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Earliest Bird Had Feet Like Dinosaur
aychamo writes "A 150-million-year-old fossil of Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, may put to rest any scientific doubt that theropods gave rise to modern birds. From the article: '[A new fossil] presents important new details of the skull morphology [shape and function] of the earliest known bird, showing also that the skull of Archaeopteryx is much more similar to that of nonavian theropod dinosaurs than previously thought.' In the new fossil, the foot looks more like that of the four-toed foot of Velociraptor and its other nonwinged theropod relatives. The specimen also clearly lacks a reversed toe. Because Archaeopteryx lacked this stabilizing toe, it almost certainly did not habitually perch in trees. This leads scientists to believe that it was a land based predator."
Obviously God is testing our faith.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Come on, this doesn't prove anything at all. Until we can find fossils for every single stage between this and modern birds, you clearly can't prove anything, and there are still holes. Modern birds could have still popped up independently, intelligently designed and perfect.
Because Archaeopteryx lacked this stabilizing toe, it almost certainly did not habitually perch in trees.
Actually, Archaeopteryx would spin comically around a branch before dizzying and falling on its prey.
Do not turn this into a religious fracas. There has been far too much of this nonsense and frankly all it does is make everyone sound like a bunch of hillbillies.
What did the Earliest Worm have?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
about o0tside
Wow. Talk about old news. This happened millions of years ago!
Damn, slashdot is behind these days.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Even the more better to catch the worm!
Well, I saw it on /. so it must be true ;)
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Obviously, God^H^H^H the Intelligent Designer decided to change the dinosaurs to birds. That was the intelligent thing to do.
It was intelligent because, um....well....dammit, let me get back to you.
that's why I got out of computer science.
As an intelligent-design believing Creationist Christian, I don't think this proves anything. This plugs one hole in the fossil record. There are still hundreds/thousands left. Also, I disagree that it puts to rest *all* scientific doubt about this species. I'll be flamed for this, but intelligent design is rapidly growing as an accepted scientific theory for the creation of the world. I still haven't seen any evidence that birds could have evolved like this. Why? Because since when are mutations good? It's impossible to have a good mutation *specifically* where and when you need it.
irreducible complexity or self-organization?
"...it almost certainly did not habitually perch in trees. This leads scientists to believe that it was a land based predator." ...As opposed to habitually perching in trees and being an open-water based predator?
the chicken came first....
While this "bird dinosaur" may appear to be a sort of "missing link" in the evolution of pre-bird species into birds, this in no way indicates that "evolution" exists. It simply shows that God Intelligently Designed dinosaurs to perform foot donation transplants to now extinct bird species. The birds' incescent preening of their natural feet, drove them to the brink of vanity and demanded the more robust dino feet be transplanted. The species is now extinct because vanity is a sin.
-/OK I had a hard time keeping a straight face while typing that, how do ID supporters manage to lay that BS on the rest of us without cracking up?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
that early birds did not catch the worm?
"ID supporters say that there is a gap between *species A* and *species B*. But once a species between A and B is found, ID supporters say now there are 2 gaps"
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
Is that you?
At least the first dinosaur didn't have bird feet!
I know you're being facetious, but I think the following idea is important. It's 2005, and religion really needs to catch up with humanity and science. I'm agnostic, but if God existed and wanted to communicate a message to us, wouldn't it make sense to embed any sacred truths in the very fabric of reality?
We're discovering more of them all the time, faster and faster, by studying the properties of the atoms we are made of, the electromagnetic fields that permeate space and time, and the rocks under our feet. Life only makes rational sense when understood from the perspective that science allows.
Why would a supreme being rely on a communicating via language dictated to fallible human beings, who would then translate it and allow it to accumulate errors, inaccuracies, and nonsense.
The Bible-thumpers out there are thumping on the wrong bible. If there actually is a bible, it is the universe itself. We are all reading it together in unison as we speak.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Here's a brief technical look at the theory by the University of California - Berkeley's
Museum of Paleontology : http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
Of interest are twenty proposed characteristics "the first birds shared [...] with
many coelurosaurian dinosaurs." Take a look and see what you think.
-Shawn
The title should read "...like a dinosaur's". Otherwise each foot looked like a dinosaur.
Either the earliest bird had feet like a dinosaur or one of the dinosaurs had a body like a bird? Decisions, decisions....
those poor ID suporters where tromitized by their priests when they were kids... why, with all the water torture, fingurenail tearing out, poked with red hot iron, and tits torn off ... and on top of that having to confess things weakely!, can you blame them for not cracking up? Well, that, and those damn priests melested people so bad, the poor kids did a self labotomy.
