MrDarwin

Forgive me for not using the irony graemlin.

I'd like to echo tgamble's question. For the sake of argument let's say that birds really did evolve from dinosaurs but no fossils had ever been found. What would you expect from a fossil of a creature transitional between the two groups?

NeilUnreal

I wish there were some way of determining the pigmentation of dinosaurs. As a model builder, I'd like to know whether they were colored and patterned like reptiles, birds or mammals.

-Neil

[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: NeilUnreal ]</p>

MrDarwin

My irony was based on the fact that there is no creature that would be accepted by creationists as transitional between any two groups, no matter how convincing to anybody else. Personally, I think recent fossil discoveries have been better than any paleontologist or ornithologist could have dreamed of, and have pretty well clinched the dinosaur-bird link. And they keep coming!

There have been baseless accusations of fraud regarding Archaeopteryx, which is still one of the best, and certainly the best-known transitional creature. Examination of the fossil has shown that the feather impressions are real and original, and were not added to a dinosaur fossil.

Or you may be thinking of Archaeoraptor, a huge embarrassment for National Geographic which really was a fraud (on the part of the person who sold the fossil, not on the part of the scientists who studied it). Archaeoraptor turned out to be a composite of two entirely different creatures, one a dinosaur and one a bird.

Despite the fact that Archaeoraptor appeared in a popular magazine but not a scientific journal (in part because of doubts about its authenticity), creationists were quick to add it to their litany of Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, and other mistakes and outright hoaxes in the history of paleontology (all the while neglecting to reveal that these mistakes and hoaxes were without exception discovered and exposed by other scientists, not by creationists).

[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

Valentine Pontifex

The BBC has a better picture of the feather than the rest:

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1858000/1858574.stm" target="_blank">Click here.</a>

Unfortunetely what has been shown by the press is not enough to go on. One could not judge, based on what was shown, whether or not the feathers were part of the dinosaur or not. I am also a little disturbed by their refusal to do a CAT scan. Given recent history, the critics have a right to demand a high standard of proof.

And I think that they are exagerating that this is the best feathered dinosaur yet. Unless this fossil is FAR better than what the these news articles show, the best one so far is clearly <a href="http://research.amnh.org/vertpaleo/dinobird.html" target="_blank">this feathered dinosaur</a>.

Coragyps

luvluv: Try your library, or local magazine hoarder, for the November 1999 and march 2000 issues of National Geographic. I would imagine this is the story you're after - a birdlike (not winged, though) fossil that turned out to be portions of two different fossils jigsawed together, apparently by the Chinese farmer who found them and sold them on the black market. It was all quite an embarrasment for those involved, and maybe a lesson about not going aroud the peer-review process on important finds just because you want to sell magazines.
The creature was named Archaeoraptor , if you want to look on Google. Be aware, though, that the Creationist crowd made hay over this screw-up - and remember, the real paleontologists were the ones that found the error.
There are quite a few other birdlike and feathered dinosaurs, both from the area in China where Archaeoraptor was found and from, for instance, Madagascar. Patrick had a great thread on some of them <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=3&t=001539" target="_blank">here.</a>

( Crosspost with MrDarwin - I've got to learn to type faster! )

[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: Coragyps ]</p>

Kosh

Is it just me, or is that bird/dino doing
Steve Martin's "King Tut" dance?

Asha'man

Um, I'd say this one is so blatantly a transitional form that only a creationist could possibly deny it.

Valentine Pontifex

You do not know that!

From the published photos you cannot tell if the feathers are even part of the dinosaur. And since I am pretty sure you have not gone over the Nature article yet, you simply have no good case to be making such a statement. Let the science go forward and always be skeptical about information that we want to hear as well as what the idiot creationists say.

And for the record, I do think that some dinosaurs had feathers. I just get annoyed to see such unqualified and premature statments based on press releases. This sort of behavior will result in foot-in-mouth problems that creationists and other nuts will exploit in full.

Asha'man

Yes, you are correct. Perhaps I should try to find a larger toothy grin to put at the end of such sentences.

Again, you are correct. And to avoid such embarrassment later, I will state my belief clearly and for the record:

1. I am not an expert on fossils, and should not be quoted as such.
2. I believe that the existing fossil evidence strongly indicates a link between dinosaurs and birds.
3. I believe that we have found several fossil examples that are on or near the evolutionary path between dinosaurs and birds.
4. I believe that more fossils will be found that are also on or near that path, and will reduce the size of the steps in that path. Feathered dinosaurs are a very probable stepping stone on that path.
5. I believe that scientists do make mistakes, and there are occasional forgeries, but that these mistakes and forgeries are eventually found and discredited by other scientists.
6. I believe that the odds of this particular fossil being a mistake or a forgery is lower than the odds of it being genuine, but that this is by no means certain.

And, most importantly:

7. I believe that no matter how strong the evidence is that supports this particular fossil as being a genuine step on the path from dinosaur to bird, creationists will still claim that no such transitional forms have ever been found. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />