Changes
Bird
,Undo revision 451465 by [[Special:Contributions/JimBob61]] ([[User talk:JimBob61]])
[[Ostrich]]es, [[penguin]]s, and [[emu]]s are birds that don't fly, although penguins have sometimes been said to "fly" underwater. [[Robin]]s, [[sparrow]]s, [[cardinal (bird)|cardinal]]s, and [[eagle]]s are more typical flying birds.
== Creationary view ==
[[Creationism|Creationists]] contend that birds being descendants of [[dinosaur]]s is unreasonable and is not scientifically supported with any evidence.<ref>Sarfati, Jonathan, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3833/106/ Bird Evolution], chapter 4 of Refuting Evolution.</ref><ref>McIntosh, Andy, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/540/ 100 years of airplanes—but these weren’t the first flying machines!], ''Creation'' 26(1):44–48, December 2003.</ref>
They also point out that God could have created some dinosaurs with feathers, and therefore that finding feathered dinosaurs does not prove that dinosaurs evolved into birds.<ref>Matthews, Michael, [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/2775 ''Scientific American'' admits creationists hit a sore spot] 13th March, 2003 (Creation Ministries International)</ref>
Creationary scientist Dr. [[Jonathan Sarfati]] wrote regarding birds being descendants of dinosaurs:
{{QuoteBox|The same logic applies to the [[dinosaur]]-bird debate. It is perfectly in order for creationists to cite [[Alan Feduccia|Feduccia]]’s devastating criticism against the idea that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the cursorial theory). But the [[dino-to-bird]] advocates counter with equally powerful arguments against Feduccia’s ‘trees-down’ (arboreal) theory. The evidence indicates that the critics are ''both'' right — birds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-[[crocodile]]s. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all!<ref>Sarfati, Jonathan, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2610 15 ways to refute materialistic bigotry: A point by point response to Scientific American], Creation Ministries International</ref>}}
{{QuoteBox|It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one’s credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird’s feather) could be improved by random mutations.<ref>Brown, Walt, [http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes10.html In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood]</ref>}}
[[Scientific American]] stated:
{{QuoteBox|Of all the body coverings nature has designed, feathers are the most various and the most mysterious...The origin of feathers is a specific instance of the much more general question of the origin of evolutionary novelties--structures that have no clear antecedents in ancestral animals and no clear related structures (homologues) in contemporary relatives. Although evolutionary theory provides a robust explanation for the appearance of minor variations in the size and shape of creatures and their component parts, it does not yet give as much guidance for understanding the emergence of entirely new structures, including digits, limbs, eyes and feathers...<ref>Matthews, Michael, [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0313sciam.asp ''Scientific American'' admits creationists hit a sore spot], Answers in Genesis.</ref><ref>Prum, Richard O., and Brush, Alan H., [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CD7F6-B16F-1E41-89E0809EC588EEDF Which Came First, the Feather or the Bird?], ''Scientific American'', March 2003.</ref>}}
Another evolutionist critical of the dinosaur/bird connection is Storrs L. Olson, Curator of Birds at the [[National Museum of Natural History]] at the [[Smithsonian Institution]], who said: {{QuoteBox|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.<ref>Olson, Storrs L., [http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/3385/ Open letter], 1st November, 1999.</ref>}}
Since Olsen's open letter was published in 1999, however, numerous theropod fossils with clear evidence of feathers have been discovered<ref>Göhlich, U.B., and Chiappe, L.M. (2006). "A new carnivorous dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Solnhofen archipelago." Nature, 440: 329-332</ref>.
Creationist also assert that the comparative anatomy analysis done by evolutionists comparing bird bones and dinosaur bones is flawed.<ref>Menton, David N., [http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0328discovery.asp "Ostrich-osaurus" discovery?], Answers in Genesis.</ref>
== Evolutionary view ==
There are other claimed transitional fossils <ref>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1b.html#bird</ref> also.
There are many papers in the peer-reviewed science literature, including leading journals such as ''Nature'' and ''Science'' , that support the idea that birds evolved from are a sub-group of dinosaurs. For example:
{{QuoteBox|Several features, including a carinate sternum and reduced fibula, suggest that ''Mononychus olecranus'' is more closely related to modern birds than is ''Archaeopteryx lithographica''. The two skeletons are among the best preserved fossils known of a primitive bird, and emphasize the complexity of the morphological transformation from nonavialian theropods to modern birds. The occurrence of such a primitive bird in the Late Cretaceous reflects the paucity of Mesozoic bird fossils and suggests that the early radiation of avialians is only beginning to be sampled
<ref>''Nature'' 362, 623-626 ([[15 April]] [[1993]])</ref>}}
Since those words were written in 1993, however, many fossils of primitive birds and other theropods have been discovered, so it is no longer correct to consider the Late Mesozoic fossil evidence of this group as depauperate. === Taxonomy ===The conventional [[Linnaean taxonomy]] places birds in the Class Aves within the Subphylum [[Vertebrate|Vertebrata]]. [[Reptilia]], the conventional Class of reptiles, includes [[crocodile]]s and relatives, [[lizard]]s and [[snake]]s, [[turtle]]s, and the [[tuatara]]. However, birds and other, extinct [[dinosaur]]s should be grouped as [[archosaur]]s, along with the extant crocodiles and the extinct [[pterosaur]]s. Hence the conventional classification does not reflect the current state of evolutionary biology. [[Zoology|Zoologists]] continue to use Class Aves as the taxonomic group of birds but recognise that it is a sub-group of the Superorder Dinosauria, which in turn is a member of the group Archosauria, including crocodiles and pterosaurs. The higher classification of reptiles (including birds) is not fully resolved but a common view is that current evidence indicates that the archosaurs (including birds) are a sister group of the lepidosaurs, which include lizards, snakes, the tuatara, and the extinct [[mosasaur]]s and [[plesiosaur]]s.<ref>Benton, 2004. Vertebrate Paleontology</ref> ===Evolution of flight===
'''Cursorial Theory'''
