Dinosaur-Bird Flap Ruffles Feathers

Yahoo!News ^ | October 10, 2005 | E.J. Mundell

[mlc9852]

MONDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Head to the American Museum of Natural History's Web site, and you'll see the major draw this fall is a splashy exhibit on dinosaurs.

And not just any dinosaurs, but two-legged carnivorous, feathered "theropods" like the 30-inch-tall Bambiraptor -- somewhat less cuddly than its namesake.

The heyday of the theropods, which included scaly terrors like T. rex and velociraptor, stretched from the late Triassic (220 million years ago) to the late Cretaceous (65 million years ago) periods.

[Free Baptist]

"A shame none of [people who hold real, laudable credentials] ever show up here."

Well, there is a tremendous creation-science series on CD by Dr. Kent Hovind, and he is reachable in Pensacola. We'll see what we can do. He likely has some good material on the dating processes. I'm headed now to check his web site. We've sponsored public showings of his series several times on Luzon Island, Philippines. Great crowds have come, and we may do it again.

[Old Professer]

The only good reason for a reptilian-skinned creature to grow feathers would be to keep warm.

[Liberal Classic]

I just checked Dr. Dino's website, and sadly he's removed his picture of the Loch Ness monster as evidence of modern dinosaurs.

[r9etb]

To help prove that theory, co-researcher Dr. Theagarten Lingham-Soliar buried a dolphin for one year, then exhumed it and looked at the patterns of decay.

Lutefisk.....

[Oztrich Boy]

Well, there is a tremendous creation-science series on CD by Dr. Kent Hovind,

I love the smell of dramatic irony in the morning

[r9etb]

Given the subject of the article in question, it's more than slightly ironic that you should be posting your "theropod dinosaur to bird evolutionary transition" thingy on this particular thread. Perhaps you should consider retiring it for a bit....

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

He's getting ready for the book tour.

[RogueIsland]

Well, there is a tremendous creation-science series on CD by Dr. Kent Hovind

Kent Hovind? Clearly you jest.

[Redcloak]

Evolution is not a threat to my faith, science is not a threat to my faith, and it shouldn't threaten yours either.

Very well said. If one believes that the Scriptures are the Word of God, then one must also believe that nothing a scientist discovers can contradict Scripture. The scientist's conclusions about what he discovered may be in error, but the data itself, if accurately recorded, cannot contradict the Bible. (Two contradictory things cannot both be true.) Thus scientific endeavors are no threat to one's faith. Instead, they cannot do anything other than confirm and strengthen our faith.

[jayef]

Well . . . except the geocentric solar system . . . that one had to go out the window. And boy, those eliptical orbits really caused quite a stir. Hey, at least we can hang on to the fact that the Earth is flat.

[jayef]

I'm thinking about conducting an experiment to prove your theory. All I need is a few volunteers. Meet me at the whale tank at SeaWorld in Orlando and I'll give you further instructions upon my arrival.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Patterson goes on to acknowledge that there are gaps in the fossil record, but points out that this is possibly due to the limitations of what fossils can tell us. He finishes the paragraph with:

". . .Fossils may tell us many things, but one thing they can never disclose is whether they were ancestors of anything else." Dr. Colin Patterson, British Museum of Natural History

It is actually this (the above) statement which is the key to interpreting the Sunderland quote correctly; it is not possible to say for certain whether a fossil is in the direct ancestral line of a species group. Lionel Thevnissen of Talk Origins.

The alleged out of context quote.

"I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would have certainly included them....". Dr. Colin Patterson, British Museum of Natural History.

The Patterson quote was not taken out of contest. And with the "it is not possible to say for certain" quote from Thevnissen you end up with "transitional forms" being nothing but SWAGs.

[jayef]

What form do you believe a "direct" illustration would take? Do you even understand what he is and is not saying in this quote?

[Pure Country]

I have a friend that's a nuclearchemist and another who is a PhD in Zoology and they both laugh at evolutionists. To quote them, "Open up your eyes and look around."

[Redcloak]

The Bible did not make that claim. Furthermore, at a time when people pictured the Earth resting on the shoulders of giants or the backs of turtles, the Bible stated that the Earth was suspended upon nothing; i.e. floating in space. The shape of the Earth is also described as circular or spherical. (The Hebrew word in question could be used for either shape.)

How about beating up on Christians for what we actually believe rather than what you think we believe?

[jayef]

I have a friend who works at Subway and another friend who drives a bus. They both laugh at creationists. To quote them, "some people revel in their ignorance and blindness".

[Liberal Classic]

What Patterson says is by looking at a fossil it is not possibe to determine if you are looking at a direct ancestor, or a some sort of branch or offshoot. Direct ancestry cannot be determined from fossil evidence; that's for comparitive genomics. We're not going to find direct transitions because in order for this to occur we would need fossils every parent, child, and subsequent descendent. Of course, such a thing is impossible. However, this is convienent for the supporters of creationism to latch on to, because they get to imply evolution is impossible and they get to quote a palaeontologist as saying something that sounds like transitions don't exist. By reading Patterson's actual work it is clear he doesn't believe this. Also, if you read the statement by Patterson, he explains himself how his words were surreptitious record and twisted against his will.

[dread78645]

Feduccia explained that most primitive vertebrate hand structures were like that of humans: five-fingered. Somewhere in the evolutionary process, both dinosaurs and birds lost two of those digits, leaving three behind.

"The question is, which three? In dinosaurs we know it's the thumb and the next two fingers," he said, something experts call the "1-2-3" morphology. But the study's third author, Dr. Richard Hinchliffe -- a recognized expert in vertebrate limb development -- "points out that there are five different assessments showing that the bird hand has the three middle fingers left," the "2-3-4" morphology, Feduccia said.

Digit Order

[Oztrich Boy]

I have a friend who works at Subway and another friend who drives a bus. They both laugh at creationists.

You arguing from the fallacy of "Appeal to Authority"

[jayef]

What you believe is not in question. What was once orthodoxy is.