Also note that byofrcs mentioned the crimimal Harun Yahya.

Compare this:

Johan/Polyani wrote:It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its beak, the problem is that the teeth was not the same as the teeth found on theropod dinosaurs, Archaeopteryx had unserrated teeth which are vastly different from the serrated teeth of theropod dinosaurs and besides Ichthyornis dispar is also another extinct bird which had teeth and yet was 100 percent bird. These traits do not imply that the creature bore any kind of relationship to reptiles. With regards to the claws on its wings, two bird species living today, the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches, yet these creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics.

with this:

slimeball Yahya wrote:It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its mouth, but these traits do not imply that the creature bore any kind of relationship to reptiles. Besides, two bird species living today, the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches. These creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics. That is why it is completely groundless to assert that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form just because of the claws on its wings.

(again, I'm withholding the link to the slimeball; but google will turn it up if you want it)

So, steal the creationist's sentences word for word, but stick a few conjunctions in between, and -- surprise, surprise -- Polyani can tell himself that he's not committing the crime of theft. Theft is such a harsh word, isn't it. Borrowing research material to show the Darwinists the errors of their ways sounds so much more gentile, doesn't it.

Of course, he's stealing from a crook here, so maybe we should just forgive him this time

For a summary of Archaeopteryx reptilian features: All About Archaeopteryx.

Moridin wrote:For a summary of Archaeopteryx reptilian features: All About Archaeopteryx.

Thanks for the link to the facts.

Hey Polanyi, please answer this basic question : Why do birds have a non-expressed gene for making teeth similar to the teeth in dinosaur->bird transitional fossils? Why is it that birds would have such a vestigial gene?

Que evasions and /ignore in 3.. 2.. 1.

Oh, I see people have already raped his bullshit with reference to work done by actual paleontologists. Oh well...

Polanyi wrote:Archaeopteryx: why evolutionists have to let go
By Johan

Fine. No problem.

We can even discount the entirety of the fossil record.

That does not affect the remainder of the mountain of evidence that supports evolution. The fossil record is only one piece of evidence.

So why don't you try to learn some of the basics of what you are talking about instead of just spouting more verbal diarrhea?

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Nature isn't extact or organised even. Classification is very much a human construction. Nature falls on a continuum though. Because of this, there will always be argument as to when one thing clasifies as a bird and when it classifies as a theropod or anything else and the entirety of nature will never tidily fit into human classifications.

This is actually bollocks (ironically what preceeded it wasn´t). Classification has been abandoned in favour of systematics quite some time ago. Phylogenetic systematics to be precise. There are hard rules there, as we always talk about monophyletic clades. A clade contains an anecstor and all descendents of that ancestor. There´s no arbitrarity to that scheme, because there always is a correct answer to the question: is species X a descendent of species Y or not?

Now, brids are defined as all descendents of the common ancestor of Archaeopteryx and Columba. So Archeopteryx is a bird. Dinosaurs are defined as all descendents of Columba and Triceratops if memory serves. This also means that Archaeopteryx is a dinosaur (and so are chickens). There´s no ambiguity there, every ancestral species defines a clade to which all decendents belong. Every species belongs to a couple of clades and often a rather large number. Apart from a bird and a dinosaur, Archaeopteryx is also an amniote, a diapsid, an archosaur, a chordate, vertebrate, tetrapod, theropod... All birds are theropodes (because the common ancestor of all birds was a theropod).

GenesForLife wrote:Just to show you that feathers aren't an issue either

Current controversy over the origin and early evolution of birds centres on whether or not they are derived from coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs. Here we describe two theropods from the Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous Chaomidianzi Formation of Liaoning province, China. Although both theropods have feathers, it is likely that neither was able to fly. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that they are both more primitive than the earliest known avialan (bird), Archaeopteryx. These new fossils represent stages in the evolution of birds from feathered, ground-living, bipedal dinosaurs.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 753a0.html

If I had access to the full paper it would be quite a bitchslapping headed your way.

Fieldwork in the Early Cretaceous Jehol Group, northeastern China has revealed a plethora of extraordinarily well-preserved fossils that are shaping some of the most contentious debates in palaeontology and evolutionary biology. These discoveries include feathered theropod dinosaurs and early birds, which provide additional, indisputable support for the dinosaurian ancestry of birds, and much new evidence on the evolution of feathers and flight. Specimens of putative basal angiosperms and primitive mammals are clarifying details of the early radiations of these major clades. Detailed soft-tissue preservation of the organisms from the Jehol Biota is providing palaeobiological insights that would not normally be accessible from the fossil record.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 01420.html

Of course, the very fact that an evolutionary model can be proposed to account for such development in terms of the functional constraints that act upon any such feather precursors also poses problems for your cosmic knob jockey.

Developmental anatomical data are insufficient to discuss plausible intermediates between an ancestral, scaled, reptilian skin and appendage-bearing, avian skin. We also review adult tissue replacement and ubiquitous mechanisms underlying skin morphogenesis. Combining developmental data sensu lato with consideration of necessary biological roles permits evaluation of major form/function trends in skin evolution. New data on feathers reveal retention of the sauropsid synapomorphy of vertical alteration of {alpha}- and ß-keratogenesis. By identifying roles that were obligatorily maintained throughout evolution, we demonstrate constraints on hypothetical skin morphologies in preavian taxa. We analyze feather origins as a problem of emergence of complex form via modulations of morphogenesis. While existing data do not permit presentation of sequential, hypothetical, intermediates culminating in a plumage, the analysis: (1) implies that a protofeather and its follicle are most easily derived from isolated, flattened, elongate, reptilian scales; (2) explains diversification of feather morphs from a contour-like "basic" feather and the similarity between feather and hair follicles; and thus (3) reveals several developmental constraints on structures proposed as antecedent to avian feathers, whether hypothetical constructs or palaeontological interpretations. Although these conclusions do not depend on any previous scenario, they are consistent with Regal's (1975) model and the limited, fossil evidence, especially that of the "basal archosaur" Longisquama.

