Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Talk:Bird

2008-05-11T20:34:21Z

JimBob61: Creationists, please keep up-to-date with the evidence

This article is a complete and utter disgrace.

Stand back from this, and ask yourselves what is going on here?
If this really is to be used as a resource, i.e. an encyclopaedia, then someone looking up the word 'bird', is looking to find out about birds, and not wanting to get into a discussion of whether or not birds descended from dinosaurs or not. This should have a typology of birds, in to different types, species etc, as well as discussing anatomical details, breeding habits and all sorts of stuff like that. Right at the end, perhaps there could be stuff about bird origins, but taking up 95% of the article, come on!
--[[User:Felix|Felix]] 17:27, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

:So far, this article has focussed on the supposition by evolutionists that birds and dinosaurs are related. If you can add some facts about birds which have nothing to do with the [[origins debate]], we'd all be happy. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:32, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

::then all the debate stuff should be moved to a page called "Bird-Dinosaur Controversy" or some such. It should not constitute the major part of an article on birds.--[[User:Felix|Felix]] 17:42, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

Why is the whole of the "Creationary view" section taken up with creationist critiques of the dinosaur-to-bird hypothesis rather than positive evidence for the "creationary" version of the origin of birds? [[User:Dadsnagem2|Dadsnagem2]] 13:08, 18 March 2008 (EDT)
: Probably because nobody's yet written that part. Are you offering? Actually, I think the section is a bit inaccurate in that perhaps only the first quote is to do with dinosaur-to-bird evolution, and the other two are to do with bird evolution regardless of whether it was from dinosaurs. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:17, 18 March 2008 (EDT)
::No, not offering to write it. Because I don't take a "creationary view" of things, I'm really not qualified. [[User:Dadsnagem2|Dadsnagem2]] 10:52, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

==I'm sorry, but...==
This article states that the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs is not supported by ANY scientific data. I'm sorry, but this is plain and simply not true. There is burgeoning evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs, though there are some aspects of their physiology that would suggest that birds evolved from thecodonts, the amphibious ancestors of dinosaurs. This is not a matter of liberalism, or conservatism, but a matter of highest scientific truth. Please understand that it is completely detestable to cloud truth, science, and progress due to petty bipartisan bickering. I feel obligated as a budding ornithologist to largely re-write the section of this article concerning the evolution of birds. {{unsigned|BirdEgal202}}
::The article does ''not'' state that there is no scientific data. It says that ''creationists contend that'' there is no scientific data. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:16, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

:Okay, go ahead and rewrite. Bear in mind that the intro says, "It is commonly believed that birds have evolved from dinosaurs, although this view is disputed by both creationists and some evolutionists." --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] [[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]] 16:41, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

Yes, but the evolutionists who dispute the evolution of birds from dinosaurs believe that they descended from thecodonts. And creationism isn't really science, it doesn't use the scientific method, it's difficult to back up. {{unsigned|BirdEgal202}}
:Creationism is no less scientific than evolutionism. It uses the scientific method just as much, and is just as easy (or hard) to back up as evolution. It's better to refute an opposing view than simply dismiss it as not worthy of refutation.
:However, regardless of that, thanks for your addition to the article, although I will be editing it partly to remove the evolutionary view presented as truth.
:
:[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:16, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

That's just the thing. Everything I've written is true. I've presented cursorial theory as it is, a theory, and factual evidence that backs it up. For example, {{unsigned|BirdEgal202}}
:Didn't finish writing that?
:Yes, for the most part, you did present it as a theory. Most of my changes to your addition were simply for better wording. The one bit that I did delete outright, "Vertebrates consistently illustrate throughout their history that adaptive behavior probably evolves before anatomy in adapting to new niches and habitats.", was written as a fact yet presupposes the accuracy of the [[radiometric dating]] methods involved, which presupposes the naturalistic worldview.
:[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 23:00, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

