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Living dinosaurs
abc.net.au ^
| 9/30/2002
Posted on 10/01/2002 8:32:43 AM PDT by SteveH
News in Science
News in Science 30/9/2002 Living dinosaurs
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s687677.htm]
If we are to believe the message of a new exhibit demonstrating the evolutionary transition from dinosaurs to birds, dinosaurs are not extinct.
Four life-sized reconstructions of ferocious-looking, smart-thinking, flesh-eating feathered dinosaurs – representing 125 million-year-old missing links between dinosaurs and birds – have landed at the Australian Museum in Sydney as part of the Chinese Dinosaurs exhibition.
"The birds we see flying around our backyards are actually living dinosaurs, descendants of prehistoric beasts we all once presumed became extinct 65 million years ago," said museum director, Professor Mike Archer.
"But feathers were evolving as dinosaur attributes long before they became valuable as flight structures," he said.
"Indeed fossils uncovered in the Liaoning Province of China have provided a whole sequence of missing links in the dinosaur to bird story."
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Model of Sinornithosaurus smillenii (pronounced 'sine-or-nith-oh-saw-rus mill-en-ee-eye) made by Alan Groves working with palaeontologists Drs Walter Boles and Sue Hand.
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One of the earlier links is Sinosauropteryx prima. The creature is covered with what looks to be a fine fuzz but are really small barbs – a link between scales and feathers.
"It's a metre-long, meat-eating, ground-dwelling predator, closely related to the dinosaur in Jurassic Park II which ate the little girl on the beach," said Professor Archer.
He speculated these very early feathers were probably for insulation since this group was almost certainly warm blooded.
The Sinornithosaurus millenii (top picture) embodies a later link.
"This is a very vicious little predator about a metre long. But here the feathers are much larger – although they're not fully formed or capable of flight," said Professor Archer.
An interesting characteristic of the creature was its capacity to lift its arms over its head in a flapping motion. Professor Archer said scientists assumed its array of feathers had a purpose – to frighten predators, help capture prey, attract mates or threaten male competitors.
The next stage – the development of feathers for flight – is seen in creatures like the Archseopteryx, a smaller animal than Sinornithosaurus millenii with longer and assymetrical feathers.
While there has been some debate as to whether dinosaurs (unlike other groups of reptiles) are the ancestors of birds, Professor Archer believes since 1996 there has been no strong argument against the hypothesis.
"I don't know anyone who is still holding out on this one," he said. "Other than the creationists of course who don't want anything to be ancestral to birds."
Chinese Dinosaurs is open until February next year. The dino-bird exhibit is sponsored by The Australian Skeptics.
Anna Salleh - ABC Science Online
More Info?
British Natural History Museum Dino-Birds Exhibition
Missing link from fur to feathers – News in Science 27/4/2001
Dinosaur fossil with proto-feathers – News in Science 8/3/2001
Dinosaur-bird theory defended – News in Science 24/11/2000
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© ABC 2002 | privacy
TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: birds; crevolist; dinosaurs; evolution; paleontology
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To: VadeRetro
Specious science---rights...
all kinds of segregation and discrimination cases---
class action suits/awards---ACTIONS!
To: RadioAstronomer
I like this explanation...
"Though the sentiment is obviously inane, Mr. Trilling's hubris, and that of liberals in general, was perhaps understandable in light of the fact that he wrote at the precise midpoint of the long liberal interregnum that prevailed from the presidency of Herbert Hoover (1928) until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The position of Left intellectuals of that day seems somehow reminiscent of the famed little old lady who told a physics lecturer that all he had said about the heliocentric universe was rubbish because :"
'The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.'
"The scientist gave a superior smile before replying,"
'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
"Trilling and company, perched on the middle tortoise, assumed it must be tortoises all the way up and down. As Russell Kirk amply demonstrated, they were as wrong as she."
"As Russell Kirk amply demonstrated, they were as wrong as she."
Real funny...
it must be tortoises(evolution/atheism) all the way up and down.
Did you ever study Western Civilization---American History?
Maybe if you did...you wouldn't be so distracted---confused!
To: RadioAstronomer
Evolution is a criminal conspiracy
ROTFLMAO!
98 posted on 10/1/02 7:00 PM Pacific by RadioAstronomer
The master race in Germany ended in a bunker in berlin!
To: PatrickHenry
I got tired of all the dodges, the persisent amnesia for every previous thread, and having his slop bucket dumped over my head whenever he's cornered and having an attack of Holy Warrior Syndrome, that feeling of cognitive dissonance that says,
"He wouldn't let me down, so why is this happening? There's some reason I'm not wrong, but I need to cover with some kind of distracting barrage while I figure out what it is."
I try to swear off answering him but sometimes I just have to whack him with the ol' 2 x 4.
