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4-Winged Dinosaur Fossil Found
Anonymous Coward writes "Scientists in China say they have found fossilized remains of a dinosaur with four feathered wings that it probably used for gliding, a find they say strengthens the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. See the story on CNN or BBC with a cool rendering of what it possibly looked like or at NYTimes (yadda)."
There are a lot of important discoveries that have come out of China in recent years. Take a look at the info (and cool pics) on this page for more info.
This isn't about doubting the Chinese ability to perform genuine science - the problem is the well documented ability of Chinese fossil smugglers to invent new fake fossils in order to make large quantities of cash.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Okay, I'll byte. Once good AC deserves another, and I'm bored...
The key behind 'science' is the ability to test. You come up with a theory, and there will be some way, even if only hypothetically, that the theory can be proven wrong. A theory is not widely considered to be true until it is proven, but more theories can be based on it under the presumption that it is (sorta like read-ahead caching)
The key here is that it's always possible that it's wrong. This is called falsifiability. Something cannot be true unless it's possible to think of a way that is might be false. It sounds like a paradox, but the idea is that the theory will hold against any evidence brought against it, even when that evidence is thought to prove it wrong.
Religion is not falsifiable, unless you can give me a reasonable test that could prove God does not exist (and this prove the "theory" wrong)... which I assume is the root of your argument: That evolution is false because God created everything.
As for evolution being testable, some people are doing a great job of it. So far the theory has held up as expected.
And let's not forget the unintentional proofs, like antibiotic resistant bacteria
Just because your pet cat never give birth to a litter of dogs is not exactly reason to say evolution is bunk. Maybe if you understood the concept and the theory a little better you wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it.
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I can understand the microraptor would've folded his front wings onto its chest or something , like normal birds do when they aren't flying. But if your feet act as wings as well then it cannot be comfortable walking around with those. What if they get muddy or wet ?
There are birdspecies nowadays with feathered legs and the feathers on them look all battered, muddy and broken, definitely unsuitable to fly around with.
Actually, punctuated equilibrium is gradualism, just a look on gradualism over a short time. Basically, it means gradualistic changes in an organism resulting in rather large morphological changes in a relatively(for the fossil record) short time. Usually it is believed that smaller populations would be required for such changes to become 'fixed' in the population. The creationist conjecture comes in with molecular biology and the fact that the kind of changes occuring in this time require either a large population or a large amount of time to have a likelyhood of occuring. The essence of the argument is that it is an example of where the fossil record and molecular biology disagree.
The peer reviewers for Nature are as objective on matters of evolution as the Pope is on matters of Catholocism. There's no vested interest, of course. *cough*
Hmm, it looks suspiciously like those wacky little dragons the Chinese have been crazy about forever. Maybe there's some truth to the whole dragon thing after all. A wise man once said there's a grain of truth in every bushel of myth.
God cannot be disproved but religion certainly can.