== Out-of-date quotes ==

I've deleted a hugely out-of-date quote by Ernst Mayr (1942), inserted by Philip J. Rayment. "Missing links" in biological evolution are being discovered all the time and the evolution of different types feathers in theropod dinosaurs (including birds) has now become an excellent example of gradual evolution of complex structures. The same could apply to the "Open Letter" quote from Storrs Olsen, given the very rapid development in theropod paleontology in the last 10 years. Please keep up with the current scientific evidence, especially in such a fast-moving area as this. [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 06:50, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
: I've reinstated the quote, because it's not out of date at all. You are confusing Mayr's objection to how it ''could'' have happened with supposed evidence that it ''did'' happen. If Mayr was saying that there was no evidence, then you would have a point. But he was not saying that, and you've offered nothing to show that the particular point he was making is out of date.
: Storr's letter would only be out of date if he had retracted it, which is not a claim that you've made.
: The issue is not one of keeping up with the ''evidence'', but of keeping up with the prevailing opinions. Nobody has seen a dinosaur evolve into a bird, and nobody has produced a "finely-graded" (Darwin's words) sequence of fossils going from dinosaurs to birds. In other words, even if there really is one or more fossils of dinosaurs with feathers, dinosaurs with feathers are not birds, but dinosaurs with feathers.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 11:58, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
::Sorry, Philip, but I must disagree. The quote from Mayr says "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" - and this is ridiculously out of date as a representation of evolutionary thinking. No evolutionary biologist's credulity is at all strained these days by the notion of random mutations leading to finely balanced systems. [[User:Humblpi|Humblpi]] 12:42, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
:::Regarding PJR's comment, "Storr's letter would only be out of date if he had retracted it": that's incorrect. Science can (and very often does) go out-of-date even if the author of a hypothesis doesn't retract it. Or indeed, isn't alive to retract it. Lamarck, for one, whose theory of evolution was entirely reasonable based on the state of scientific knowledge at the time he lived but was, of course, entirely superseded by the Darwin-Wallace model of evolution by natural selection and by developments in genetics in the 20th century. Or Aristotle, whose theory of logic is arguably the basis of Western scientific thought but some of whose biological theories have, to put it mildly, not stood the test of time. Or many, many others, alive and dead, whose hypotheses have been disproved by new discoveries. [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 17:07, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
:::And regarding PJR's comment that "nobody has produced a finely-graded sequence of fossils going from dinosaurs to birds": sorry, not true either. The series of links between non-bird theropods and birds is now very good. It has even been possible to map the evolution of five stages of feather evolution onto points of divergence among theropod lineages (inc. birds). [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 17:07, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
:::: First of all, Humblpi's attempted refutation of my argument against JibBob61's reason for claiming that the Mayr quote was out of date does not actually refute my argument at all, but introduces a ''different'' reason for claiming that it's out of date.
:::: Second, he hasn't made his case. That is, he claims that Mayr's quote is out of date simply because ''today'' most evolutionists don't have that problem. But he hasn't shown that most evolutionists had that problem when Mayr said that. That is, perhaps Mayr was simply pointing out a problem that most evolutionists ignored, and that they are still ignoring today. If that is the case, the quote is just as relevant today as when he said it. Further, he hasn't actually shown that evolutionary biologists don't still have that problem. Although it's not talking about exactly the same thing, the much more recent quote from Scientific American would tend to suggest that the problem remains.
:::: Third, by restricting it to ''evolutionary'' biologists he is biasing the sample. There are many biologists that still agree with Mayr; they simply aren't ''evolutionary'' biologists. True, Mayr was an evolutionist, but he wasn't claiming that this was something that all evolutionists and only evolutionists believed, so the claim that current-day evolutionists collectively and only evolutionists believe that, is irrelevant.
:::: Storr's letter was talking about methodology, not evidence. True, methodology can change, and you are right that letters can go out of date without being retracted, but there's no evidence offered that it ''has'' gone out of date.
:::: Please point me to the finely-graded sequence of fossils from dinosaurs to birds. I suspect that it's really a case that rather than being no sequence at all, there is now a ''very'' coarse sequence, which to evolutionists struggling to find ''any'' evidence of a sequence is a major improvement, but still does not constitute a "finely-graded" sequence.
:::: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:35, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

== Before I spend any more time... ==

PJR's edits have destroyed the sense of what I added. I don't understand this over-reaction. Can someone please enlighten me as to what on earth creationism has to do with conservative politics? [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 10:02, 10 May 2008 (EDT)
: I don't think it's an overreaction at all. And what does ''evolution'' have to do with conservative politics? [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 22:27, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

== Reverting ==

Well, that doesn't answer the question, does it. I've reverted the page to the way it was before I tried bringing the science up-to-date. Do what you like with it but just beware that this page, at the moment, is quite hopelessly out-of-date. A couple of points before I say cheerio, tatty-bye and farewell:
* A good article describing the '''''detailed''''' relationship - not at all a coarse sequence - between the evolution of theropod/bird anatomy and the evolution of feathers was in ''National Geographic'' in the last few years, probably sometime between 2004 and 2006 (possibly 2007). Anyone seriously interested in the one of the most exciting developments in biological evolution in recent years will be able to find it in a public library. Also plenty of material in peer-reviewed journals.
* It really doesn't matter whether a hypothesis was proposed by someone as eminent as Ernst Mayr - if it's disproved by the evidence, it's wrong. Any scientist with a decent amount of imagination will have proposed several hypotheses which have turned out the be wrong. In this case, the hypothesis that it strains one's credulity to understand how feathers could have evolved from simple structures is wrong, because it's disproved by the fossil evidence of feather evolution in last 20 years. This is one of very many 'missing links' in biological evolution which are constantly being filled. There was a good article about 'myths of evolution' in ''New Scientist'' recently (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misconceptions.html). [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 16:34, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

Bird

2008-05-11T20:19:00Z

JimBob61: Revert to creationist POV

Talk:Pterosaur

2008-05-10T14:19:01Z

JimBob61: Where's that flood?

PJR, I didn't understand your edit. How would pterosaurs bones have got into Mesozoic rocks if they hadn't lived in the Mesozoic Era? [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 17:25, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
: The statement presumes the evolutionary dogma that the different rock layers represent periods of time rather than simply an order of being laid down. The creationary view is that most of the rock layers were laid down during [[Great flood|Noah's flood]]. The ''evidence'' is that those particular layers contain pterosaur bones. The evolutionary ''explanation'' is that this is because pterosaurs lived during the 180 millions years over which they believe those layers were laid down. The creationary ''explanation'' is that the pterosaurs were buried during this stage of the flood. My wording stuck to the agreed facts that they were buried in those rocks, whilst avoiding evolutionary bias of claiming that they lived during that supposed era. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:12, 10 May 2008 (EDT)
:: Recent geological evidence (last 10 years), including fossils, is consistent with the Black Sea area being flooded by an inrush of water which broke through what is now the Bosphorus about 7600BP. This flooded the land surrounding the Black Sea, the surface of which was previously several tens / a few hundreds of metres below oceanic level (I forget exactly how far). The Black Sea was an important area for early Neolithic culture. The geological evidence of the flood is consistent in many respects with the legends of Noah, Gilgamesh, Manu, etc, and it has been proposed that dispersal of farmers from the Black Sea area following the flood would account for the widespread appearance of similar legends of a dramatic flood in many Eurasian cultures. But how does the Noah/Gilgamesh/Manu flood account for "burying" of Mesozoic fossils in Africa, America, China, etc? If you're asserting that the whole world was covered with water to a depth of hundreds of metres, where's that water now? [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 10:19, 10 May 2008 (EDT)
:: And what you call "evolutionary bias" - do you mean scientists forming hypotheses and challenging others to find evidence which disproves them? That's an objective process. [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 10:19, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Bird

2008-05-10T14:02:02Z

JimBob61: Is CP a waste of time?

Bird

2008-05-10T00:45:47Z

JimBob61:

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

Recent evidence of the evolution of feathers in theropod dinosaurs, the group to which birds belong, in the Jurassic Era, however, has presented a compelling model of the evolution of flight feathers from simpler structures. It should be noted that Mayr's words, quoted here, preceded the recent flurry of fossil data on feather evolution by over 50 years and thus cannot be considered a reliable guide to the current state of knowledge of the evolution of birds and other dinosaurs.

[[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>}}

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 ==
A very widely held hypothesis is that birds evolved from earlier theropod dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionary biologists, including 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>. This and other evidence means there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Bird

2008-05-10T00:44:29Z

JimBob61: Minor improvements to taxonomy section

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

Recent evidence of the evolution of feathers in theropod dinosaurs, the group to which birds belong, in the Jurassic Era, however, has presented a compelling model of the evolution of flight feathers from simpler structures. It should be noted that Mayr's words, quoted here, preceded the recent flurry of fossil data on feather evolution by over 50 years and thus cannot be considered a reliable guide to the current state of knowledge of the evolution of birds and other dinosaurs.

[[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>}}

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 ==
A very widely held hypothesis is that birds evolved from earlier theropod dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionary biologists, including 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>. This and other evidence means there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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 with [[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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Bird

2008-05-10T00:39:01Z

JimBob61:

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

Recent evidence of the evolution of feathers in theropod dinosaurs, the group to which birds belong, in the Jurassic Era, however, has presented a compelling model of the evolution of flight feathers from simpler structures. It should be noted that Mayr's words, quoted here, preceded the recent flurry of fossil data on feather evolution by over 50 years and thus cannot be considered a reliable guide to the current state of knowledge of the evolution of birds and other dinosaurs.

[[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>}}

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 ==
A very widely held hypothesis is that birds evolved from earlier theropod dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionary biologists, including 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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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, as birds are now believed to be [[dinosaur]]s, they should be grouped with [[archosaur]]s, including 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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Talk:John Major

2008-05-09T21:50:41Z

JimBob61: Major's policies

I have removed the absurd comment "He is noted for having achieved very little during his tenure."

If anybody can get a reputable source for this please put it in.--[[User:British_cons|British_cons]] [[User_talk:British_cons|(talk)]] 16:12, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

I've edited the sentence "He subsequently disappointed many in his party by pursuing relatively centrist policies, and by appointing Heseltine as his Deputy Prime Minister." His centrist policies helped him to win the 1992 general election (which his party obviously liked) and his appointment of Heseltine as DPM was widely seen as brave and imaginative. [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 17:50, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

John Major

2008-05-09T21:48:57Z

JimBob61: Inaccuracy about Major's policies deleted (see Talk)

{{Prime Minister
|image=John Major.jpg
|seq=72
|term_start=November 29 1990
|term_end=May 2 1997
|party=Conservative Party
|previous=Margaret Thatcher
|next=Tony Blair
|birth_date=March 29 1943
|birth_place=Carshalton
|spouse=Norma Major
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Anglican]]
}}
'''Sir John Major''', KG, CH, PC (March 29 1943) was the [[Prime Minister]] of [[the United Kingdom]] from November 1990 to May 1997, succeeding [[Margaret Thatcher]] and succeeded by [[Tony Blair]].

Major was elected leader of the British [[Conservative Party]], and hence Prime Minister, following the resignation of [[Margaret Thatcher]]. He was a relatively unknown figure at the time, but he was seen by many, including Lady Thatcher herself, as being firmly on the right of centre (or, at least, as being more conservative then his relatively [[liberal]] main opponent, [[Michael Heseltine]], the man who had brought Lady Thatcher down). He subsequently disappointed many in his party by his support for the [[Maastricht Treaty]] and the integration of Britain with the [[European Union]] that it brought about. Lady Thatcher criticised Major's European policy both publicly and in private.

