Birds

I'm not familiar with the argument that it's "upside down." Could you show us?

So we can agree that no dinosaur had feathers, but all birds have the keeled breastbone?
Are there any others you'd like to add?

We can't use muscles or blood vessels, since both dinosaurs and birds have them. And not only birds have wings, so we can't use them, either.

Are you sure this is all that separates dinosaurs and birds?

Dinosaurs have those, too. Unless you can be more specific.

That could be the case. Could you be specific which tendons and ligaments, and which attachments?

You mean, perhaps hollow bones with air passages in them?

When you answer these questions, I'll make a list, and see how it matches up. You can, of course, add or remove items when you see the list. Then we can make an estimate.

 

Galatian you are trying to say there is no difference between the circulation pattern of a dinosaur and a bird? Are you trying to say the breast bone of a dinosaur and a bird are the same? Are you trying to say the musculature of a dinosaur is the same as a bird's? Or that the nerve connections are the same? Are you trying to say that no mutations at all were necessary to get from dinosaur to bird?

If mutations were needed, please, how many did it take?

 

I am asking you to specify which circulation patterns are found in all birds, and were never in dinosaurs. For example, if you are claiming retes only occur in birds or only occur in dinosaurs, then we have a way to specify an essential difference. Specify.

I'm asking you to specify in what measurable ways the breast bones of all birds are different than the breastbones of all dinosaurs. When you've done that, we have another factor to account for. Tell me what you think.

See above. Tell me what features of musculature are found always in one, and never in the other. That will be another feature to account for.

See above. If you can pull this off, we'll have quite a list to account for.

Well, that's what we're trying to find out. When we know the essential differences between them, we'll be able to say.

Depends on the number of features you can find that are always in one, and never in the other.

Let us know, and we'll be able to make an estimate. I'm not trying to mess with you here. It's not a question scientists seem to have asked, and on reflection, I think it's worth pursuing.

 

I should add...

I'm not trying to lay a trap, but there is a trap of sorts you could build for yourself. You should be very careful about laying down the essential defining characteristics of each, because if they aren't truely defining characteristics, it would mean no mutation would be required.

If you want to take some time to be sure, feel free to do it. I know I'd want to check my work carefully.

 

Just get me from a dinosaur to a bird, however you do it. Don't ask me to do your work for you.

 

If you can't define the difference, what makes you think there is one?

Because the transitionals are so finely graded, it's very difficult to say what is a bird and what is a dinosaur.

I'll freely admit that I can't draw the line, either.

But if you can't, and I can't, what makes you think there is one?

 

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. Why do humans and dinosaurs not appear at the same time in the fossil record?

That's not even a question supporting evolution. It's a simple question. Why can I not get a simple answer?

 

Galatian, if there is no difference then you don't need transitionals. Apart from that, I'll let the thread stand the way it is. Any child can see the ridiculousness and evasiveness of your responses.

 

You don't think there's a difference between primitive dinosaurs and birdlike ones? What about primitive birds and advanced ones?

If you can't even provide a clear way to distinguish all dinosaurs from all birds, what makes you think there is an essential difference?

You mentioned a breastbone. Start there. What about the breast bone of birds makes a clear difference with dinosaurs?

Then we can talk about the other differences.

 

Quit sidestepping, Galatian. How many mutations from a dinosaur that is called a dinosaur to a sparrow?

 

I'd say quite a lot for a highly evolved bird like a sparrow.

I thought you meant how many mutations would it take to go from a dinosaur to a bird.

Quite a different question. That would be "how many mutations to go from the most birdlike dinosaur to the most dinosaurlike bird?" As you see, it's very hard to even tell me how to distinguish the two reliably.

The Passerida are a branch of the "perching birds" or Passerine Birds, which are members of the Passiformes, which is a subgroup of one of the two major divisions of "modern birds", the Neornithes.

So that would be a rather bad example. Let's see if we can tighten the search a little. Do you think that Archaeopteryx is a bird? If so, perhaps you could tell us what features of that animal are representative of birds, but never found among the dinosaurs. You mention a deeply keeled breastbone. Is that a good feature? How about air sacs in bones?

Don't give up on this. It could be a good way to test the idea.

 

Quite a few mutations to get to a sparrow. OK. How many is 'quite a lot' -- a few thousand? Half a million? What are we talking about here for this highly evolved bird?

 

But we're trying to see how many to get from a dinosaur to a bird. Using a highly evolved bird doesn't tell us anything. It merely tells us how much birds have evolved from the that evoved from dinosaurs.

Certainly less than it took to get from a primitive reptile to Compsognathus; birds are much closer to any dinosaur than any dinosaur is to a turtle. Not long ago, they got a little T-rex hemoglobin and it turned out to be closer to that of birds than any reptile tested.

But let's get back on the question. We were trying to figure out how many mutations it would take to make a bird of a dinosaur.

I know you're uncomfortable with the process, but to do this, we have to define the dividing line between dinosaurs and birds.

You're reluctant to do it, and I would be too. It's not an easy task. But if it doesn't work out the way you like it, I wouldn't mind if you tried again.

So what features do you think are on all dinosaurs, but absent from all birds, and what features do you think are on all birds, but absent from all dinosaurs?

When you get that, we can answer the question. If you think it's impossible to define the differences rigorously, then the answer is "0".

This is why most scientists now think that birds are dinosaurs; there's no good separation between them.

Feduccian and Olson are the holdouts who think it should be spread out so that it includes thecodonts, with dinosaurs and birds having a common theocondont ancestor.

 

funny, I always thought a sparrow was a bird. Please feel free to get from a dinosaur to a vulture, if you like. Or an eagle. Or a penguin. Or even a dodo. What about an ostrich?

If you don't think there are any differences between a dinosaur and any of these birds, then we can leave this thread here and let any readers see where you ended up.

Up to now all you have been doing is playing word games. If you didn't want to get serious about the subject of mutations, all you had to do was say so.

 

I feel the goalposts shifting...

All you have to do, is define a bird in terms of characteristics that differentiate birds from dinosaurs.

By now, it appears you've realized that you can't do it. And that's a good answer.

Remember, you have to find how all dinosaurs differ from all birds, not how any particular bird differs from another.

I think we should throw this one open and see if anyone else would like to try the challenge. Can anyone show even one characteristic by which all birds differ from all dinosaurs? Helen and I can't do it. Can anyone else?

If we don't define what we mean, then we can't even begin. How hard could it be to rigorously define dinosaurs as opposed to birds?

Very hard, as you seem to now realize.

I'm very serious. Let's see if anyone else can do it.

 

Which is why scientists now think dinosaurs and birds form a clade, with all other reptiles as the outgroup.

 

"more like" is not the "same as."

Aside from Galatians flat out lies about what I have said or implied (which is not uncommon for him), I leave the rest to the other readers to see what is going on. To my mind, calling birds and dinosaurs the same sort of thing is an act of desperation.

On another forum, I was asked why, if people have free choice, they choose wrong so often. The point the writer was making was that God must be stupid or incompetant or not there at all. My response included the thought that the more 'educated' and 'intelligent' the person, the more often the wrong choices seem to be made. I presume that is because common sense gets thrown out with one's pride in one's intelligence and education a good percentage of the time.

If there are any readers out there following any of this who don't feel they are intelligent enough to comment, don't worry about it. Common sense is enough to see what is going on. You can trust that. Don't let all the word play and other garbage intimidate you into thinking you don't have what it takes to know the truth or to recognize the truth when you see it.

UTE, Galatian, I'm done with this thread. You two have totally betrayed the very brains God gave you.