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Birds With Ornamental Eyespots Have Unlikely Neighbors

Posted on Author Cornelius Hunter Comments(3)
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When a peacock spreads out its train the feathers form a huge display. Near the end of each feather is a colorful, circular object that looks something like an eye and the feathers are positioned just right so that the eyes, or ocelli, are beautifully arrayed across the entire display. The iridescence of the eyes comes not from the material itself, which isn’t colorful, but from its finely-tuned nanostructure which reflects the light to produce the different colors. Such eye-spot feathers are found in three different bird genera and according to a new evolutionary analysis of their genetics, they would likely share a common ancestor as has always been expected by evolutionists. There’s only one problem. The analysis also finds that other bird genera that are without these ornamental eyespots, are also closely related to these genera that do have eye-spot feathers.  Read more

3 Replies to “Birds With Ornamental Eyespots Have Unlikely Neighbors”

  1. 1
    bornagain77 says:
    July 24, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    A few notes:

    When Dinosaurs Flew – February 4, 2014
    Excerpt: A study published online by PeerJ on Jan. 2 detailed the examination of a startlingly complete and pristine specimen of an ancient, dinosaur-era bird: Hongshanornis longicresta, which flapped throughout what is now China roughly 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period.
    This particular specimen, discovered a few years ago in rocks from northeastern China, is the latest example of the unexpected diversity of primitive birds that have been unearthed from that part of the world.,,,
    Roughly 90 percent of the skeleton is complete, with wings and tail so finely preserved that the outlines of feathers and what may be dark color bands on the tail can still be seen. That high level of preservation — particularly around the wings and tail — has allowed the team to perform an aerodynamic analysis of the bird, revealing how it likely flew.
    Michael Habib, assistant professor of research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, analyzed the shape of the wings and tail and determined that the bird “flitted about,” bouncing through the air with bursts of flapping.
    The flying style is far closer to that found in modern birds than what was supposed of ancient flyers — which have been thought to rely more on gliding due to a lack of enough muscle mass in flying appendages to achieve flapping bursts.
    “This isn’t a mode of flight we expected from Cretaceous birds,” Habib said, adding that its small size and overall shape are comparable to that of modern birds. “It was pretty much a Cretaceous starling with a larger tail like a mockingbird.”
    Transported to the modern world, it wouldn’t look like anything special to the casual observer, until a closer examination revealed claws at the end of the bird’s wings and tiny teeth in its beak.,,,
    http://dornsife.usc.edu/news/s.....aurs-flew/

    News for the Birds – May 7, 2014
    Excerpt: Yanornis is called an ancestor of birds, but PhysOrg reported on April 18 that a fossil found in China shows that “the digestive system of the ancestors to modern birds was essentially modern in all aspects.”,,,
    But if it was already “essentially modern” in the ancestors, and already integrated with the flight systems, where is the time for natural selection to have supposedly produced it?
    http://crev.info/2014/05/news-for-the-birds-2/

    Darwin’s Legacy – Donald R. Prothero – February 2012
    Excerpt: In four of the biggest climatic-vegetational events of the last 50 million years, the mammals and birds show no noticeable change in response to changing climates. No matter how many presentations I give where I show these data, no one (including myself) has a good explanation yet for such widespread stasis despite the obvious selective pressures of changing climate.
    http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/12-02-15/#feature

    More Fossil-Molecule Contradictions: Now Even the Errors Have Errors – Cornelius Hunter – June 2014
    Excerpt: a new massive (phylogenetic) study shows that not only is the problem (for Darwinist) worse than previously thought, but the errors increase with those species that are supposed to have evolved more recently.,,,
    “Our results suggest that, for Aves (Birds), discord between molecular divergence estimates and the fossil record is pervasive across clades and of consistently higher magnitude for younger clades.”
    http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....s-now.html

    Darwin ‘Wrong’: Species Living Together Does Not Encourage Evolution – December 20, 2013
    Excerpt: Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution set out in the Origin of Species has been proven wrong by scientists studying ovenbirds.
    Researchers at Oxford University found that species living together do not evolve differently to avoid competing with one another for food and habitats – a theory put forward by Darwin 150 years ago.
    The ovenbird is one of the most diverse bird families in the world and researchers were looking to establish the processes causing them to evolve.
    Published in Nature, the research compared the beaks, legs and songs of 90% of ovenbird species.
    Findings showed that while the birds living together were consistently more different than those living apart, this was the result of age differences. Once the variation of age was accounted for, birds that live together were more similar than those living separately – directly contradicting Darwin’s view.
    The species that lived together had beaks and legs no more different than those living apart,,,
    ,,,there is no shortage of evidence for competition driving divergent evolution in some very young lineages. But we found no evidence that this process explains differences across a much larger sample of species.,,,
    He said that the reasons why birds living together appear to evolve less are “difficult to explain”,,
    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/darwi.....on-1429927

    Darwin’s Finches Show Rule-Constrained Variation in Beak Shape – June 10, 2014
    Excerpt: A simple yet powerful mathematical rule controls beak development, Harvard scientists find, while simultaneously preventing beaks from evolving into something else.,,,
    We find in Darwin’s finches (and all songbirds) an internal system, controlled by a non-random developmental process. It is flexible enough to allow for variation, but powerful enough to constrain the beak to its basic form (a conical shape modulated by scaling and shear) so that the rest of the bird’s structures are not negatively affected. Beak development is controlled by a decay process that must operate at a particular rate. It’s all very precise, so much so that it could be modeled mathematically.,,,
    The very birds that have long been used as iconic examples of natural selection become, on closer examination, paragons of intelligent design.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....86581.html

  2. 2
    bornagain77 says:
    July 24, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    The Grants (who studied Darwin’s finches) made a long presentation at Stanford in 2009 on their work. It is available for all to see on the internet. In it they give the game away. All the so called Darwin finches can inner breed. Doesn’t happen much but it does happen and they have viable offspring that reproduce. Here is the link:

    Darwin’s Legacy | Lecture 5 – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMcVY__T3Ho

    To save you some time. Start at about 109:00 and follow Rosemary for a few minutes till at least 112:00. Then go to 146:30 and listen to Peter. Before this is the inane prattle by two of Stanford’s finest who do not understand that the Grants are saying that the whole evolution thing is a crock.

    Video playlist of different birds: Rare Glimpses of Amazing Birds-of-Paradise Courtship Rituals – video playlist
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIYkpwyKEhY&list=PLgSpqOFj1Ta4xHFM4kKR4VTW8CJmPNNNA&index=3

    Jim Al-Khalili and the Quantum Robin – video
    According to Quantum Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, the phenomenon Quantum Entanglement in Robins is “nothing short of miraculous.”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jepgOQEvWT0

    Verse, and Music:

    John 14:4-5
    “You know the way to the place where I am going. Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

    Alison Krauss-Gillian Welch – I’ll Fly Away – music video
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdRdqp4N3Jw

  3. 3
    bornagain77 says:
    July 24, 2014 at 5:31 pm

    A mural on moth wings
    Excerpt: It’s the only mimic insect I know that paints an entire scene. It looks like a watercolor. Two red-eyed muscomorph flies feed from fresh bird droppings, complete with light glinting off their wings. I’ve never seen anything like it!
    http://www.myrmecos.net/2011/0.....oth-wings/

    Fruit fly with the wings of beauty – July 2012
    Excerpt: But a closer examination of the transparent wings of Goniurellia tridens reveals a piece of evolutionary(?) art. Each wing carries a precisely detailed image of an ant-like insect, complete with six legs, two antennae, a head, thorax and tapered abdomen.
    http://www.thenational.ae/news.....-of-beauty

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