Following the Conservatives' surprise victory in the 1992 general election, the popularity both of the party and of Major himself fell dramatically, particularly after a financial crisis in September 1992 known as [[Black Wednesday]], in which the [[Pound]] was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Major's approval ratings remained in the doldrums for the remainder of his term in office, and in the May 1997 general election the Conservatives suffered one of their heaviest defeats in history against the newly revamped Labour Party of [[Tony Blair]]. Major was subsequently replaced as Prime Minister by [[Tony Blair]] of the [[Labour Party]] and as leader of the Conservative Party by [[William Hague]].

{{DEFAULTSORT:Major, John}}
[[Category:United Kingdom Prime Ministers]]

Tony Blair

2008-05-09T21:46:03Z

JimBob61:

{{Prime Minister
|image=Tblair.jpg
|seq=73
|term_start=May 2 1997
|term_end=June 24 2007
|previous=John Major
|party=Labour Party
|next=Gordon Brown
|birth_date=May 6 1953
|birth_place=Edinburgh
|death_date=
|death_place=
|spouse=[[Cherie Blair|Cherie Booth]]
|spouse2=
|religion=[[Roman Catholic]]
}}
'''Tony Blair''', full name '''Anthony Charles Lynton Blair''' (born May 6, 1953) is a former [[Prime Minister]] of the [[United Kingdom]] who preceded [[Gordon Brown]] and succeeded [[John Major]]. The [[Labour Party]]'s longest-serving Prime Minister, he served from May 2, 1997 to June 27, 2007. Blair is also the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve more than one full consecutive term.

He was elected to the Labour Party leadership in 1994 following the unexpected death of his predecessor, John Smith. As well as being leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, Blair also served as the [[MP]] for Sedgefield, a constituency in [[County Durham]] in North East England.

While the Labour Party is a self-described "democratic [[socialist]] party"<ref>[http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php?id=labourdemocracy]</ref>, Blair coined the phrase "[[New Labour]]" to distinguish his own pro-[[business]] policies from the more [[collectivist]] platform of his predecessors. He also used the phrase "[[The Third Way]]". He was criticized by some more left-wing members of the Labour Party for "selling out" to conservative thinking, particularly in his support for the [[United States]] in the [[Iraq War]]. On the other hand, Blair's policies were decidedly [[liberal]] by American standards: they have included increases in taxation, increases in government spending (particularly on public schools and Britain's [[National Health Service|socialized healthcare system]]), the introduction of an increased minimum wage, and support for the [[homosexual agenda]].

== Personal ==
[http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page4.asp] The son of a barrister and lecturer Leo Blair, Tony Blair was born in [[Edinburgh]], but spent most of his childhood in Durham. At the age of 14 he returned to Edinburgh to finish his education at Fettes College. Blair was known as a cheeky, rebellious, and argumentative schoolboy, and at 17 he was threatened with expulsion for persistently breaking school rules.<ref name="bbc">[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6506365.stm BBC News | UK | UK Politics | The Tony Blair Story]</ref>. After leaving Fettes with three A levels he studied law at [[Oxford University]], and went on to become a barrister (Lincoln's Inn) himself, before entering politics. Blair married his wife, Cherie Booth QC a barrister and daughter of the actor Tony Booth, in 1980, and they have four children. Cherie hails from [[Liverpool]].

Blair is a competent guitar player and at university was a member of a rock band called Ugly Rumours. His favourite music includes [[The Beatles]], [[The Rolling Stones]], [[Led Zeppelin]], [[Free (band)|Free]], [[Bruce Springsteen]], [[U2]], [[Coldplay]], [[The Foo Fighters]], and [[Simply Red]].<ref name="bbc" />

While Blair rarely discusses his religious faith in public, he is a convinced Christian. His wife Cherie is a Catholic and Blair converted to Catholicism in 2007.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7157409.stm]</ref>

==Blair's political career==

A combination of the Labour Party's new-found moderation, Blair's personal popularity and the deep unpopularity of the Conservatives under [[John Major]] resulted in a landslide victory for Blair and his party in the 1997 general [[election]], ending 18 years of [[Conservative]] government. Labour easily won re-election in 2001 and in 2005, although with losses.

Blair became the first active prime minister to be interviewed in a police investigation, in December 2006<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6292033.stm BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Honours police quizzed McConnell]</ref> and again in January 2007<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6320399.stm BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair interviewed again by police]</ref>, over allegations he had illegally ''nominated'' donors to the Labour Party for peerages - the so called "Cash for Honours" scandal. The government stressed that he was being interviewed only as a witness however, and the nominations of the money lenders were rejected by the independent appointments' commission.<ref name="bbc" /> However the allegations were a popular story in the media, and dogged his final months in office.
Tony Blair was superseded by [[Gordon Brown]] as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in June 2007.

