<< Why would someone be offerring them as transitions to birds? Just because they have wings? >>
Why would someone offer the commie Chinese creature as a transition? Just because it has feathers? (That's *assuming* it's real, which has been a bad assumption to have about the Chinese fossils in the past).
<< the platypus would be classified as a mammal based on its skeletal features. >>
Feathered dinos would be classified as lizards based on skeletal features. If platypus isn't transitional, then the commie Chinese creature shouldn't be claimed as such.
<< The platypus "bill" is totally mammalian in structure. >>
How come it's the only mammal with a bill? Do other mammals lack teats and lay eggs? How many other furry mammals have venemous spikes?
<< If those feathered dinosaur species were actually feathered mammals, they wouldn't be classified as transitional between dinos and birds because the rest of the skeletons wouldn't support such a hypothesis. >>
Hey - that's what I've been saying. Glad you agree.
<< The confusion over which pigeonhole in which to place Archaeopteryx shows that your analogies are totally false. >>
Pigeonhole - that's an appropriate word to use for a bird (provided archy isn't another fraud).
Why would someone offer the commie Chinese creature as a transition? Just because it has feathers? It's almost an archaeopteryx, except Archy could fly. How small does a "gap" have to be before a creationist can cross it?
The thing that's just a feathered dinosaur:
The thing that's just a bird with teeth and a bony tail. (If it's a fake, somebody faked six separate specimens.)
One, we are told, is a dinosaur. The other, we are told, is a bird. Creationists in their seminars are instructed that all birds are like each other and unlike dinosaurs, all dinosaurs are like each other and unlike birds, and to be sure to sneer while asking "Where are the missing links?"
Continuing on, another "true" bird, Confuciusornis:
Note that the closeup is of a forelimb. Did they teach you at the seminar to ask, "What use is the halfway thing between wing and claw?"
In Darwin's day, the fossil record was a tiny fraction of what we have now. He couldn't point to very many transitional forms at all. He nevertheless boldly predicted, based on his theory and the tree of life, that certain kinds of forms would eventually turn up. He has been repeatedly right, and the scoffing creationists who argued the gaps in the data as holes in the history have been wrong. All you have left is the refusal to see.
Why would someone offer the commie Chinese creature as a transition? Just because it has feathers? (That's *assuming* it's real, which has been a bad assumption to have about the Chinese fossils in the past).Yes, Archaeoraptor, which you only found out about because a palaeontologist caught the fraud within two months. If these "whores of evolution" were so intent on spreading a lie, why did they expose this fraudulent fossil so quickly? Meanwhile, the creationists are still selling tickets to the Paluxy river tracks and claiming the Grand Canyon was cut by Noah's flood.
Feathered dinos would be classified as lizards based on skeletal features. If platypus isn't transitional, then the commie Chinese creature shouldn't be claimed as such.
Feathered dinos are classed as dinos, not lizards. The platypus isn't transitional between ducks and mammals. Its a remnant of group of mammals that are extinct apart from the 3 living species.
How come it's the only mammal with a bill? Do other mammals lack teats and lay eggs? How many other furry mammals have venemous spikes?
Because its the only platypus species remaining. If all deer species had died out except for the moose, the moose would be the only antler-bearing species on earth. The underlying bone structure of the "beak" is identical in both platypus and echidna, except that the echidna's is narrow and cylindrical. As regards mammals lacking teats and laying eggs, yes there are two other species, the echidnas. These three species are the sole remnants of the primitive mammal subclass, the Monotremes. The young hatch from the soft-shelled eggs after only 10 days, after which the vast majority of their development (platypus - 4 months, echidna - 6 months) takes place in a pouch where they feed on milk, just like marsupials. While they do not have teats, they still secrete milk, like all other mammals. The male platypus has functioning poisonous spikes, the echidna's spikes have lost their function. These species are not transitional in that they are direct links between other species, but they are specialized remnants of a group of mammals that arose before the placentals and marsupials, the two other major groups of living mammals, and still retain the more primitve egg-laying and teatless methods of reproduction and nurturing, so we can say with confidence that lactation, fur, the dentary-squamosal jaw and the three-bone inner ear all evolved before the retention of the eggs in the uterus.
Hey - that's what I've been saying. Glad you agree.
No, either you're trying to be smart, or you've missed the point. The feathered dinosaurs are classed as transitional because the rest of their skeletons support the hypothesis, not just the feathers alone.
Pigeonhole - that's an appropriate word to use for a bird (provided archy isn't another fraud).
Ah, so you're adamant the Archie is a bird? Why don't you take the time to compare it to the skeleton of a bird (and one of those feathered dinosaurs).
And keep shouting "fraud". That'll make it go away.