Evolution - Who wants to KNOW?

This interesting image shows the bridges from synapsid reptiles to mammals in the ear and jaw bones. YOu can clearly see the bones moving towards mammillian positions over the years

"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."

What I clearly see are colourful pictures produced by Talkorigins that are open to one's own imagination!

Cynodont
Like Placerias, the cynodont is a mammal-like reptile. This means that, though technically a reptile, it does show a number of characteristics that we now associate with mammals. One of the clearest is the teeth. In the mouth of a reptile, the teeth are all pretty much the same shape but in a mammal they are 'differentiated', which means different teeth (e.g. molars, incisors and canines) are specialised for different jobs. Cynodonts, too, had differentiated teeth: 3 distinct types are visible in the fossils. The jaws of cynodonts also reveal mammalian characteristics. While reptile jaws are typically made up of 7 bones, mammal jaws only have one - the 'dentary'. Cynodont jaws were somewhere in between, with a reduction in the number of bones. These combined factors reveal that cynodonts were in fact ancestors of modern mammals, representing a transitional form from reptiles.

cynodont found in South Africa called Thrinaxodon. This had a very well preserved skull with fine holes in it, which have been interpreted as where nerves supplied whiskers. So, if they had whiskers (a specialised type of hair) then they would most likely have had hair too. (Hair again is a mammalian characteristic.)

In fact cynodonts were far enough down the road towards being mammals to imply that they would also have exhibited some aspects of mammalian behaviour. This is why, for instance, we have the babies suckling at the mother. But there is also a physiological reason for thinking they did. Mammary glands are thought to have evolved from enlarged sweat glands in the skin. Sweat glands are associated with hairy animals as it is an effective means of dissipating excess heat. If, as everyone believes, cynodonts had hair, then they must also have had sweat glands, and so could have evolved mammary glands. In the end we modelled the cynodonts' breast feeding on an Australian mammal called an 'echidna'. This is a primitive mammal (it still lays eggs) and rather than having nipples has 'milk patches'. (Since cynodonts were still a long way from being mammals, a primitive mammal is obviously a better model than an advanced one.)

I will say it again before you get the idea that evolutionists have archaeopteryx as a half-bird/reptile thing. Archaeopteryx is a bird; it is classified under the order Aves which is the avian order. However Archaeopteryx exhibits non-avian (as well as avian), more dinosaurian charactertics of which are listed on the link and many sites if you Google it. Ergo it is not "100% bird" but retains a link between birds and reptiles. As far as I'm concerned this issue has been put to rest.

I am a devotee of the standard norm of evolution in that a foundation species is the common ancestor of both birds and dinosaurs.

One of the main differences between early synapsids and early mammals is the position of bones in the jaw but the illustration shows how these bones moved from the synapsid's position into mammillian positions over a period of millions of years through various species.

That's amazing! A picture that shows bones moving over millions of years! I think it's your imagination that's doing the moving.

Or, as I like, Birds and Dinos came from a foundation ancestor, and included features of mosaic evolution

Quote:

Or, as I like, Birds and Dinos came from a foundation ancestor, and included features of mosaic evolution

Well, yeah, just about all evolutionists believe that birds evolved from some sort of reptile, even if they can't agree on the kind.

It is important to understand that the avian complex did not spring into being fully developed, it developed gradually in their theropod ancestors. It started with elongation and increased mobility, via well developed double heads of the posterior ribs in ceratosaurs. This trend increased in avetheropods, in which the anterior chest ribs also shortened, showing that ventilation was shifting from the lung itself to bellows action air-sacs. Ruben et al state that theropods "lacked an expansive sternum". In the real world that most of us live in, large ossified sternal plates -- at least as large as those of kiwis -- were described and figured in dromaeosaurs and oviraptors by Barsbold in 1983, and have been discussed and figured in many other publications! In an odd way this denial makes sense, in that Ruben et al 1997b use an out of date cross-section of the ribcage of a dromaeosaur -- based on incomplete disarticulated remains -- in a futile effort to deny/ignore the evidence provided by complete ribcages, that these near birds have large sternal plates. These big sternal plates articulated with the coracoids via a transverely long hinge joint which allowed the sterna to help ventilate the antero-ventral air-sacs. Ruben et al also ignore the ossified dromaeosaur sternal ribs published by Ostrom in 1969. They fail to mention the ossified uncinate processes present on the fighting Velociraptor. Why do not Ruben et al make any mention of the work by Britt (1994) or Reid (1996) showing that the pneumatic vertebrae of theropods are strongly indicative of the presence of pulmonary air-sacs? Fact is that advanced theropods had the most bird-like trunks of any tetrapods

Of course there is no "transitional" between a reptile and avian lung, for two reasons.

1. Any modern reptile or bird evolved, not one from another, but from a common ancestor. That common ancestor will not be entirely the same in its lung structure as either reptiles or birds.

2. There is no such thing as "the" reptile lung or "the" bird lung. It's not like they have a standard part that gets ordered from the factory. Each species has it's own version of a lung, and there will be differences.

Then you ask how a half-way lung could function. The answer of course is that it functioned very well in the animal that had it, even if it would not function well in either a bird or lizard.

And Michael Behe's IR thesis is mistaken. One way that functions can be added to irreducibly complex systems (like genetic-determined biochemical pathways) is by duplicating the genes so you have a "spare" copy to mutate and evolve, so it can replace the older IR system if necessary

No they don't. Most scientists think birds evolved from dinosaurs, not reptiles. There's a big difference.

However, reptiles and birds are very different in many ways.

True. I've already stated DINOSAURS ARE NOT REPTILES. Most evidences point that dinosaurs were warm-blooded anyway though that is debatable.

First of all Rex if you're going to COPY DIRECTLY from creationists.org you must at least cite them as a link.

We find one of the very basic lies used by Creationists is to ignore what Evolution actually IS.

Dinosaurs with feathers

That picture is "A model of what paleontologists believe a raptor with feathers would have looked like 120 million years ago."

The fossils are the evidence, not the model.

I could poop something out and call it Marylin Monroe, but the poop is the evidence, not what I say. It's all supposition, with no facts.

What, that it's actually a religion? Because that's what evolution really "IS".

Creationists.org? I got most of that information from Sarhati, a member of Answers in Genesis.