I'm able to post without calling you names. I would expect the same consideration.
You make the point yourself in your post that there is an evolutionary sequence involving each of those critters. It's in your post. You even have commentary pointing out the evolutionary changes to us dolts.
However, there are evolutionary avian experts who posit the exact opposite...that Caudipteryx evolved from Archaeopteryx.
Feel free to name them, and cite their research to that effect.
Thanks, I will. This is the faculty page for Dr. Allan Feduccia. Dr. Feduccia teaches at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an expert in the field of avian evolution. The webpage says :
"Alan Feduccia's research centers on the origin and early evolution of flight, feathers, and endothermy. He is also interested in the evolution of birds through the Tertiary, the origins of flightlessness and the evolution of other morphological specializations in the world avifauna, and avian systematics in general."
The page has references that state:
His new book The Origin and Evolution of Birds was the lead science book for Yale University Press for the fall of 1996, and winner of the 1996 Scholarly and Professional Publishing Award of the Association of American Publishers. Feduccia has recently published cover articles in Science and Naturwissenschaften, and the former was listed in Discover Magazine's top 50 news stories of 1993, and in Science News' science news of the year.
Undoubtedly he is an expert in the field. Yet he thinks that your evolutionary sequence is not correct. His views are best summed up in this article..
Now obviously we're talking about a disagreement in fossil dating that spans hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.
No we're not. You really haven't a clue as to how cladistic trees are constructed, or read, have you?
Well clue me in sport. Obviously I'm not understanding something here. How many years transpired between Caudipteryx and Archaeopteryx and what tests can you show me that prove it?
No, because a) cladistic trees are based on a huge amount of actual evidence, not "guesses", and b) your own "guess" is highly unlikely to be "as good as another" because you're a complete idiot when it comes to biology.
Minus the (5? 10? 15?) actual fossils and how the scientists interpret them, what is the huge amount of actual evidence?
[Ichneumon:] No it doesn't. Learn how to read a cladistic tree, you dolt. It says that Caudipteryx's ancestors split off from the Archaeopteryx lineage prior to the splitting off of the families which appear between them in the tree.
[DouglasKC:] I'm able to post without calling you names.
That's because I don't make goofy, triumphant, idiotically false accusations against you which warrant pointing out that I'm behaving like an idiot.
I would expect the same consideration.
You have my full permission that if I ever *do* behave like that much of an idiot, the same consideration would apply.
You make the point yourself in your post that there is an evolutionary sequence involving each of those critters. It's in your post.
No, it isn't. Not in the way you misstate it, anyway.
You even have commentary pointing out the evolutionary changes to us dolts.
Not clearly *enough*, it seems...
[DouglasKC:] However, there are evolutionary avian experts who posit the exact opposite...that Caudipteryx evolved from Archaeopteryx.
[Ichneumon:] Feel free to name them, and cite their research to that effect.
[DouglasKC:] Thanks, I will.
Apparently you won't, because the page you link doesn't actually say what you claim it says.
This is the faculty page for Dr. Allan Feduccia. Dr. Feduccia teaches at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an expert in the field of avian evolution. The webpage says : "Alan Feduccia's research centers on the origin and early evolution of flight, feathers, and endothermy. He is also interested in the evolution of birds through the Tertiary, the origins of flightlessness and the evolution of other morphological specializations in the world avifauna, and avian systematics in general." The page has references that state: His new book The Origin and Evolution of Birds was the lead science book for Yale University Press for the fall of 1996, and winner of the 1996 Scholarly and Professional Publishing Award of the Association of American Publishers. Feduccia has recently published cover articles in Science and Naturwissenschaften, and the former was listed in Discover Magazine's top 50 news stories of 1993, and in Science News' science news of the year. Undoubtedly he is an expert in the field.
Blah, blah, blah. I don't care about anyone's alleged qualifications (as we all know, even the "experts" can screw up), especially when you're quoting their *own* descriptions of themselves, I care whether their evidence holds water. But that's a moot question in this case, since you misread the web page anyway. The web page you link below actually agrees with *my* cladogram, not your own sequence.
Yet he thinks that your evolutionary sequence is not correct. His views are best summed up in this article..
It's sweet that you spammed so much of Feduccia's resume in your post, when there's *NOTHING* on that page you linked which quotes Feduccia saying anything whatsoever to support your contention that he's one of the folks who are, you claim, "evolutionary avian experts who posit the exact opposite...that Caudipteryx evolved from Archaeopteryx".
The only thing that Feduccia says on that link is that he "isn't convinced" that the featherlike markings on some fossils actually are feathers.
Oooookay... And this is the same as asserting that "Caudipteryx evolved from Archaeopteryx" HOW, exactly? Oh, right, it isn't.
The really funny part is that the page you link actually *agrees* with me that Protarchaeopteryx "was more developed than Caudipteryx" (i.e., comes *after* it on the cladogram, not before).
Care to try again?
Be careful of leaning too heavily on Feduccia, by the way -- while it's highly unlikely that even he is foolish enough to actually claim what you say he does (that "Caudipteryx evolved from Archaeopteryx") because he would actually place them on very *SEPARATE* lineages in his minority "birds did not evolve from dinosaurs but from something else" view, he's not a great authority on much else either, because he's rather a crank on the subject, and is famous for getting a lot of elementary things wrong. No *wonder* he's such a darling of creationists, and speaks at their meetings. Feduccia and Larry Miller are pretty much the *only* holdouts to the now widely accepted (due to the evidence) conclusion that birds did, indeed, descend from theopod dinosaurs in the manner indicated by the cladogram I posted.
[No we're not. You really haven't a clue as to how cladistic trees are constructed, or read, have you?]
Well clue me in sport.
Cladograms are not based on dates.
Obviously I'm not understanding something here.
Obviously.
How many years transpired between Caudipteryx and Archaeopteryx and what tests can you show me that prove it?
I don't know and I don't care (go look it up yourself), the dates of the specimens are irrelevant to the construction of the cladogram, for the same reason that the following creationist slogan is a silly fallacy: "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?", and similar misconceptions (i.e., amphibians evolved from fish, but there are still fish even today).
[No, because a) cladistic trees are based on a huge amount of actual evidence, not "guesses", and b) your own "guess" is highly unlikely to be "as good as another" because you're a complete idiot when it comes to biology.]
Minus the (5? 10? 15?) actual fossils
Thousands.
and how the scientists interpret them,
...and the thousands of observed characteristics in each fossil...
what is the huge amount of actual evidence?
See above.