers used to be "diagnostic" of "bird." Now it isn't.

The other problem, as I pointed out to Dataman already on this thread, is that Chatterjee's Protoavis is based on a wretched-condition fossil which he has apparently still not allowed anyone else to examine. Nobody much believes it to be what he claimed for it around 1989. For sure, he hasn't moved it any closer to acceptance.

[atlaw]

Sure enough. In context, I agree that he isn't dismissing Archaeopteryx or arguing that "it's a bird, just a bird" (to use your colorful choice of words). Still, there is something sort of disturbing about his myopia and his conclusion (even for 1997), and it makes one wonder even more about Protoavis (which I have viewed as an incomplete, speculative, but fascinating possibility).