KT boundry event
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
"T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit misleading,
and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
Why large MAMMALS?
NashtOn
Do you think anybody knows the answer to this? Obviousy, according to
the ToE, it's probably because determinism goes out the window and the
conditions that made for the "evolution" of dinos were not present after
they became extinct.
--
Nicolas
"The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is
the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn
that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more
about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the
product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural
selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture,
and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a
purposeless universe. Do you wonder why a lot of people suspect that
these claims go far beyond the available evidence?" Phillip E.Johnson,
The Church Of Darwin
Gary Bohn
news:1145305916.2...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
Why *not* large mammals?
--
Gary Bohn
Science rationally modifies a theory to fit evidence, creationism
emotionally modifies evidence to fit a specific interpretation of the
bible.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Gary Bohn wrote:
> uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
> news:1145305916.2...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>
> > I just finished Alvarez's book
> >
> > "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit
> > misleading, and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
> >
> > I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
> > event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
> > that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
> > get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
> > Why large MAMMALS?
> >
> >
>
> Why *not* large mammals?
Not the question:
WHY large mammals and not large lizards, etc? Why not dinos all over
again? It had happpened before, many times!
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Gary Bohn wrote:
> uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
> news:1145305916.2...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>
> > I just finished Alvarez's book
> >
> > "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit
> > misleading, and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
> >
> > I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
> > event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
> > that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
> > get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
> > Why large MAMMALS?
> >
> >
>
> Why *not* large mammals?
I just wrote to Alvarez. Perhaps he can refer me to someone else.
John Harshman
Several possibilities. The first is that perhaps it was random. With
pretty much all the large animals extinct, a variety of small animals
could have filled the large-animal ecospace. It just happened to be
mammals this time.
It could have been birds. No other dinosaurs appear to have survived. We
may theorize that endothermy is an advantage, ruling out other reptiles
or amphibians. So your question reduces to this: Why didn't birds
re-radiate to fill the dinosaur ecospace, rather than mammals? There may
be reasons, or there may not be. Why did dinosaurs become dominant
originally, when therapsids had been the dominant large land animals of
the Permian (and remained so in parts of the world through the
Triassic)? There may be reasons, or there may not be. Maybe it was a
coin toss both times; dinosaurs won the first toss, and therapsids won
the second one.
If it wasn't a coin toss, perhaps the answer is that mammals were closer
in ecospace already. Birds were mostly specialized for flight. Mammals
occupied all manner of niches for small and medium-sized terrestrial
animals, both carnivores and herbivores. All that was needed was to get
bigger. Being closer to the target zone, they occupied it first. After
that, incumbency wins out.
Some superiority of mammals to birds, of unknown nature, is suggested by
the fact that there *were* a number of large, terrestrial bird groups in
the early Cenozoic, some of them surviving until the Late Pleistocene.
They seem to have been most prevalent on the chunks of Gondwanaland
(Australia, South America, and for all we know, Antarctica) that we
always sneer at for having inferior mammals. But phorusrhacids at least
managed to invade North America during the great interchange.
We can speculate all we like, but the data to resolve these questions
are unlikely to be forthcoming.
Augray
<1145306762.4...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> :
>Gary Bohn wrote:
>> uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>> news:1145305916.2...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > I just finished Alvarez's book
>> >
>> > "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit
>> > misleading, and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
>> >
>> > I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
>> > event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
>> > that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
>> > get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
>> > Why large MAMMALS?
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Why *not* large mammals?
>
>Not the question:
>
>WHY large mammals and not large lizards, etc?
Mammals are warm-blooded, and dinosaurs probably were too, although
not in quite the same way.
>Why not dinos all over
>again?
Since birds are descended from dinosaurs, and the number of bird
species outnumbers those of mammals, one might argue that it *did*
happen again.
>It had happpened before, many times!
When?