*tear*, those poor ID suporters, dont even have the brian cells left to relise there mass contradictions, that at best state they worship a alien that genetically enginered us, we can call gods race the Goa'uld, all bow before your god!
Hey, it's the creationists who want to impose religion into these sort of issues. I and and practically everyone else would dearly love to keep *religion* seperate from *science*. Unfortunately there are *some* people who don't - to the extent of attempting to redefine the word "science" itself to include astrology and tarot card reading*cough*Kansas*cough*.
but he's coming all over my carpet.
...we have lots of obvious design flaws. The useless appendix, birth canals that struggle to accomodate our ridiculously oversized crania, eyes that can only see three colors with no ultraviolet or infrared or ability to detect polarization of light like some other creatures, we're crappy runners and swimmers. We'd be great walkers, except that we have oddly angled knees that makes them destined to deteriorate. Despite all these obstacles to other means of travel, we get no flight. Perhaps most importantly, no friggin' laser beams.
What's the probability of a perfect God making such a ungainly creature in his image? Absolutely zero, Pangloss.
Maybe it's time we founded the Unintelligent Design movement.
Once again, the Index to Creationist Claims is the greatest resource on the internet for this discussion.
Surprisingly... they tasted just like Chicken too (or KFC, maybe)
/. is good for you.
...the Raptors built that crude suspension bridge to Venezuela, planning to lie low and assume odd-jobs under the name "Mr Pilkington?" Or was that something else.
...self-congratulatory mockery.
I find it interesting how quickly and easily these sort of threads turn into stone throwing contests with everyone rushing to express there talent for insult and mockery.
Evidentally the masses (here) that believe so strongly in evolution haven't evolved to a greater level of civility, respectfulness and maturity.
Perhaps another billion years or so.
The guy might be a loon, or he might be trying to troll everybody, or he might even be sincere... but he expressed an on-topic opinion and should not have been modded down to Goatseland.
Until the powers-that-be add a "-1, Witless" moderation, none of the other categories are appropriate for that post.
It's probably like building running robots. At first, they tried to do it using statically-stable positions. However, running forms are dynamically stable without usually being statically-stable if snapshots are taken.
I'd guess that evolution is also dynamically-stable, in a sense. I.e. you cannot try and establish all the known species at a given time and then infer all the unknown ones - there will be niches that just opened up and others that have something in mid-evolution to fill them. As our efforts advance, though, surely we could begin to get a fairly accurate view of what the fossil record is missing.
"The early bird stomps the worm!"
Why is it every bird fossil looks like it was run over by a steamroller?
Well, as it saith flat-out in bigge, bolde tipe at the Museume of the Historie of Nature in Londone,
THE WORLD IS FLAT.
They makest no bones about it. Faith, it gave me chills when I first chanced to see that. They also had a logical and easy to understand rationale for why it be not correcte to say "the world appeareth as though flat" either; that the world is flat. (I recall not juste what it was hither, but I remember they used an analogie nigh similar to "juste as the seas are not 'appearing to be of water', the world is not 'appearing to be flat'. The world is totally flat of its owne, juste as the seas are totally water of their owne.)
From what I've read, this hath been coming to be a popular - if not the prevailing - belief amongst scientistes at the hither and nowe.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Actually, a search on Yahoo for the creature was initiated on the Bell South network millions of years ago and since Yahoo did not pay for the "enhanced service" the results are just coming in now. Should have used MSN Search, but then again the only search result for "dinosaur +'will not fly' +crashes" would have been Internet Explorer.
The Catholics have, for the most part, accepted evolution. The pope said that science and Christianity can get along just fine, and in most of these disucssions you'll find someone who went to Catholic school, and was taught evolution in science class. No, you can thank Protestants for this one.
I'm not quite sure that this article is really all that informative or new. I thought it was pretty much commonly accepted that the Archaeopteryx was a bird. Forgive me for not believing in evolution (which I guess is why this article was posted), but it seems like it was a bird that existed a long time ago, and then died.
The conclusion of the article is that the archaeopteryx is the ancestor of modern birds. Can someone reasonably explain why the archaeopteryx and modern birds couldn't have just existed at the same time, except the archaeopteryx went extinct?
Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
It is not only religious people don't buy the story about dinosaurs being ancestors of birds, some scientists do it too... The generally accepted theory that dinosaurs are the ancestors of modern birds is being challenged. New research published Monday in the Journal of Morphology suggests that what was thought to be "protofeathers" are more likely to be skin-related tissues, according to Dr. Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While these scientists agree that dinosaurs and modern birds share a common reptile ancestor, the theory that dinosaurs are the ancestors of the modern birds is flawed or "..full of holes.." http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/spr97/bird.html http://www.atsnn.com/story/176639.html http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf087/sf087b06.ht m
The cell was most certainly not the first form of life. You, sir, just made a strawman argument. Get yourself a gorram clue before spouting off why don't you.
Now who's callin' who a crank? They are pulling these figures out their asses. Next they'll say they've got imperical proof of one species evolving into another species. Let alone proof that all species share a common ancestor. They call this science? LOL!!!!
And, oddly enough, an ass like an elephant.
You fools! Can't you see? Clearly, this a case where a late dinosaur had a body like bird, not the other way around!
early bird gets the dinosaur feet. but does the late worm get a shark fin? does the second mouse get alligator teeth?
>the earliest known bird
I wonder how many worms it must have caught
Good thing 1 in Million chances come up 9:10 ;)
Life is like untied shoe laces; it always tripping you up and getting in your way.
I've been reading Clare Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys and have enjoyed her description of the beginnings of the Royal Society. Composed of the best scientific minds of the day, non-scientist Pepys headed up the society (twice, if memory serves). His bottomless curiosity about the mysteries in the world around him led him to question and converse with people like, say, Newton without actually quite understanding the details.
Reminds me of the best conversations on Slashdot - a collection of exceedingly bright - or at the very least, exceedingly curious - people verbally jousting, having fun, being fools and occasionally sharing some really brilliant insights.
I suppose every generation and every age thinks it knows the deepest secrets of the universe only to find that their theories need the occasional tweak as our understand expands year after year. I find it all quite amazing.
That said, why is it that the ID people's approach to science remind me of Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes? Hmmm ...
I wasn't aware that ID people had approached science. Presumably they were turned down.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Someone posted this site on a mailing list i frequent. I imagine they will be getting a shitload of funding from Kansas
Watashi wa chikyubutsurigakusha desu.
Reminds me of the best conversations on Slashdot - a collection of exceedingly bright - or at the very least, exceedingly curious - people verbally jousting, having fun, being fools and occasionally sharing some really brilliant insights.
Welcome, stranger from an alternate universe!
Good thing there's only one proper way to view the evidence of creation, eh? To say nothing of the life of a charismatic Jewish carpenter who never stopped being Jewish. Any theory that doesn't conform to ancient texts written when men believed in animal sacrifice and the sun revolved around the earth just can't possibly be true, right?
The fact is we can observe evolution. It's a theory like gravity is a theory, and nothing in it says "God" couldn't have arranged it all if that's what you prefer to believe. Others have picked Zeus or Odin instead. If you want to be "mainstream", consider something like two thirds of the people on the planet don't believe Jesus is God. The names and stories of various creation theories are simply cultural artifacts - else surely you would know it was the big Hindi elephant god, Lord Ganesh who created it all. Because, um, somebody said so long ago, eh?
So if it's all the same to you, I'll stick with "mainstream" observable reality and do the best we can with what it tells us, until we learn better.
Personally, I'd prefer a physician that works from science first. I'll get a witch doctor if the meds don't work.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I have to say this is cool stuff. Any doubts that God's method of making new species is NOT evoluition is slowly being squashed. God made evolution. It works for him, he leaves it alone and lets it do it's job.
The great thing about science is that bad ideas get tossed out as fresh evidence comes to light. Happily, evolutionary theory just gets stronger and stronger as time goes on.
Let me guess: you're religious, right? You seem to think that an idea, once stated, must last forever and ever, amen.
...stays in China.
This message brought to you by the Chinese Tourist Board.
-Shawn
Actually, they don't always. In today's corrupt society (you don't really believe the scientific community is immune, do you?), bad (though profitable) ideas get tossed only when it is (a) in one's financial interests to do so; (b) absolutely impossible not just to ignore the evidence but also to keep it secret.
Remember, scientists don't get money by saying things the scientific community doesn't like, whether true or not (how ya gonna get published, son?).
Remember, also, that most scientists get their money from governments and corporations, and we all know how *they* feel about always telling the truth, even if you don't like what it says.
you're religious, right? You seem to think that an idea, once stated, must last forever and ever, amen.