==Blair's policies==

During Blair's tenure as Prime Minister, the [[Labour party|Labour]] government made the Bank of England independent, allowing them to set the nation's interest rates (which had previously been set by the Chancellor of the Exchequer), and has introduced a national [[minimum wage]], in 1998, which has gradually been increased over time. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have gained their own legislatures, and limited attempts have been made to devolve power to the regions of England (although these have not been successful). Blair's government has also banned fox-hunting and cigarette smoking in public places.

One of the most controversial aspects of Blair's premiership was been his commitment to and support of the Iraq war, which strongly divided opinion, both in Parliament and among the British people. His strong support of America and President [[George W. Bush]] in particular have set him apart from most European leaders, especially with the parties of the left (including his own Labour Party). This came at considerable political cost with his own popularity suffering greatly, and the Government lost considerable support in the 2005 general election as a result.

==Blair and the media==

In the 1990s in particular, Blair was seen as a charismatic leader, with formidable media performing skills. His most famous television appearance was his tribute to [[Diana, Princess of Wales]] on the morning after her death in August 1997, in which he described her as "the People's Princess" and "the Queen of Hearts". Blair has, however, acquired a reputation for excessive news management, and even for dishonesty, particularly after the Iraq War.

He is also the only Prime Minister to provide his own voice in an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]''.

==See also==

* [[British politics]]
* [[Labour Party]]

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blair, Tony}}
[[Category:United Kingdom Prime Ministers]]

Talk:Pterosaur

2008-05-09T21:25:12Z

JimBob61: Question for PJT

PJR, I didn't understand your edit. How would pterosaurs bones have got into Mesozoic rocks if they hadn't lived in the Mesozoic Era? [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 17:25, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Pterosaur

2008-05-09T21:24:10Z

JimBob61: Clarification of evolutionary hypothesis

'''Pterosaurs''' (Greek "winged lizards") are an extinct order of flying [[reptile]]s. Their varied skull morphology likely allowed them to exploit numerous food sources.

Extensive fossil evidence indicates that that they lived throughout the [[Mesozoic Era]]. This is consistent with the hypothesis that they were the first [[vertebrates]] to achieve powered flight.

==References==
*[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html Introduction to the Pterosauria]. Accessed 13 May 2007.

[[Category:reptiles]]

Bird

2008-05-09T21:21:34Z

JimBob61:

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

Recent evidence of the evolution of feathers in theropods in the Jurassic Era, however, has presented a compelling model of the evolution of flight feathers from simpler structures. It should be noted that Mayr's words, quoted here, preceded the recent flurry of fossil data on feather evolution by over 50 years and thus cannot be considered a reliable guide to the current state of knowledge of the evolution of birds and other dinosaurs.

[[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>}}

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 ==
A very widely held hypothesis is that birds evolved from earlier theropod dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionary biologists, including 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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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, as birds are now believed to be [[dinosaur]]s, they should be grouped with [[archosaur]]s, including 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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Bird

2008-05-09T21:19:27Z

JimBob61: Clarification of out-of-date quotes

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

Recent evidence of the evolution of feathers in theropods in the Jurassic Era, however, has presented a compelling model of the evolution of flight feathers from simpler structures. It should be noted that Mayr's words, quoted here, preceded the recent flurry of fossil data on feather evolution by over 50 years and thus cannot be considered relevant to the current state of knowledge of the evolution of birds and other dinosaurs.

[[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>}}

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 ==
A very widely held hypothesis is that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over 100 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionists, including 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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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, as birds are now believed to be [[dinosaur]]s, they should be grouped with [[archosaur]]s, including 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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Talk:Bird

2008-05-09T21:07:50Z

JimBob61: Comment on evolutionary methods

Baraminology

2008-05-09T11:05:45Z

JimBob61: Corrected error regarding cladistics

'''Baraminology''' is the study of '''baramins''', also known by the Biblical term '''[[Kind|kinds]]'''.

A baramin is a lineage of earthly [[life]] which is believed by [[Young earth creationism|Young Earth Creationists]] to be created by [[God]] during the [[creation week]], and corresponds in some functional aspects to the secular concept of [[species]]. However, unlike species concepts that are based on Darwinian thinking, the baraminic barrier is inviolable, as other baramins do not [[Theory of evolution|evolve]] from earlier baramins.

[[Jonathan Sarfati]] writes regarding the Biblical kinds of organisms:

<blockquote style="background: #F9F9F9; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA; padding: .3em;">
Based on the Biblical criterion for kinds, creationists deduce that as long as two creatures can [[Hybrid|hybridize]] with true fertilization, the two creatures are (i.e. descended from) the same kind. Also, if two creatures can hybridize with the same third creature, they are all members of the same kind. The hybridization criterion is a valid operational definition, which could in principle enable researchers to list all the kinds. The implication is one-way—hybridization is evidence that they are the same kind, but it does not necessarily follow that if hybridization cannot occur then they are not members of the same kind (failure to hybridize could be due to degenerative mutations). After all, there are couples who can’t have children, and we don’t classify them as a different species, let alone a different kind.<ref>http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3855/#kinds</ref>
</blockquote>

Baraminology, as a model of origins, complements the [[Linnaean taxonomy | Linnaean taxonomic system]], which is also based on the Biblical view of origins. Baraminology is seen as an alternative to the evolutionary method of [[cladistics]].

