Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

Languishing in a cheap temporal motel, adjacent to an astral drive-in theatre, the mystery engine bemoaned its burdens.

RS

Wortfish wrote:

smaller tree-dwelling archosaurs.

Which would include dinosaurs? Remember that they are archosaurs, which means that they have a diapsid skull and lay eggs, as they are amniotes as well. Birds and theropod dinosaur skeletons are pretty damn similar as far I'm concerned. And their morphology as well is quite similar. All birds have scales. So do many dinosaurs. There is a lot of similarities that they share with theropods that your explanation of "smaller tree-dwelling archosaurs", simply doesn't cut it.

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

By "doltish" skeleton I meant, one that proved that it could not be taught by circumstances to become much different than how it was back in the Triassic period. Looking at the cladogram on the previous page, while the Ornithodia kids became sauropods and birds and so on, the Pseudosuchia kids all looked a lot like lizards.

As to why on all powerful Creator would have built creatures with doltish skeletons, you can ask her that yourself.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

By "doltish" skeleton I meant, one that proved that it could not be taught by circumstances to become much different than how it was back in the Triassic period. Looking at the cladogram on the previous page, while the Ornithodia kids became sauropods and birds and so on, the Pseudosuchia kids all looked a lot like lizards.

As to why on all powerful Creator would have built creatures with doltish skeletons, you can ask her that yourself.

As to why something could not be taught, consult the features of 'teachability', and don't mix your metaphors, such as "doltish skeleton" or "taught by circumstances", when you mean "selected". Could you be more ignorant than you think I think you are? How about more ignorant than you think you are?

Selection seems to be a pretty hard lesson to learn. The dolty-ist amongst us can’t seem to come to grips. No bones about it.

felltoearth wrote:No bones about it.

A skeletal questions, patella no lies.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

By "doltish" skeleton I meant, one that proved that it could not be taught by circumstances to become much different than how it was back in the Triassic period. Looking at the cladogram on the previous page, while the Ornithodia kids became sauropods and birds and so on, the Pseudosuchia kids all looked a lot like lizards.

As to why on all powerful Creator would have built creatures with doltish skeletons, you can ask her that yourself.

Her ?

Cito di Pense wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

By "doltish" skeleton I meant, one that proved that it could not be taught by circumstances to become much different than how it was back in the Triassic period. Looking at the cladogram on the previous page, while the Ornithodia kids became sauropods and birds and so on, the Pseudosuchia kids all looked a lot like lizards....

As to why something could not be taught, consult the features of 'teachability'

In the human context, teaching typically happens in the context of an institution that carries a lot of knowledge like a school or university. People come there to gain some of that knowledge. By gaining knowledge they gain the ability to do things they could not do before. In the natural context, Nature carries know-how embodied in individual living things. In the course of generations, those living things have come to embody more and more know-how. The word “teach” is quite appropriate for this directed process.

Cito di Pense wrote: and don't mix your metaphors, such as "doltish skeleton" or "taught by circumstances", when you mean "selected".

Those aren’t metaphors let alone mixed ones, nor are they covered by the term “selected”. I used them intentionally. The adjective “doltish” implies unteachable or in this context, being unable to adapt in a needed direciton. I used the phrase “taught by circumstances” to emphasise the role of teaching in the biological creation and the externality of the agency. For example, the creation of the first flying tetrapods might have followed the circumstance of there being the first forests, providing things to eat “at heights” with potential shortcuts from one tree to the next.

Cito di Pense wrote:Could you be more ignorant than you think I think you are? How about more ignorant than you think you are?

Gosh you leave me there Cito.

aban57 wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
As to why on all powerful Creator would have built creatures with doltish skeletons, you can ask her that yourself.

Her ?

If one looks towards what is greater than the species and is an agent of Creation, the first thing encountered is “Nature” and that is typically gendered as female. Maybe because Nature is fecund.

Jayjay4547 wrote:Nature carries know-how embodied in individual living things. In the course of generations, those living things have come to embody more and more know-how.

I really think you should elaborate this a bit more. I think a book-length treatment might be adequate. Or you could skip the "knowing" bits, which are your interpretation of what you see, basically extracted from you-know-where, and just make the observation that living things do what living things do.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

SkyMutt wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:All the others had doltish skeletons and so did their kids.

What is a "doltish skeleton" and why would the almighty, all knowing, all powerful "Creator" have built such a thing?

By "doltish" skeleton I meant, one that proved that it could not be taught by circumstances to become much different than how it was back in the Triassic period. Looking at the cladogram on the previous page, while the Ornithodia kids became sauropods and birds and so on, the Pseudosuchia kids all looked a lot like lizards.