Religious or not, surely you agree that the truth is the truth, and it doesn't cease to be true just because someone who makes a lot of money says so (witness firstly all the conflicting religious teachings floating about, some of them completely contradicting one another; witness secondly all the conflicting scientific findings floating about (hoaxes, too!), with the scientific community in general keeping hushed those findings that contradict the Ideas Favored by Those with Credentials). Most fundamentalists seem to think that a Certain Weekly Idea, once stated, must last forever and ever, amen. On the other hand, most scientists seem to think that a Certain Secularist Idea, once stated, must last forever and ever, amen.
I can't stand people of either group.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Evolutionary theory clearly has mechanisms to deal with these flaws, "evolution is in progress" is not nearly as compelling as "these flaws balance out greater related benefits" (small birth canals and knee angles are directly related to our gargantuan crania and the way we evolved our hips for walking prior). Meanwhile, Intelligent Design requires all species are perfect (or at least the ones conceived in the perfect creator's image).
Therefore,
ID is testable (and demonstrably false).
Is there some peak lately in observations on dinosaur fossiles in relation to birds?
Whatever is causing this?
- suddenly more fossiles appear of ancient birds?
- was there some sudden insight?
- is the press more interested in this subject?
- is it a hype in researchers land?
Or is it me being more focused on it?
You can disbelieve evolution all you want, but you'll be sorry when the apes keep us chained and in cages, and the statue of liberty is in shambles on the beach.
Viva La Evolucion!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
New Scientist has a better picture of the foot detail.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
birds are highly evolved dinosaurs
That just says they are greatly changed from dinosaurs. We (humans and avians) are "highly evolved fish" from another perspective.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Seriously, how we classify these animals is very much a political game. We can do things like figure out which animals had common ancestors and guess at how far back, but to say "X is a Q" is merely a labelling convenience. I'm not entirely sure where the religion came into this thread. I guess people can get pretty dogmatic about the labelling on both sides, but FSMs aren't directly involved.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
But if by "in common" you mean that pigs or rats are unexpectedly close to us in some genetic traits: no. Nope. Not at all. They are useful in the lab because of physiological traits not held in common. For example, humans live decades long and only have one, rarely two offspring per pregnancy, with years between pregnancies. Ditto the other great apes which share the high-90's percent of our DNA, (including sharing the same broken gene for making vitamin C. Rats- all other non-primate mammals- can make C (except guinea pigs, but their C gene is broken in an entirely different place)). Ditto much the same for monkeys, and even ditto the bats (the closest non-primate mammal group). Rats only share 90% of our DNA, but they reproduce early and often. The only reason we've got rats with the same diseases as human diseases is that we've made them that way.
Check out the 29 Evidences for Macroevolution, especially the nested hierarchy section. If there were traits that rats and humans shared more closely than chimps and humans (like the false chickens and humans, or bananas and humans claims that creationist keep on using), then that would falsify evolution. Hasn't happened yet.
Is it news? Archaeopteryx had teeth, a sternum and a tail like those of dinosaurs too. That doesn't mean it isn't a bird.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
I'm no supporter of "intelligent design" (unless it refers to steps taken by humans in engineering), but aren't a lot of the skeletons of dinosaurs actually castings of (parts of) the real thing but presented to kids as "the real whole thing"?
If it is not explained to them that Velociraptors were not 7 feet tall, actually had feathers, never existed in Chicago and the example they see is a replica...well, it's all Santa Claus again isn't it.
Well, as it saith flat-out in bigge, bolde tipe at the Museume of the Historie of Nature in Londone,
THE WORLD IS FLAT.
Then there was the study a couple years ago, in which it was shown by actual measurements that Kansas is about an order of magnitude flatter than a pancake.
Some parts of the world are very flat.
Of course, "flat" in this case refers to surface roughness, not curvature. There are many places in Kansas where one can easily see that there's a horizon, implying that the surface does have a slight curvature.
Those researchers got an IgNobel Prize for their study. As I recall, they were among the few recipients who were quite pleased by the award.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
one can easily see that there's a horizon, implying that the surface does have a slight curvature.
Or, as Guy Clark once said: "it's so flat you can see the curvature of the earth."
Prairie Home Companion -- Country for intelligent people.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Or, as Guy Clark once said: "it's so flat you can see the curvature of the earth."
Yup. And, as lots of historians have observed, the shape of the Earth has always been known to sailors.
This is because, as you sail away from on a large body of water, you see things disappear from the bottom up. First the low buildings disappear, then the tall buildings and spires, so only the hills are visible. Then the hills shrink until you only see their tips. And as you approach land, you see the opposite sequence, with first the hilltops, then the tall buildings and trees, and then finally the short buildings and people appearing. After a while, you "see" the shape of the water's surface. It's only those stupid landlubbers who can't see the shape of the world that they live on.