==History==

The term ''baramin'' was coined in 1941 by [[Frank Marsh]] from the [[Hebrew]] words ''bara'' (create) and ''min'' (kind).

It was resurrected in 1990 by [[Kurt Wise]] for use as the unit of creation in his discontinuous biosystematical system. From this came the term ''baraminology''. That same year at the Second International Conference on [[Creationism]] in [[Pittsburgh]], [[Walter ReMine]] introduced additional sub-terms to help clarify baraminological discourse: ''holobaramin'', ''monobaramin'', ''apobaramin'', and ''polybaramin''.<ref name="frair">[http://www.christiananswers.net/q-crs/baraminology.html "Baraminology -- Classification of Created Organisms"], by Wayne Frair, Ph.D, Originally published in ''CRS Quarterly'', Vol. 37, Num. 2, Sept. 2000.</ref>

==Baraminological Terms==

* '''Holobaramin''': A Holobaramin is a grouping that contains all organisms related by descent, not excluding any. For example, Humans are a holobaramin, meaning all members of our species (Homo sapiens) are descended from a singular creation event (i.e. the creation of Adam and Eve) and will always be fully and completely human. Culturally, many racial ideas and myths still stubbornly linger on, but recent research regarding genetic diversity in humans, has convinced a great majority of scientists that "race" is no longer a useful concept in understanding our species) An example would be [[dog]]s, which form a holobaramin since [[wolf | wolves]], [[coyote | coyotes]], domesticated dogs and other [[canid | canids]] are all descended from two individuals taken aboard the [[Noah's Ark | Ark]], and there are no other creatures that are genetically continuous with them. This term is synonymous with the use of "baramin" above and is the primary term in baraminology.

* '''Monobaramin''': A monobaramin is an ''ad hoc'' group of organisms who share common descent. Any group of specific members of a holobaramin such as wolves, poodles, and terriers or the humans Tom, Dick, and Harry are monobarmins. Holobaramins contain monobaramins; for instance, wolves are a monobaramin of the Dog holobaramin.

* '''Apobaramin''': An apobaramin is a group of holobaramins. Humans and Dogs are an apobaramin since both members are holobaramins. A group containing [[Caucasian]]s and wolves is not an apobaramin since both members are monobaramins.

* '''Polybaramin''': A polybaramin is an ''ad hoc'' group of organisms where at least one of the members must not be a holobaramin and must be unrelated to any or all of the others. For example: Humans, wolves and a [[duck]] are a polybaraminic group. This term is useful for describing such hodgepodge mixtures of creatures.

Three additional terms introduced by Wise:<ref name="frair"/>

* '''Archaebaramin''': An archaebaramin is the originally-created individual(s) of a given holobaramin. For instance, Adam and Eve form the archaebaramin of the holobaramin of Humanity.

* '''Neobaramin & Paleobaramin''': A neobaramin is the living population of a given holobaramin, whereas a paleobaramin represents older forms of a given holobaramin. Neobaramins have undergone genetic degradation from their perfectly created forms (archaebaramin) and so may differ from their paleobaramins in notable ways. For example, the neobaramin of Humanity has a much shorter lifespan and greater prevalence of genetic diseases than the Human paleobaramin (e.g. Adam lived for 930 years<ref>Wieland, Carl, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/805/ "Living for 900 years"], ''Creation'' 20(4):10–13, September 1998.</ref> and his children could interbreed without fear of deformity<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/cains_wife.asp "Cain's wife -- who was she?"], Answers In Genesis</ref>).

==Baraminic Demarcation==

In order to determine the baraminicity of a given group of organisms, '''baraminic demarcation''' must be evaluated. This process involves four foundational concepts<ref>[http://www.bryancore.org/bsg/opbsg/003.pdf "A Refined Baramin Concept"], Wood ''et al.'', 2003, Baraminology Study Group.</ref>:

* '''Biological Character Space''' (BCS): A theoretical multidimensional space in which each character (e.g. height or color) of an organism comprises a dimension, and particular states of that character occupy unique positions along the dimension. A single organism is therefore precisely defined by a single point in the multidimensional space.

* '''Potentiality Region''': A region of that biological character space within which organismal form is possible. Therefore, any point in the biological character space that is not within a potentiality region describes an organism that cannot exist.

* '''Continuity''': describes the relationship between two organisms which are either in the same potentiality region, or linked to each other by a third, such that transmutation between the two is theoretically possible.

* '''Discontinuity''': describes the relationship between two organisms which are in disconnected potentiality regions, such that transmutation between the two is impossible.

Thus, organisms that are found to be continuous in a BCS potentiality region form a holobaramin or monobaramin (depending on if all organisms within the potentiality region are considered), whereas those that are discontinuous form a polybaramin or apobaramin (again, depending on completeness of the organisms considered).

== Criticism ==

Baraminology has been criticised for its lack of rigorous testing, its lax use of data and its failure to produce any peer reviewed scientific research.{{fact}} It is regarded as pseudoscience by evolutionary scientists, but creation scientists view it as a young field still in development and believe that criticism can be resolved with further research<ref>[http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_3/baraminology.htm The Current Status of Baraminology, Todd Charles Wood, CRSQ Vol 43 No 3, December 2006]</ref>.

