Malachi has brought up some points that I feel the need to address. I’m afraid the conclusions made and assertions presented are based on faulty information or possibly a lack thereof. One of the biggest contributors to people rejecting evolution seems to be holding a distorted idea of what evolution is, how it works and much of the evidence involved which supports the theory. Anyhow, I’ll address a couple of the posts.
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Originally Posted by Malachi
Acctually this was not true Palantologist are now eating crow. Instead of a "true missing link" connecting dinosaours and birds, the specimen appears to be a composite, its unusual appending likley tacked on by a Chinese farmer, and it is not EVOLUTION.
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This was a fossil specimen that was found to be a hoax by researchers. This has lead the community to be even more diligent in their scrutiny of unearthed specimens. However, there is no shortage of specimens showing affinities between theropods and what we would consider those of the class Aves. One of the most famous is
Archaeopteryx. It is a link between a type of small dinosaur and modern birds. The morphology of the fossil shows both bird and dinosaur traits. This matter was been hotly debated for many years since its discovery in the late 1800's - was it a dinosaur or a bird? However within the past decade, many other feathered (or with feather-like structures) dinosaurs have been found such as
Sinosauropteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, Caudipteryx, Confuciusornis and many others (Chen, Dong, and Zhen, 1998; Ji and Ji, 1997; Hou, Zhou, Martin & Feduccia 1995). A specimen of
Archaeopteryx reported in 2005 was an exceptionally preserved fossil which allowed for detailed examination of the morphology. The dinosaurian features it shared with other theropods were a non-avian osteology, hyperextendible second toe like that found in dramaeosaurs as well as no fully reversed toe (Mayr, Pohl and Peters, 2005). This, amongst many other aspects of the specimens of
Archaeopteryx solidify its place as an urvogel.
The
Archaeoraptor incident was motivated by monetary gain – no notoriety. The discovery and description did not appear in any peer-reviewed scientific journal – in fact papers submitted to
Nature and
Science were rejected (Dalton, 2000) - but in
National Geographic and the story behind it was told months later in that periodical as well noting the motivations behind the fossil’s construction (Simons, 2000). This was simply a scam for profit and the overzealousness of an amateur fossil hunter. Scientists were the ones who exposed it as a hoax.
There is ample evidence to show the link between theropod dinosaurs and the Aves class. Even experimentation has elucidated much in this area. Researchers examining the
Shh (sonic hedgehog gene) expression pattern showed that a small change in the pattern in modern chickens to resemble that found in alligators induces archosaurian teeth to develop (Harris, Hasso, Ferguson and Fallon, 2006).
I could go on with more information but I believe my point has been made.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malachi
The fact that there has never been a transition of a species found prooves it to be nothing more than a false theory. OK look at it this way The first bird did it breath? Did it breath before it evolved lungs? How did it do this? why did it evolve lungs if it was happily surviving without them? How did it know what needed to be evolved if its brain hadn't evolved yet? Did the bird have a mouth? How did it eat before it evolved a mouth? Where did the mouth send the food before it evolved a stomach? How did the bird have energy if it didn't eat (because it didn't yet have a mouth)? How did it see what to eat if it hadn't yet evolved eye's? now can you see why evolution is intellectual suicide. It is an embarrassment.
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I’m afraid you are confusing evolution with development. They are two completely different things my friend. What we call “birds” evolved from small theropod dinosaurs sometime during the Jurassic – they did not appear
ex nihilo – that is what creationists claim.
So, to answer your questions – yes, they did have lungs and mouths, stomachs and brains as well as eyes.
Also, you may want to evaluate the idea of “transitionals”. In essence, all fossils are transitional in that they all fall somewhere on a continuum. And this continuum has many, many branches – not one singular line, hence the analogy of a shrub or a “tree” of life. One need only look at an evolutionary lineage found in the fossil record such as the Chesapecten scallops or trilobites (Pojcta and Springer, 2001). Also, the continual asking for “transitional” specimens can become problematic. If someone asks “where is the fossil to fill in the space between two samples”, and one is presented, then there are now two spaces which “need” to be filled and so on and so forth. It comes close to Zeno’s paradox of the archer and shows the fundamental misunderstanding some hold about this theory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malachi
Also dinosours bones are corbon dated but hey all come up to be only a few thousand years old and scientist dicard the answers and put what they desire also you didint even answer my questions about the forst bird so please if your so sure about evolution then explain to me how it came to be by reading my questions.THNX
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Carbon dating utilizing the unstable C14 isotope is not utilized for specimens of what we would colloquially call “dinosaurs”. C14 isotopes have a specific half-life (5730 years to be exact) and even with amplification techniques – it is not useable for specimens, say in the range of 180 million years ago – Jurassic period - the specimens are carbon deficient. Someone on another board compared it to trying to weigh an 18-wheeler truck with a regular bathroom scale which only goes up to 300 pounds.
The upper bound is about 60,000 years for C14 dating. Other methods are utilized for dating such specimens such as Potassium/Argon dating (Monroe and Wicander, 2001; Plummer, McGeary and Carlson, 2003). Relative and absolute methods are utilized together in most instances to reach the most accurate date for specimens.
References (in order of appeareance):
Chen, P., Dong, Z., Zhen, S. (1998). An exceptionally well-preserved theropod dinosaur from the Yixian Formation of China.
Nature, 391, 147-152.
Ji, Q. and Ji, S. (1997) A Chinese archaeopterygian, Protarchaeopteryx gen. nov. William Downs (Trans.)
Geological Science and Technology (Di Zhi Ke Ji), 238, 38-41.
Hou, L., Zhou, Z., Martin, L., and Feduccia, A. (1995). A beaked bird from the Jurassic of China.
Nature, 377, 616-618.
Mayr, G., Pohl, B. and Peters, S. (2005). A Well-Preserved Archaeopteryx Specimen with Theropod Features.
Science, 310, 1483-1486.
Dalton, R., (2000). Feathers fly over Chinese fossil bird's legality and authenticity.
Nature 403, 689-690.
Simons, L., (2000). Archaeoraptor fossil trail.
National Geographic, 198(4), 128-132.
Harris, M., Hasso, S., Ferguson, M. and Fallon, J. (2006). The Development of Archosaurian First-Generation Teeth in a Chicken Mutant.
Current Biology, 16, 371-377.
Pojcta, J. and Springer, D. (2001).
Evolution and the Fossil Record. Alexandria: American Geological Institute.
Monroe, J. & Wicander, R. (2001).
Physical geology: Exploring the earth. (4th ed.).Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole.
Plummer, C., McGeary, D. & Carlson, D. (2003).
Physical Geology. (9th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.