Given that lizards and a lizard-like skeleton have an extremely long and successful track record, I think your characterization as "doltish" is arbitrary and ill-conceived. Innumerable other skeletons (including many types that you apparently believe were "clever") have come and gone while Pseudosuchians have carried on. How embarrassing!

theropod wrote:Languishing in a cheap temporal motel, adjacent to an astral drive-in theatre, the mystery engine bemoaned its burdens.

RS

You may be interested in this paper: Hypothesis: Avian flight originated in arboreal archosaurs gliding on membranous wings https://peerj.com/preprints/27213/

The oldest feathers known to date have been found in archosaurs capable of flight. However, some of them (scansoriopterygids) flew by the use of a membrane rather than feathers. We therefore propose a new mechanism for the origin of avian flight by the use of membranous wings on both the forelimbs and the hindlimbs. It complements Beebe’s (1915) prediction of the tetrapteryx stage. Paleontological and embryological evidence suggest that feathers are a modification of reptilian scales. Scansoriopterygids were covered mostly by down-like feathers which seemingly acted as thermal isolation rather than being adapted for flight. Certain early birds, including scansoriopterygids, possessed elongate shafted tail feathers, which were probably used principally for display and resembled elongate scales. We suppose that display is the primary function of early feathers, which were preadapted for thermal isolation and also flight. The body of theropods was covered mostly by typical reptilian scales, yet some ornithischian dinosaurs possessed filamentous integumentary structures which might have had a comparable display function. However, it is doubtful that these structures in dinosaurs were homologous with avian feathers. Early birds probably shared with theropod dinosaurs an incipient endothermy, which was inherited from their common ancestor in the Triassic Period.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Were dinosaurs descended from birds?

If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.

Oh ok, I'll remember that!

I'll shove it in the warehouse full of other whacky things Creationists say.

Spearthrower wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Were dinosaurs descended from birds?

If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.

Oh ok, I'll remember that!

I'll shove it in the warehouse full of other whacky things Creationists say.

Explain to me how cursorial dinosaurs took to the skies.

Wortfish wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Were dinosaurs descended from birds?

If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.

Oh ok, I'll remember that!

I'll shove it in the warehouse full of other whacky things Creationists say.

Explain to me how cursorial dinosaurs took to the skies.

They threw themselves at the ground and missed.

Durr.

Wortfish wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Were dinosaurs descended from birds?

If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.

Oh ok, I'll remember that!

I'll shove it in the warehouse full of other whacky things Creationists say.

Explain to me how cursorial dinosaurs took to the skies.

I didn't claim that, I speculated that cursorial dinosaurs were descended from flying creatures, this gave dinosaurs a design edge over for example mammals, and that ever since the descendants of those early fliers have alternated between flying and running as the system of relationships with other beings offered one or other opportunity.

But I don't insist on that.

Jayjay4547 wrote:

Wortfish wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Jayjay4547 wrote:
Were dinosaurs descended from birds?

If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.

Oh ok, I'll remember that!

I'll shove it in the warehouse full of other whacky things Creationists say.

Explain to me how cursorial dinosaurs took to the skies.

I didn't claim that, I speculated that cursorial dinosaurs were descended from flying creatures, this gave dinosaurs a design edge over for example mammals, and that ever since the descendants of those early fliers have alternated between flying and running as the system of relationships with other beings offered one or other opportunity.

But I don't insist on that.

Look out, folks. Potential Battle of the Titans, here.

Tell the marveling throngs, JJ, what you DO insist on. That would be genuflecting to your favorite masturbation fantasy. That fantasy is the one in which you star as a savant who reveals the structure of life history. Fap, fap, fap.

Jayjay4547 wrote:the system of relationships with other beings offered one or other opportunity.

If you were insisting on that, you'd be insisting that your interlocutors dose up on your latest word-salad.

Wortfish wrote:Explain to me how cursorial dinosaurs took to the skies.

Pull down your pants and hop up and down on one leg while singing Gentille Alouette for me.

Fenrir wrote:
They threw themselves at the ground and missed.

They fell over while gravity wasn't looking.

Jayjay4547 wrote:
I didn't claim that, I speculated that cursorial dinosaurs were descended from flying creatures, this gave dinosaurs a design edge over for example mammals, and that ever since the descendants of those early fliers have alternated between flying and running as the system of relationships with other beings offered one or other opportunity.

But I don't insist on that.

You don't?

Really?

You typically insist on whatever drools out of your front flaps.