==Further Information==
* [http://www.christiananswers.net/q-crs/baraminology.html What are the Genesis “kinds”? Baraminology—classification of created organisms]
* [http://www.bryancore.org/bsg/ Baraminology Study Group]
* [http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/43/43_3/baraminology.htm The Current Status of Baraminology, Todd Charles Wood, CRSQ Vol 43 No 3, December 2006]
* [http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/sum34_4.html A Quantitative Approach to Baraminology With Examples from the Catarrhine Primates]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Bible]]
[[Category:Biology]] 
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Creationism]]

Pterosaur

2008-05-09T11:02:19Z

JimBob61: Clarification of fossil evidence

'''Pterosaurs''' (Greek "winged lizards") are an extinct order of flying [[reptile]]s. Their varied skull morphology likely allowed them to exploit numerous food sources.

Extensive fossil evidence indicates that that they lived throughout the [[Mesozoic Era]], and that they were the first [[vertebrates]] to achieve powered flight.

==References==
*[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/pterosauria.html Introduction to the Pterosauria]. Accessed 13 May 2007.

[[Category:reptiles]]

Bird

2008-05-09T10:59:51Z

JimBob61:

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

[[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>}}

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 ==
Many scientists claim that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over 100 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 journals such as ''Nature'' and ''Science'' that support the idea that birds evolved from 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>}}

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionists, including 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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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, as birds are now believed to be [[dinosaur]]s, they should be grouped with [[archosaur]]s, including 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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

User talk:JimBob61

2008-05-09T10:53:51Z

JimBob61:

==You're About to get Blocked==

You're about to get blocked, haha!!! [[User:TheWarner|TheWarner]] 06:47, 9 May 2008 (EDT)
: Any particular reason? [[User:JimBob61|JimBob61]] 06:53, 9 May 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Bird

2008-05-09T10:50:40Z

JimBob61: Section on out-of-date quotes

Bird

2008-05-09T10:46:01Z

JimBob61: Greatly out-of-date quote deleted

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.
__TOC__
{{clear}}
== 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>

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>}}

[[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>}}

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 ==
Many scientists claim that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over 100 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for a [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 journals such as ''Nature'' and ''Science'' that support the idea that birds evolved from 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>}}

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionists, including 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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

=== 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, as birds are now believed to be [[dinosaur]]s, they should be grouped with [[archosaur]]s, including the extant crocodiles and the extinct [[pterosaur]]s. Hence the conventional classification does not reflect the current state of the evolutionary view. [[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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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) form a group of similar rank to the lepidosaurs, which include lizards, snakes, the tuatara, and the extinct mosasaurs and [[plesiosaur]]s.<ref>Benton, 2004. Vertebrate Paleontology</ref>

===Evolution of flight===

'''Cursorial Theory'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Bird

2008-05-08T23:44:36Z

JimBob61:

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionists, including 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>}}

{{clear}}
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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

== Taxonomy ==
The conventional Linnean taxonomy places birds in the Class Aves within the Subphylum Vertebrata. Reptilia, the conventional Class of reptiles, includes crocodiles and relatives, lizards and snakes, turtles, and the tuatara. However, as birds are now known to be dinosaurs, they should be grouped with archosaurs, including the extant crocodiles and the extinct pterosaurs. Hence the conventional classification does not reflect the current state of the evolutionary evidence. 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 Archosauria, including crocodiles and the extinct 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) form a group of similar rank to the lepidosaurs, which include lizards, snakes, the tuatara, and the extinct mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.<ref>Benton, 2004. Vertebrate Paleontology</ref>

== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

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 ==
Many scientists claim that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over 100 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for an [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 journals such as ''Nature'' and ''Science'' that support the idea that birds evolved from 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>}}

==Evolution of flight==

'''Cursorial Theory'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Bird

2008-05-08T23:43:21Z

JimBob61: Further clarification of avian evolution

{{taxonomy
|kingdom=Animalia
|image=Grey_Wagtail.jpg
|phylum=Chordata
|class=Aves
}}
A '''Bird''' is a warm-blooded [[egg]]-laying [[vertebrate]] with [[wing]]s and [[feather]]s. For the most part, they fly.
[[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.

Almost all evolutionary biologists, with rare exceptions, believe that birds are the only extant group of dinosaurs, a branch of the theropods, which included ''Velociraptor'' and ''Deinonychus''. This view is disputed by [[creationism|creationists]], and also by a few prominent evolutionists, including 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>}}

{{clear}}
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>, with the result that there is now little doubt about the close relationship of birds, as extant dinosaurs, to the extinct theropod dinosaurs. Birds appear to have split from other dinosaur lineages sometime before the mid-Jurassic, 155-150 million years ago.

