Not really. His post posits that Archaepteryx is representative of the more birdlike part of the transition. Caudipteryx, which lived later, is representative of what an ancestor of Archaeopteryx might have resembled. Basically, Archy occurs out of logical order in the fossil record.
Some people do think that the Chinese feathered dinos "devolved" (I hate that word) from more avian stock, but that's not widely credited. Why? That cladogram in Ichneumon's post. It makes more sense of the wealth of data we have to think Caudi is a revealing throwback to the common ancestor of Caudi and Archy.
Even if the minority are right, you have to wonder what a theropod dinosaur, almost standard issue except for the feathers, is doing "devolving" from a bird if the bird didn't come from saurian stock in the first place. You can't devolve if you didn't E-volve. You can't be a throwback if there's nothing to throw back too.
Sorry, but Ichy clearly makes the point (shouts the point) that these are transistional fossils on the way from dinosaurs to birds. In a nutshell this is the order he listed as a sequence in evolution:
Sinosauropteryx
Protarchaeopteryx
Caudipteryx
Sinornithosaurus
Archaeopteryx
Confuciusornis
Now there are scientists, professors even, well versed and well studied in paleotology and avian evolution who insist that Caudipteryx is a descendent of Archaeopteryx. Their order might look like this:
Sinosauropteryx
Protarchaeopteryx
Sinornithosaurus
Archaeopteryx
Confuciusornis
Caudipteryx
So my question is: Why isn't the matter settled? Why can't they just point and laugh at the idiot scientists who obviously have dated these fossils wrong? After all evolution (as pointed out by so many) is a proven fact. You would think that scientists in the same field would be able to agree on the age of a fossil. But their aging varies by apparently millions of years.
Some people do think that the Chinese feathered dinos "devolved" (I hate that word) from more avian stock, but that's not widely credited. Why? That cladogram in Ichneumon's post. It makes more sense of the wealth of data we have to think Caudi is a revealing throwback to the common ancestor of Caudi and Archy.
It makes "sense"?? Is that a scientific term? It makes sense that God created the universe and the creatures in it to me. Isn't there a way to tell the age of a fossil without looking at it and trying to guess where it should go? Even if the minority are right, you have to wonder what a theropod dinosaur, almost standard issue except for the feathers, is doing "devolving" from a bird if the bird didn't come from saurian stock in the first place. You can't devolve if you didn't E-volve. You can't be a throwback if there's nothing to throw back too.