Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Sat nite at the the movies: A friend finds this video on how feathers evolved implausible

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Which probably guarantees it’ll be taught to schoolchildren.

What you think? Readers’ thoughts appreciated.

Comments
Maybe dinosaurs and birds descended from feathers.johnp
December 16, 2013
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Maybe dinosaurs descended from birds.jerry
December 15, 2013
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“For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from,” Ruben said. “That’s a pretty serious problem,(...)"
This sheds more light on the workings of evolution: we have to distinguish between vertical, horizontal and 'BIT' (back in time) gene transfer.Box
December 15, 2013
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The Evolution of Birds and Flight: It's impossible Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yS-r83aw6k ********* Evo-Illusion Book http://www.amazon.com/Evo-Illusion-Why-IID-Trumps-Evolution/dp/1483661660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387113523&sr=8-1&keywords=evo-illusionmelvinvines
December 15, 2013
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a few notes: The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction. - Storrs Olson curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Fossil Evidence - video and notes http://vimeo.com/30926629 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Feathers - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yeNoDCcBg "The first and most complete fossil of archaeopteryx, found in 1855, was misidentified as a flying pterodacylus for 115 years. The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended." Bye Bye Birdie: Famed Fossil Loses Avian Perch - Oct. 2009 Richard Dawkins Dumps the Fossil Record - May 18th, 2013 Excerpt: The dumping of the Archaeopteryx as a missing link between birds and reptiles by palaeontologists during the late twentieth century, however, was gaining solid support. According to Larry Martin, an American vertebrate paleontologist and curator of the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center at the University of Kansas, the “Archaeopteryx is not ancestral of any group of modern birds.” Missing link status of the Archaeopteryx is only an illusion; a “once upon a time” story according to Henry Gee a British paleontologist and evolutionary biologist and senior editor of the prestigious journal Nature. Abandoning the Archaeopteryx as a transitional link was actually only a tip-of-the-iceberg of the larger fossil record problem for evolution. Geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig of the Max-Planck Institute in Germany in the book entitled The Evolution of the Long-Necked Giraffe, like Dawkins, candidly points to the fact that a “gradual series of intermediates in Darwin’s sense has never existed and hence will never exist.”,, http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2013/05/richard-dawkins-dumps-the-fossil-record/ Jerry Coyne's Chapter on the Fossil Record Fails to Show "Why Evolution is True" - Jonathan M. - December 4, 2012 Excerpt: Another paper published in the Journal of Morphology raises a further problem for the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs (Quick and Ruben, 2009). The paper reports, "Although crocodilian lung and cardiovascular organs are markedly less specialized than the avian heart and lung air-sac system, all living archosaurs possess four-chambered hearts and heterogeneously vascularized, faveolar lungs. In birds, normal lung function requires extensive, dorsally situated nonvascularized abdominal air-sacs ventilated by an expansive sternum and specially hinged costal ribs. The thin walled and voluminous abdominal air-sacs are supported laterally and caudally to prevent inward (paradoxical) collapse during generation of negative (inhalatory) pressure: the synsacrum, posteriorly directed, laterally open pubes and specialized femoral-thigh complex provide requisite support and largely prevent inhalatory collapse. In comparison, theropod dinosaurs probably lacked similarly enlarged abdominal air-sacs, and skeleto-muscular modifications consistent with their ventilation. In the absence of enlarged, functional abdominal air-sacs, theropods were unlikely to have possessed a specialized bird-like, air-sac lung. The likely absence of bird-like pulmonary function in theropods is inconsistent with suggestions of cardiovascular anatomy more sophisticated than that of modern crocodilians." Science Daily further explains, It's been known for decades that the femur, or thigh bone in birds is largely fixed and makes birds into "knee runners," unlike virtually all other land animals, the [Oregon State University] experts say. What was just discovered, however, is that it's this fixed position of bird bones and musculature that keeps their air-sac lung from collapsing when the bird inhales. Warm-blooded birds need about 20 times more oxygen than cold-blooded reptiles, and have evolved a unique lung structure that allows for a high rate of gas exchange and high activity level. Their unusual thigh complex is what helps support the lung and prevent its collapse. "This is fundamental to bird physiology," said Devon Quick, an OSU instructor of zoology who completed this work as part of her doctoral studies. "It's really strange that no one realized this before. The position of the thigh bone and muscles in birds is critical to their lung function, which in turn is what gives them enough lung capacity for flight." However, every other animal that has walked on land, the scientists said, has a moveable thigh bone that is involved in their motion -- including humans, elephants, dogs, lizards and -- in the ancient past -- dinosaurs. The implication, the researchers said, is that birds almost certainly did not descend from theropod dinosaurs, such as tyrannosaurus or allosaurus. The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely held beliefs about animal evolution. "For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from," Ruben said. "That's a pretty serious problem, and there are other inconsistencies with the bird-from-dinosaur theories." But one of the primary reasons many scientists kept pointing to birds as having descended from dinosaurs was similarities in their lungs," Ruben said. "However, theropod dinosaurs had a moving femur and therefore could not have had a lung that worked like that in birds. Their abdominal air sac, if they had one, would have collapsed. That undercuts a critical piece of supporting evidence for the dinosaur-bird link. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/jerry_coynes_c067021.html The claim that Sinosauropteryx had proto-feathers - July 2012 Excerpt: This paper does not question the value of scientifically meritorious identifications of melanosomes, as indeed of collagen and keratin, in interpreting the integumental structures of fossil animals. However, allegations of phaeomelanosomes (proto-feathers) in Sinosauropteryx are shown to be without scientific merit. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2012/07/18/the_claim_that_sinosauropteryx_had_proto Another Flap Over Dinosaur Feathers - October 31, 2012 Excerpt: The photo of 1995.110.1 shows only dark criss-cross markings on the bone that they “inferred to be traces left by shafted feathers.” They don’t bear any resemblance to actual feathers. This means that only one fossil had the carbonized impressions extending from parts of its forelimbs at some distance from the bones, leaving plenty of leeway to speculate about what they were, or whether they had any connection to the animal. Yet their artwork shows the adult with fully-fledged wing feathers, barbs, barbules and all, and even multiple colors!,,, There’s no way this specimen can have anything to do with the origin of avian flight. The authors did not even try to connect it to flight. http://crev.info/2012/10/another-flap-over-dinosaur-feathers/ “Feathers give no indication that they ever needed improvement. In fact, the “earliest known fossil feather is so modern-looking as to be indistinguishable from the feathers of birds flying today.” Yale University’s Manual of Ornithology—Avian Structure and Function More Vindication for Jonathan Wells - October 8, 2012 Excerpt: Feduccia calls Berkeley dino-bird advocate Kevin Padian "the Elmer Gantry of the theropod crusade," criticizing Padian both for his public advocacy of the dino-bird hypothesis (that's the Elmer Gantry aspect) and for his scientific work. In that respect, Feduccia fully supports Jonathan Wells's critique of the dino-bird theory. He concludes with this: "Small wonder the Creationists are thriving and thoroughly enjoying much of the junk science introduced into the current dino-bird debate. [p. 10]" http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/more_vindicatio065031.html “The whole notion of feathered dinosaurs is a myth that has been created by ideologues bent on perpetuating the birds-are-dinosaurs theory in the face of all contrary evidence” Storrs Olson - curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History The Archaeoraptor Fraud of National Geographic Magazine (In 1999) Excerpt: "The idea of feathered dinosaurs and the theropod origin of birds is being actively promulgated by a cadre of zealous scientists acting in concert with certain editors at Nature and National Geographic who themselves have become outspoken and highly biased proselytizers of the faith. Truth and careful scientific weighing of evidence have been among the first casualties in their program, which is now fast becoming one of the grander scientific hoaxes of our age---the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion." - Storrs Olson curator of birds at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Flight muscles - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdvkopOmw0 FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds - Skeletal system - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fZS_B6UW4bornagain77
December 15, 2013
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Good-freagin'-grief! At the end I was genuinely expecting to hear, "And they lived happily ever after."Jorge
December 15, 2013
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OT: The Shrouding of Origin of Life Research - Dec. 14, 2013 Excerpt: we’re up against these three or four paradoxes (for the origin of biological life), ,, The first paradox is the tendency of organic matter to devolve and to give tar. If you can avoid that, you can start to try to assemble things that are not tarry, but then you encounter the water problem, which is related to the fact that every interesting bond that you want to make is unstable, thermodynamically, with respect to water. If you can solve that problem, you have the problem of entropy that any of the building blocks are going to be present in a low concentration; therefore, to assemble a large number of those building blocks, you get a gene-like RNA — 100 nucleotides long — that fights entropy. And the fourth problem is that even if you can solve the entropy problem, you have a paradox that RNA enzymes, which are maybe catalytically active, are more likely to be active in the sense that destroys RNA rather than creates RNA.”,,, http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2013/12/the-shrouding-of-origin-of-life-research/bornagain77
December 14, 2013
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second feature: The operating system of life - animated protein robots - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JufLDxmCwB0 Notes: Venter: Life Is Robotic Software - July 15, 2012 Excerpt: “All living cells that we know of on this planet are ‘DNA software’-driven biological machines comprised of hundreds of thousands of protein robots, coded for by the DNA, that carry out precise functions,” said (Craig) Venter. http://crev.info/2012/07/life-is-robotic-software/ How we could create life - The key to existence will be found not in primordial sludge, but in the nanotechnology of the living cell - Paul Davies - 11 December 2002 Excerpt: Instead, the living cell is best thought of as a supercomputer - an information processing and replicating system of astonishing complexity. DNA is not a special life-giving molecule, but a genetic databank that transmits its information using a mathematical code. Most of the workings of the cell are best described, not in terms of material stuff - hardware - but as information, or software. Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/dec/11/highereducation.uk The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines "We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today,,, Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each which is composed of a set of large protein machines." Bruce Alberts: Former President, National Academy of Sciences; http://www.imbb.forth.gr/people/aeconomou/documents/Alberts98.pdf Problems with the Metaphor of a Cell as "Machine" - July 2012 Excerpt: Too often, we envision the cell as a "factory" containing a fixed complement of "machinery" operating according to "instructions" (or "software" or "blueprints") contained in the genome and spitting out the "gene products" (proteins) that sustain life. Many things are wrong with this picture, but one of the problems that needs to be discussed more openly is the fact that in this "factory," many if not most of the "machines" are themselves constantly turning over -- being assembled when and where they are needed, and disassembled afterwards. The mitotic spindle...is one of the best-known examples, but there are many others. Funny sort of "factory" that, with the "machinery" itself popping in and out of existence as needed!,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/problems_with_t062691.htmlbornagain77
December 14, 2013
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Video shows development of feathers through progression of several dinosaurs. And then acknowledges that "exactly how feathered dinosaurs took flight is still a bit of a mystery". The word "evolved" is used many times, but the process of how they evolved is ignored - no mention of random mutations. Guess I just have to agree it sure is amazing what evolution can do! It's like ... miraculous!Piltdown2
December 14, 2013
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Straight out of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.Mario A. Lopez
December 14, 2013
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