== Taxonomy ==
The conventional Linnean taxonomy places birds in the Class Aves within the Subphylum Vertebrata. Reptilia, the conventional Class of reptiles, includes crocodiles and relatives, lizards and snakes, turtles, and the tuatara. However, as birds are now known to be dinosaurs, they should be grouped with archosaurs, including the extant crocodiles and the extinct pterosaurs. Hence the conventional classification does not reflect current state of the evolutionary evidence. 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 Archosauria, which includes crocodiles and the extinct 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) form a group of similar rank to the lepidosaurs, which include lizards, snakes, the tuatara, and the extinct mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.<ref>Benton, 2004. Vertebrate Paleontology</ref>

== 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>

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>}}

Evolutionist [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1942 wrote:
{{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>}}

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 ==
Many scientists claim that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs over 100 million years ago. The most-frequently claimed candidate for an [[transitional form]] is ''[[Archaeopteryx|Archaeopteryx lithographica]]'' which is from the late [[Jurassic]] (about 150 million years ago) of [[Germany]].
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 journals such as ''Nature'' and ''Science'' that support the idea that birds evolved from 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>}}

==Evolution of flight==

'''Cursorial Theory'''

Proposed in 1879 by [[fossil]] expert [[Samuel Williston]], the Cursorial Theory suggests that the ancestors of birds were ground-dwelling theropods that developed flight through leaping and jumping. Cursorial Theory is no longer popular among scientists, who generally favor the Arboreal "trees down" theory of flight, since taking off from the ground is energetically expensive, thus it is therefore considered unlikely that flapping flight evolved from the ground up.

However, proponents of the Cursorial theory point to the basilisk lizard, which possesses the ability to run on water for a short time to escape predators, yet also has the ability to climb with great agility. The ability to run bipedally is not evident from the basilisk anatomy alone, and this illustrates the plasticity of animal behavior. It is nearly impossible to determine an animal's behavior simply by looking at its anatomy, as animals are capable of behavior beyond what their anatomy would suggest.

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Birds]]

Eye

2008-05-08T20:35:22Z

JimBob61: Perfection of mollusc eye

Note: '''Eye''' may also refer to: [[Eye (Hurricane)]]. 
The '''eye''' is the organ of sight. The eye enables creatures to perceive light in various ways, from simple lightness versus darkness, to full-fledged color vision.

In the human, and most mammals, the eye consists of several structures. The cornea is a protective outer layer. The iris is an aperture through which light enters. The lens is controlled by muscles to focus the light on the retina at the back of the eye.

The retina has many specialized cells (photoreceptors) that are able to react to light and send their signals via the optic nerve to the brain for interpretation. There are two types of photoreceptor cell called rods and cones. Rods are by far the most numerous (around 120 million) and are sufficiently sensitive to allow basic black/white vision even at very low light levels. Cones (6-7 million) only function at higher light levels, but enable us to perceive color. <ref>http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/rodcone.html</ref>

Typically eyes come in pairs, to allow binocular vision and hence depth perception, but most [[spider]]s (for example) have eight eyes (though some have less or none at all), and [[scallop]]s may have several dozen.

== Diseases of the eye ==
[[Image:Eyeball.jpg|right|thumb|Doctors performing eye surgery.]]

The eye worm ''Loa loa'', a [[parasitism|parasitic]] [[nematode]] worm, inhabits the vitreous humour of the human eyeball in parts of Africa, and is often only detected when somebody sees the worm swimming across inside the eyeball.<ref>http://www.paru.cas.cz/helminti/Nematoda/Loa_loa.gif</ref>

== Evolution of the eye ==

Numerous, unrelated organisms possess eyes of varying degrees of complexity. [[Evolutionist]]s allege that these all evolved independently to meet a common need; this is discussed in some detail in ''[[Climbing Mount Improbable]]'', by [[Richard Dawkins]]. <ref>http://www.trueorigin.org/dawkrev2.asp</ref>

Creationists commonly argue that, in order to offer even basic functionality, the eye must be so complex as to preclude an evolutionary explanation for its development. They therefore view the eye as a perfect example of [[Irreducible Complexity]]. This applies most strikingly to the eyes of the larger molluscs, octopuses, squid and cuttlefish.

== Eyes in the Bible ==

The word 'eye' appears over seven hundred times in the Bible.

<blockquote>
''And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.'' Exodus 21:23-25
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
''When Samson was captured by the Philistines, his eyes were put out.'' Judges 16:21
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
''And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.'' Matthew 5:29
</blockquote>

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Anatomy]]

Bird

2008-05-08T15:05:22Z

JimBob61: Evolutionary biology of birds

Axis of Evil

2008-05-08T13:50:51Z

JimBob61: Deleted "far left" qualifier of Baathist (inaccuracy)

The '''Axis of Evil''' was mentioned in a [[President of the United States|President]] [[George W. Bush]]'s State of the Union address in January 28th, 2002. The Axis of Evil was a reference to the governments of [[Iran]], [[Iraq]] and [[North Korea]].

"Our goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an '''axis of evil''', arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic." --George W. Bush
[[category:politics]]

The President's speech has been proven to be remarkably prescient. [[North Korea]] has since claimed to have developed nuclear weapons, and [[Iran]] is widely suspected of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, while claiming its nuclear program is for peaceful means. The invasion of [[Iraq]] and overthrow of the Baathist regime has neutralised one of the three threats and prevented WMD from falling into the hands of [[Saddam Hussein]].