The full paper, for those inclined, can be found here at http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/40/4/513

Link for full paper for both Nature articles :

Two feathered dinosaurs from northeastern China http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/faculty/philip_currie/uploads/pdfs/1998/1998Caudipteryx.pdf

An exceptionally preserved Lower Cretaceous ecosystem
http://webpages.fc.ul.pt/~maloucao/Zhou.pdf

Have fun guys

I think that Rachael was commenting on the creationists's minds being dicontinuous, rather than claiming pure continuity. Speciation is a little 'fuzzy' , because there is variation within populations as well as between species. In othe rwords, there will never be 100% interbreeding in a popluation, as barriers to interfertility will be constantly forming though natural selection, sexual conflict, drift, and so on.

Polanyi wrote:...besides Ichthyornis dispar is also another extinct bird which had teeth and yet was 100 percent bird...

100 percent bird? I wasn't aware "bird" was something that could be quantitatively measured...

Tell me, what is the SI unit of "bird"?

Polanyi wrote:...the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches, yet these creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics...

Circular reasoning.


You're saying birds have no reptilian characteristics, and yet you're defining "reptilian characteristics" in such a way that something (teeth, claws e.t.c) can't be a "reptilian characteristic" if something that is "bird" (as defined by you) has it.

Therefore according to you, a bird can't have a reptilian characteristic, because if a bird has it, then it is a bird characteristic, and therefore not a reptilian characteristic.
So even if a bird was discovered tomorrow that was cold-blooded, and had a forked tongue and a Jacobson's organ, you would just say that cold-bloodedness, and Jacobson's organ's were now "bird characteristics", because there is now a bird that has them.

Which boils down to, "birds can't have reptilian characteristics, because they're birds"

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:

Polanyi wrote:...besides Ichthyornis dispar is also another extinct bird which had teeth and yet was 100 percent bird...

100 percent bird? I wasn't aware "bird" was something that could be quantitatively measured...

Tell me, what is the SI unit of "bird"?

The short-hand biological rule is this: if it has feathers, it is a bird.

Archaeopteryx is a bird, but it is also a mosaic of avian and reptilian features.

Creationists tend to use the "if it has feathers, it is a bird" principle out of context, and say that since
Archaeopteryx is a bird, it cannot be an organism with a mosaic of avian and reptilian features. This is an invalid deduction.

The short-hand biological rule is this: if it has feathers, it is a bird.

...like this:

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:

Polanyi wrote:...besides Ichthyornis dispar is also another extinct bird which had teeth and yet was 100 percent bird...

100 percent bird? I wasn't aware "bird" was something that could be quantitatively measured...

Now, if he'd started talking about the clade that includes the aves we might have something to talk about. (I'm reminded of Bonnie Raitt at this point).

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:
Tell me, what is the SI unit of "bird"?

Whatever you need it to be at the moment! Isn't it obvious? It's all so simple when you look at it from the right view point and with an open mind. Oh, sorry, I had a Poe-like train of thought there, to provide the means to highlight how such a question as you presented here is moot. The ability to define, or properly express such terms is outside the skill set education level of your opposition (in general). I've yet to see good ID/YEC/CS data supported by peer reviewed publication arise from such questions. I have witnessed quote mining and misrepresentation of said publications, but under close examination it all falls down.

For the record, I can't generate such either, and the reason is in the nature of the question, isn't it?

Polanyi wrote:...the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches, yet these creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics...

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:Circular reasoning.

Isn't it just?

Horwood Beer-Master wrote:
snip...

Which boils down to, "birds can't have reptilian characteristics, because they're birds"

Ha

EXCELLENT!

RS

PS

I need to put together a follow on posting about the diversification of dinosaurs AFTER they established themselves (thanks Hack ), since I was quoted in this thread about the rise of said critters. This would, of course, address this supposed issue about the split, if indeed there is one, between maniraptorian theropods and the non-avian theropods. Again this boils down to the posting by Horwood Beer-Master. Give me some time folks, I don't work at home any more and weekend time is gold. Cali has already whipped the issue to death though, so (HINT) Maybe he, or others, can cite a previous posting wherein he drained it from WAY downtown. I'm WAY too lazy to look for it on a fine Saturday morning such as this.

Polanyi wrote:Rachel this is false, it's feathers were distinctly asymmetrical and structurally similar to the modern day birds, and it's bones were hollow like that of other birds.

And that's an utter bullshit objection, per usual, since Microraptor was known to have asymmetrical feathers as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microraptor

Don't forget the fact that dinosaurs had hollow bones too:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/science/pr ... l_0609.php

Dare I say "durrrrr"?

Ta muchly Rumraket.

Rachel Bronwyn wrote:Dare I say "durrrrr"?

Go ahead. We can start a chorus.

hotshoe wrote:Conservapedia Archaeopteryx page - I'm withholding the link to deny them google legitimacy. Polyani on the other hand is withholding the link for some other reason. Not a legitimate reason.

Just put the link in code tags rather than url tags. That will stop any spiders from recognising it as a hyperlink.

Polanyi wrote:Other things to consider, Archaeopteryx had fully formed flying feathers (including asymmetric vanes and ventral, reinforcing furrows as in modern flying birds), the classical elliptical wings of modern woodland birds, and a large wishbone for attachment of muscles responsible for the downstroke of the wings.

By the way...



(Hopefully the butterfly with forgive me for stealing one of his favorite lines.)

What exactly are creationists looking for in the way of "half this kind half that kind" which would be convincing?