The Question of Flight Feathers

Forums: Evolution, Science
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Consider the flight feather:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studyingbirdsi/feather_detail.gif

Radically different from the normal feathers which birds use for insulation over most of their bodies, flight feathers require structural strength to bear weight and they need to be able to pivot so as to open on upstrokes and close again on downstrokes. Without all of that, flight feathers are worthless.

Evolution on the other hand requires that every step from dirt to birds result from some combination of random chemical processes, mutations, and "natural selection".

Flight feathers might be the worst case there is for Darwinism. Assuming it were somehow possible for down feathers to evolve into flight feathers ala Darwin, how are they going to evolve only on wings where they are needed, and not on the bird's head, his stomach, or his ass?? What kind of mutation is going to produce flight feathers only on the places where the proto-bird will need them to become a bird?????

Chuck Darwin:

Quote:

"If it could be exhibited that any complex organ was, which could not maybe have been organised by numerous, successive, little adjustments, my theory would utterly break down."

Guess what, Chuck? Yo dumbass theory be utterly broken down...

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Type: Discussion • Score: 2 • Views: 1,887 • Replies: 16

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@gungasnake,

I find it amazing that you figured this out and no one else has brought it up and gone public with this. You should do so and reap the rewards

1 Reply

Who says that a ancestor bird didn't have these feathers on their head and ass? That's a pretty big assumption. You're revealing how little you know about evolution. The feathers do not have to evolve to a purpose. They aren't designed to fly. Rather, flight is a product of a birds that developed these kinds of feathers, or perhaps, the best flyers developed these kinds of feathers.

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

...I bet now you did confuse him even further... Mr. Green

0 Replies

Intelligent comments will be replied to, ignorant comments voted down...

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Good god. Next you'll be telling us that eyes can't evolve either.

0 Replies

@Seed,

Inside academia the "reward" for figuring anything like this out has always been getting ostracized and black-balled.

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

Quote:

What kind of mutation is going to produce flight feathers only on the places where the proto-bird will need them to become a bird?????

Hmm..
Simple enough to answer gunga.
A creature that doesn't get them on the wings would not be able to escape predators as well.
A creature that gets them over their entire body would no longer be protected from the cold.

So.. proto birds that developed them on the wings and not the body would be more likely to survive and pass along the mutation.

1 Reply

@parados,

http://www.amfirstbooks.com/IntroPages/artwork_index-main_page/Have_You_Been_Brainwashed.246x246.gif

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

I see you have no answer..

Hmm..

I'll bet you were too busy taking your brain washed test.

1 Reply

@parados,

Having insulation feathers mutate into flight feathers ONCE would be a probabilistic miracle of gargantuan proportions but what you're saying happened was that this miracle occurred multitudinous times, giving natural selection a vast field from which it could select just those bird wannabes with flight feathers on only the places which needed them.

Do you take stupid pills??

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

No, I didn't say it did it multiple times.

I stay out of your medicine cabinet.

1 Reply

@parados,

Your own words:

Quote:

A creature that doesn't get them on the wings would not be able to escape predators as well. A creature that gets them over their entire body would no longer be protected from the cold.

Yet you claim all of that can happen with just one mutation changing insulation feathers into flight feathers???

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

He doesn't say one mutation, only that mutation would provide a fit to an environment where your greatest threats where the cold and a predator that flying would provide an escape.

The introduction of said predator species could happen over a long period of time, along with a change in climate or migration to a new region. Given many generations, birds with the fittest genes to these parameters would successfully pass on their genes, while other birds without these genes would struggle to survive. Over time, the gene pool would fit the niche more and more.

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

Quote:

He doesn't say one mutation...

That's GOOD. Because even one mutation which ever changed ordinary insulation feathers into flight feathers would be a probabilistic miracle. Again however, in that case, a double miracle is needed in order to get the flight feathers only on the wings where they were needed.

2 Replies

@gungasnake,

You need to reduce your intake of stupid pills gunga.

0 Replies

@gungasnake,

It hardly needs a double miracle.
It only needs circumstances that favor that mutation.

0 Replies

The Question of Flight Feathers

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