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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
I'm gone too.
To: VadeRetro
I'm warming up for the archaeologist...gonna wager everything---the whole farm on one bet!
Prove the age---composition of the earth---no possible ties!
How and why mountains were formed---THE PROOF/prediction!
To: f.Christian
It's a Schroedinger thing. Half the time the cat's here, half the time, elsewhere.
To: VadeRetro
A flying Batman? Never being allowed a home port to post in?
To: Doctor Stochastic
It's therre or it isn't---no in between!
To: Axenolith
bttt
To: f.Christian
You might give some thought to quantum entanglement.
Sometimes it's all in between.
To: Doctor Stochastic
This is totally non abstract...physical---provable!
To: Doctor Stochastic
Gotta an errorand...be right back!
To: f.Christian
Geologic column---dating?? From the evolution textbook...
Why does it look like it does(grand canyon)?
So I guess no low angle subduction causing isostatic uplift of the Colorado Plateau?
To: f.Christian
What if the sedimentary layers are thicker than the potential maximum height of the adjacent source area? Wouldn't that be called a butte!
WHAT? The point is, if you have a sedimentary basin with more sediments than the potential maximum height of the source land the the source land HAD to have underwent uplift.
To: Axenolith
That's possible too...
but that doesn't mean below ground layering on plates---
and canyon cracks expansion/layering didn't happen either!
Few more minutes on the 'BIG' question/challenge---TEST!
Hope I don't disappoint you!
To: Axenolith
Uplift is fine...that is what my question/theory is all about!
To: Axenolith
Seismology---tests...
can prove/disprove the age of mountains and the Earth...
or at least my theory about them!
Below the ground...there is a plate---DETECTABLE
that matches the perimeter of every mountain---range...
proving the mountain/hills(appalachia types/large openings)...
were formed from beneath---via the plate openings...
and resulted in triangular pointing up extruded masses with plate parts/residue on top.
The tops of the mountain/plateaus/buttes would match the original opening/crack in the plates!
The bottoms of the mountain would match where the plates stopped...
probably still touching!
Raised valleys stuck between mountains would have natural filling and resevoirs below them holding/trapping---water/gas/oil...ect.
A valley would be a central plate floor caught/floating/lifted from the mountains rising...
much higher than submerged plates around the mountains perimeter!
and canyons(small openings)...inverted mountains---the same way!
I am not talking about Himalaya/rocky type mountains whose origins are different...
but this whole evolution idea of erosion---sedimentary levels is bogus!
Post cambrian levels can also be explained by volcanic and flood layering that doesn't take billions of years to complete!
There is a plate---
that matches the perimeter
that is detectable that matches the slopes of all these mountain/hills!
There are always exceptions to the overall theory but basically earth topography is pretty much redundant/same!
Valleys plate tops...mountains/hills/canyons plate openings!
To: f.Christian
This is a major cause of earthquakes...
when mountains/hills stop forming but---
the plates continue to settle-crash!
To: Heartlander
PP was a previously banned freeper (medved) trying to sneak back on the threads. That was why he was banned.
336
posted on
10/03/2002 2:19:59 AM PDT
by
Junior
To: gore3000
The youngest of your quotes is 12 years old. What's the matter? Later material contradict your conclusions? Or were you unable to find anything more recent that could be misquoted effectively?
337
posted on
10/03/2002 2:33:20 AM PDT
by
Junior
To: Junior
talibanies!
To: Junior
Morning ... stretch ... scratch ... placemarker.
To: Junior
The youngest of your quotes is 12 years old. Those quotes all came after the discoveries of the Ediacaran fauna, long after. Therefore the effects of it on the theory of evolution had had plenty of time for researching if those discoveries solved the problem (for evolution) of the Cambrian explosion. They did not. Also the long passage at the start is quite recent, only a few years old and it shows again that the problems have not been solved.
As I stated a in my post, the problem of the Cambrian is insoluble for evolutionists. They cannot possibly show the descent of all those vastly different phyla from what came before. Worse of all, the Cambrian fauna appear fully formed. There is nothing like an intermediate to be found to anything that came before it. This is very strong proof against evolution. If that were not enough, there has not been a single new animal phyla that arose since the Cambrian. If evolution were to be true one would expect that in so many millions of years at least a few would have arisen.
Now it's time for the evolutionists here to show how this vast diversity arose from so little that preceded it, how the few predecessor species gradually transformed themselves into the vast multiplicity we see in the Cambrian. Evolutionists have been trying to do so for 150 years without success.
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