El Diablo: Think you could just post a link to the image source rather than skew up this whole page with its hugeness?
Quote:Actually, I think most people on this thread are pretty honest with their opinions. I know I am, and I'm pretty sure about Farmerman and a few others.
I see little profit from in engaging in an intellectual discussion with an opinion one does not truly hold, other than a study into debate technique and concept. I speak my mind, plain and simple.
Quote:Or are you demonstrating another of your beliefs that things which are not observable can be tested?
Ouch. Harsh, but very true.
Quote:REX welcome to a2k.
Thank you very much. I'm beginning to become accustomed to this place.
Quote:Wha do you mean by your critique of evolution? Is kinda vague.
Well, let's jump into the discussion about Archaeopteryx. Do you think its existence supports evolution as some sort of "missing link"?
Alan Feduccia, a world authority on birds at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an evolutionist himself, disagrees with assertions that Archaeopteryx is a missing link:
"
Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that."
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. Its brain was essentially that of a flying bird, with a large cerebellum and visual cortex. The fact that it had teeth is irrelevant to its alleged transitional status-- a number of extinct birds had teeth, while many reptiles do not. Furthermore, like other birds, both its maxilla and mandible move. In most vertebrates, including reptiles, only the mandible moves.
Archaeopteryx was a bird-- not a reptile, not a transitory between reptiles and birds...it was a species of bird.
This conclusion in turn defeats other organisms traditionally used by evolutionists in their arguments for dinosaur-to-bird evolution. For example, many news agencies reported in June of 1998 on two fossils found in Northern China that are claimed to be feathered theropods. The fossils, Protarchaeopteryx robusta and Caudipteryx zoui, are claimed to be "the immediate ancestors of the first birds. Those discoveries, however, are "dated" at 120 to 136 million years, while Archaeopteryx, already proven to be a true bird, is "dated" at 140 to 150 million years...making these "bird ancestors" far younger than their descendants.
Feduccia's colleague, University of Kansas paleontologist Larry Martin, commented on this saying: "You have to put this into perspective. To the people who believe this, the chicken would be a feathered dinosaur." Feduccia and Martin, rather, believe that Protarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx are more likely to be flightless birds similar to ostriches. They have bird-like teeth and lack the long tail seen in theropods. Caudipteryx even used gizzard stones like modern plant-eating birds, but unlike theropods.
And the lack of scientific basis goes on and on. As Feduccia points out, there are many problems with the dinosaur-to-bird dogma:
"
It's biophysically impossible to evolve flight from such large bipeds with foreshortened forelimbs and heavy, balancing tails, exactly the wrong anatomy for flight."
There is also very strong evidence from the forelimb structures that dinosaurs could not have been the ancestors of birds. A team led by Feduccia studied bird embryos under a microscope, and published their findings in the journal
Science. There findings were reported as follows:
"New research shows that birds lack the embryonic thumb that dinosaurs had, suggesting that it is 'almost impossible' for the species to be closely related."
Your thoughts? I can always provide the original sources for the quotes and stuff if you'd like to request them, since in this forum of debate I would assume that is of importance. Your call, though.
