Posted: Nov 05, 2018 6:05 pm
Wortfish wrote:Jayjay4547 wrote:If you haven't come across that notion before, remember that you heard it first from a creationist.
If one can dedicate a thread to someone, I dedicate this one to Jonathan Wells. Although, in his Icons of Evolution I think Wells was wrong to pour scorn on the idea that some non-flying dinosaurs had feathers. Dinosaurs might well have had feathers because they were descended from flying critters, like the ostrich is. It's seldom a good idea to pour scorn on an idea; an idea can be right or wrong or maybe partly right. To pour scorn is just to the express the crowd position.
The prospect that dinosaurs might be descended from flying critters back in the Triassic, comes from the perception that dinosaurs had somehow learned the trick of making a strong and yet light skeleton; something that mammals never learned, (except for bats). As exhibit, I plan to drop in a pic of giraffe neck vertebrae, compared with those of argentinosaurus.
Many pitfalls face the prediction that such a fossil will be found in the Triassic beds. It could even be wrong but it would be marvelous if true; that a particular lineage repeatedly budded species that shuffled between flying and walking. How creative our Creator!
No. Birds are not descended from dinosaurs. They are descended from smaller tree-dwelling archosaurs.
