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Scientists Find Missing Link in Bird Evolution
BlueCup writes "Dozens of fossils of an ancient loon-like creature that some say is the missing link in bird evolution have been discovered in northwest China. The remains of 40 of the nearly modern amphibious birds, so well-preserved that some even have their feathers, were found in Gansu province, researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science. Previously only a single leg of the creature, known as Gansus yumenensis, had been found."
Posting as AC to avoid karma whoring:
Mandatory linkage for reading up on this (quoted from this site: http://creationsafaris.com/crev200606.htm#20060616 b
The news media are abuzz with the phrase "Missing Link" again. This time, it's about a fossilized duck or loon found in Early Cretaceous strata in China, announced in Science.1 The article calls it a "nearly modern" bird with soft-tissue preservation, including webbed feet, wing feathers and downy feathers. They said it "possesses advanced anatomical features previously known only in Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic ornithuran birds." Being found in Early Cretaceous strata (assumed 110 million years old) makes it "the oldest known member of the clade," but the paper does not call it a missing link. Neither does the summary page "This week in Science" earlier in the issue; in fact, the summary states "this Early Cretaceous bird has many derived features," and "It was also well adapted for an aquatic-amphibian lifestyle--the fossils even show what appears to be webbing in the feet." This particular species has been known previously from fragmentary fossils, it says.
Why, then, are the news media all calling this a missing link? See Fox News, for instance, and Associated Press on MSNBC News which states, "Waterfowl fossils fill in a big missing link." It was not missing, and it is not a link; it is a better-preserved specimen of a known species appearing much earlier than previously thought. Live Science did not use the phrase, but said that it "might be one of the oldest ancestors of modern birds," even when the original paper noted that the wing feathers "are asymmetrical and virtually identical to those of volant [i.e., flying] modern birds." National Geographic News avoided the buzzphrase "missing link" also, but claimed "The discovery supports the view that key characteristics of modern birds evolved quickly and early, long before the demise of the dinosaurs." Quoting Jerald Harris (Dixie State College), a co-author of the paper, "It was unexpected to find a bird this advanced in rocks this old. It tells us that the anatomical features we use to characterize modern birds evolved [sic] very quickly [sic]."
In fact, the specimen "shares many skeletal features with modern birds, including the knobby knees characteristic of underwater swimmers like loons and grebes." Even the "preserved skin of the webbed feet shows the same microscopic structure seen in aquatic birds today." There doesn't seem to be anything un-modern about this fossil other than its presumed place in the evolutionary tree. At the end of the NG article, Julia Clarke (North Carolina State U) makes the startling claim that "there was a wide range of bird types during the period that preceded the emergence [sic] of truly [sic] modern birds." That would seem to be the opposite of evolutionary expectations.
At the end of their paper, the discoverers noted one other puzzle: "Consequently, contrary to recent hypotheses, adaptation to an aquatic ecology appears to have played little part in the survival of birds across the K/P boundary."2
1Hai-lu You et al., "A Nearly Modern Amphibious Bird from the Early Cretaceous of Northwestern China, Science, 16 June 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5780, pp. 1640 - 1643, DOI: 10.1126/science.1126377.
2I.e., the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, assumed 65 million years ago when some catastrophic event killed off all the dinosaurs (but apparently not the sparrows and ducks).
This is scandalous. The news media should be ashamed of themselves. What should have been interpreted as the falsification of common notions about bird evolution has been twisted into support for evolution. In an act of contortion astounding in scope, the media expect us to believe three more impossible things before breakfast: (1) that the anatomical features of mode