This is part of why historians like to point out that when Columbus sailed, everyone but a few religious nuts knew quite well the Earth's shape. The dispute was how big it was. It seems that Columbus was wrong. He thought the planet was about 60% of its actual size. Apparently he was never convinced that he hadn't reached eastern Asia, though others at the time understood that he had found unknown land out in the middle of the ocean. If that land hadn't been there, Columbus and his crew would have probably starved to death and never been heard from again.
But the idea that he was trying to show that the world was round turns out to be completely bogus. Columbus and all his men knew quite well the Earth's shape. They saw the evidence every time they sailed over the horizon.
I saw a cute puzzle about this a few years ago. We know that people had measured the Earth long before Columbus. As far back as 2500 years ago the Greeks had a good estimate. But the textbook explanations require some north-south travel. Describe a way to measure the Earth's size (diameter or circumference) while standing in one spot. Use only technology available to Columbus.
Actually, ancient Greek sailors had the technology to do this to within a few percent. In Columbus's time, they had more accurate navigation equipment and could get the correct value to better than two places accuracy. It's a bit bizarre that Columbus believe a smaller figure. He might have been a good fundraiser and commander, but he couldn't have been much of a navigator.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Columbus and all his men knew quite well the Earth's shape.
I beg to differ. As I recall, historical accounts of what happened say that his ships were within an inch of mutiny because his sailors were afraid of falling off the edge of the earth. Thus, If that land hadn't been there, Columbus and his crew would have turned back and headed for home. It is said that Chris actually made a deal at one point that if they didn't see land in X more days, they would turn back; they were within one or two days of that deadline when land was spotted.
It's a bit bizarre that Columbus [believed the earth was smaller.]
He refused, not necessarily to believe he hadn't reached the West Indies, but to let on that he hadn't reached it. Whatever he actually believed, all the money and ships he had managed to get (his reputation and career, even) was dependent on finding another way to the West Indies; if anybody was to find out he hadn't, his idea about the earth's shape might have been shown to be true, but he'd be ruined financially. Incidentally, that's why bell, jalapeno, and cayenne peppers are called peppers. They're not at all related to the true pepper (basically the chief reason for going over there in the first place), but he couldn't let on that he hadn't found any pepper, or, again, he'd be ruined.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Your argument is nullified by the fact that humans plan and execute the reproduction of these chickens, thus any selection that is going on is artificial, not natural.
Since when were humans not considered natural? Are you going to start trying to argue that man did not descend from apes as well?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
It was partly a joke (particularly the latter line about man descending from apes) and part a bit of annoyance in that humanity seems to be considered the only species who can't engage in an action without it being considered "unnatural." I guess it's a consequence of forming sentience. One of the examples I like to use (as contrived as it is) is the Blondie strip where her catering business was nearly forced to close because a rare and nearly extinct species of mice was sighted nearby. Cue in very satisfied looking cat walking out of the alleyway, licking its chops...
Humans are part of the evolutionary process, albeit a group with a fairly disproportionate impact due to the combination of our intelligence in figuring out exactly how to meddle, and our ego that leads us to meddle for the sake of meddling.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
"And I would also like to add that I can't spell very well"
We noticed.
"The simple fact is that everybody in the entire history of the world was born an atheist."
That would be interesting, if it were a fact, or if you even had evidence to suggest it.
"the vast majority of the time because their parents drum into their heads from birth that if they don't, they'll burn."
Support for this assumption would also be welcome.
I would not suggest that you can't believe what you choose. But you seem to be suffering from what you're accusing others of, namely; blind belief in things that are unprovable. Of course, if you have evidence of the "facts" that you presented, I apologize and withdraw my criticism.
I do have evidence to the contrary for both of the above quotes, but it is too personal to share in this forum, so I'll understand if you don't want to share evidence that you may have. If you do have evidence, but you choose not to share it, my apology still stands.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Look at his signature. He believes that there is some objective morality. Something so universal that someone who violates it is not worthy of any esteem whatsoever.
If we are born atheists, why are we not born amoral as well? Perhaps the parents (and society) drum into our heads from birth that if we don't behave "morally" we are flawed somehow, or maybe sick.
So if it's okay for someone to believe that there is no God, why is it not okay for someone to believe that mass murder is good and love is bad?
I am not suggesting that mass murder is good, nor that love is bad.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.