Taking Wing: A New View of the Origin of Bird Flight Emerges

Scientific American | 2002-01-10 | Kate Wong

[f.Christian]

Liberalism-evolution is factual trivia w/o a brain-soul(atheism)!

[PatrickHenry]

Liberalism-evolution is factual trivia w/o a brain-soul(atheism)!

Fundamendalism-creationism, topsoil, stratosphere, underarm, dental floss.

[f.Christian]

Well said for a fossil-chest thumper...swamp thing---you make my tail swing!!

[Ahban]

Your #17 is a good one. Also, if the text in Genesis means 'every winged creature' rather than just birds, I'd remind our audience that insects were about the first animals on land, and that they have wings from the get-go. The few insects today that do not have wings have almost assuredly lost them. So the words in Genesis that indicate winged critters filled the air even before unwinged critters filled the land surface, improbable as it seems to us, checks out.

I'd have to add to all that the hypothesis presented here does not make much sense. If wings were evlved to help a critter run up a tree in acting like spoilers, they would change so as to continually get better at holding the creature onto the tree, not allowing them to fly up in the opposite direction.

Don't have time to argue this thread today though. A pity, it'd be delicious.

I would hope that not even diehards like my esteemed sparring partners Vade and Junior would give this idea much credence. I realize that discrediting this idea is not the same thing as discrediting the evolution of birds. Still, if evolution is true, if all of those alleged 'transitionals' check out, then it had to happen SOME way. And all ways proposed to date seem very unlikely, as Medved notes.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Good point!

I had forgotten that phrase would include bugs.

[Junior]

This is a fairly plausible theory as to the evolution of avian flight. Where do you find problems with it, or do you just pooh-pooh anything evolution automatically?

[Ahban]

As I said before.....If wings were evolved to help a critter run up a tree they would change so as to continually get better at holding the creature onto the tree, not allowing them to fly up in the opposite direction.

I don't poo-poo evolutionary ideas automatically since I think quite a bit of adaptability was built into the prototypes of each family introduced into the biosphere. If bird wings evolved, I thought the 'started as stabilizers used while they lept after hopping insects' was the least absurd hypothesis. That does not explain the origin of feathers themselves though. They seem to spring up with the hook and barbule system already in place- except for fossils with down feathers which birds have today. How did the small biped dinos know they were going to need flight feathers?

That is a minor problem compared to proposing intermediates between the bird's continuous-throughput respiritory system and the in-out system of all other vertabrates.

[Junior]

A critter that used its wings to climb trees could begin flapping before it reached the tree. If such a critter became partially airborne at the time and becoming airborne assists in its survival, the critter is well on its way to avian flight. What is so difficult in envisioning such a scenario? Do you purposefully reject anything that crosses your mind that might bolster the evolutionary point of view or is your mind so disciplined that such scenarios never cross it in the first place?

[blam]

My fellow Alabamian, you're wasting your breath.

[Ahban]

That idea is a new one on me. I was commenting on the hypotheis mentioned in the article. The article proposed a scenario in which the wings developed to help a creature stick to the tree AS IT WAS MOVING UP. In other words, it the wings served as spoilers as the bird-thing ran up the tree. The pressure of the spoilers served to keep them pinned to the tree instead of falling off, as demoed by the poor little bird.

Wouldn't you agree that this is an unlikely scenario, and for the exact reason I mentioned?

[Junior]

The article was on the development of flapping, which is integral to avian flight and postulated it derived from the efforts of proto-birds to run up trees. Obviously you and I came away from the article with two different ideas.