To: All
[We evolution types interrupt this thread to bring you the following important message:]
George W. Bush is the greatest! Down with bolshevism! Defeat the socialistic dems! Win back the Senate! God bless America!
[And now, let the thread continue ... ]
To: PatrickHenry
Total--only evolution...NO COMPETITION!
To: PatrickHenry
ONE science/god/nation...satan!
To: All
Welcome!
Free Republic is an online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!
To: VadeRetro
Having been cornered so badly, the only recourse of that person is to appeal to bigfoot to get the thread deleted. It will happen. There's a rhythm to these things.
To: PatrickHenry
You're the rat in a corner!
To: PatrickHenry
Whay's your motto...explurbus unum!
To: PatrickHenry
Maybe someone else will show up and start pinging AdminModerator on every post while crying about how the other side is always getting threads deleted. (Nah! It could never happen!)
To: SteveH
"The birds we see flying around our backyards are actually living dinosaurs, .." How come these evolutionary scientists can be such self-promoting goofballs? Would it not also be true that since we descend from some primitive self-replicating virus, and since we are still (gasp!) living, humans, therefore, are actually living viruses?
Geeks can be so stupid.
To: RadioAstronomer
Well you must have missed the orbits/circle/ellipse arguments then. He misses everything, and sees what isn't there. Morton's Demon.
To: f.Christian
"Though the sentiment is obviously inane, Mr. Trilling's hubris, and that of liberals in general, was perhaps understandable in light of the fact that he wrote at the precise midpoint of the long liberal interregnum that prevailed from the presidency of Herbert Hoover (1928) until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980...Hey! What did you do to Ike?
To: <1/1,000,000th%
My favorite poster...
Ike and Tina---
Tina Turner and Dwight D. Eisenhower!
To: Ahban; VadeRetro; general_re; Junior; gore3000
You got him on that one, but you are still down about 15-5 in the threads I've seen.For those of us scoring the rounds at home, its not nearly this close. Vade is waaay ahead.
The evos in these arguments are trying to argue a scientific position, from observation to theory. The Creationist/ID'ers are still struggling with definitions of basic terms and are unable to deal with the observations other than to attempt to define them away. "A wing's not a wing unless its on a golden eagle".
Although the ID'ers have recognized some of their limitations, they have yet to put forward anything based on observations that might be called a theory.
The Creationists are in about a million different camps and can't agree which Bible to quote or how literal they need to be. No wonder there are over 250 Christian Churches in the US (I confess to being a Christian and I blame the literalists).
My scorecard has Vade with a lead that "can't easily be counted".
To: RadioAstronomer; VadeRetro
RA would it make you feel any better if I counted that one and said 15-6? Well, at any rate YOU are the astronomer so it would be surprising if an amateur could compete with you in your specialty.
I don't even want to get hung up on what we each think the record is, I just want to get back to debating the real issues, not who is a coward or whatever.
The win-loss estimates are mostly matters of opinion anyway. I suppose if you define victory as "showing what looks like a graduated series, even if we know that some forms in the series do not belong in there" then I guess Vade is up 20-0. Maybe 19-1 because of that origin of life thread. OR did you have the good sense to not entangle yourself in that one much? At any rate, the main point is actaully debating the facts, not whose mamma wears combat boots.
118
posted on
10/01/2002 7:53:13 PM PDT
by
Ahban
To: <1/1,000,000th%
D. Axelrod, Science 128:7-
"One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution is the occurrence of diversified, multi-cellular marine invertebrates in Lower Cambrian rocks on all the continents and their absence in rocks of greater age."
"their absence in rocks of 'greater' age."
The 'greater' age in layers exists if you think the layers formed from the top!
At one pt. the whole of the Earth was hot cooling from the surface in successive layers from below---outward!
Nothing missing in those layers---no mystery!
These invertebrates can only exist above ground level...in water/air---not underground!
To: <1/1,000,000th%
Geologic columns/dating...what about the massive canyon on mars---no water/erosion!
The size---circumference of the Earth has gotten smaller(although at certain pts. it could have been changing/variable).
During initial collapse(center heating/condensing) large ridges---mountains(large rocky...vast/fast soil erosion) would protrude upwards!
Land wouldn't form evenly...continents would remain at higher levels above water level then plates would dry out(releasing water/moisture/rain)---shrink producing cracks/fissures---then layered-canyons/basins/ravines...via cooled and hot sediments would form(rise/uplift) as the shrink/sink-ing would continue...producing more mountains/hills(slight-no erosion)--'volcanoes' continously---to fill the receding excessive gaps/holes!
At the Grand Canyon older sedimentary levels are at the top and the fresher/newer ones below...those straight up 'buttes' came out of hole--soft spots in the plates like cake decorations---Ayre's Rock like a bubble in a blown tire.
All that erosion/sedimentary crap old age of the Earth is hooie-dooie!
There is not enough dust on the moon to support an old earth dating system!
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