John Harshman
> Gary Bohn wrote:
>
>>uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>>news:1145305916.2...@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>>
>>
>>>I just finished Alvarez's book
>>>
>>>"T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit
>>>misleading, and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
>>>
>>>I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
>>>event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
>>>that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
>>>get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
>>>Why large MAMMALS?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Why *not* large mammals?
>
>
> Not the question:
>
> WHY large mammals and not large lizards, etc? Why not dinos all over
> again? It had happpened before, many times!
What, exactly, had happened before many times? On the large animal
front, there was considerable jockeying for position. Therapsids were
fairly dominant in the Permian. After some confusion, dinosaurs took
over until the K/T event. Then therapsids came back. What else ya got?
John Harshman
> uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>I just finished Alvarez's book
>>
>>"T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit misleading,
>>and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
>>
>>I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
>>event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
>>that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
>>get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
>>Why large MAMMALS?
>>
>
>
> Do you think anybody knows the answer to this? Obviousy, according to
> the ToE, it's probably because determinism goes out the window and the
> conditions that made for the "evolution" of dinos were not present after
> they became extinct.
Obviously? No. Nobody expects the same group to evolve twice -- look up
Dollo's Law. And dinosaurs, of course, didn't become extinct. There are
around 10,000 living species.
shipmodeler1
earlier extinctions Triassic/Jurassic were not complete, so there were
still plenty of dinosaur species around to reclaim their niches. Unless
you count birds as a type of dinosaur, and some large ground-dwelling
predatory birds are known from the post-boundary eras. But I'll
speculate that by the time these large birds evolved there were many
many more large mammal species able to out-compete them: Quantity over
quality, perhaps, or perhaps advanced mammals were able to meet the
re-evolving bird/dinosaurs toe-to-toe and win out.
Also, there were some fairly large reptiles in the ages following the
dino extinction. Komodo dragons come to mind, plus if I remember right
some very large crocodile/alligator species, 40-50 feet long.
As I understand it, in general reptiles cannot compete with mammals for
the large creature niches; Komodo dragons only survive because they are
located on remote islands, for example. The very broad picture would be
that primitive mammals out-competed reptiles, then dinosaurs nearly
swept the board until they went extinct, when the mammals took over
again.
Of course, we don't know for certain that there were no large mammals
livings alongside dinosaurs -- we just haven't found any evidence so
far.
Stile4aly
NashtOn wrote:
> uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > I just finished Alvarez's book
> >
> > "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit misleading,
> > and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
> >
> > I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
> > event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
> > that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
> > get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
> > Why large MAMMALS?
> >
>
> Do you think anybody knows the answer to this? Obviousy, according to
> the ToE, it's probably because determinism goes out the window and the
> conditions that made for the "evolution" of dinos were not present after
> they became extinct.
I would say that the big honking asteroid impact that occurred at the
KY boundary probably led to different conditions.
John Harshman
> I believe the reason we did not get more dinos again is because the
> earlier extinctions Triassic/Jurassic were not complete, so there were
> still plenty of dinosaur species around to reclaim their niches. Unless
> you count birds as a type of dinosaur,
Why "unless"? What prevents you from counting birds?
[snip]
George Cleveland
>uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> I just finished Alvarez's book
>>
>> "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit misleading,
>> and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
>>
>> I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
>> event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
>> that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
>> get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
>> Why large MAMMALS?
>>
>
>Do you think anybody knows the answer to this? Obviousy, according to
>the ToE, it's probably because determinism goes out the window and the
>conditions that made for the "evolution" of dinos were not present after
>they became extinct.
How does that make "determinism" go out the window?
It would seem to me that if the planet was cleared of most species of
land animals, then the ones that were left would be the ones to fill
the empty niches. In this case that would have been birds and mammals.
Its also possible that dinos were being out competed by mammals before
the KT event, since according to my reading the number of species of
dinosaurs were already in decline before the impact.
g.c.
fragallrocks
taking over from the other plants. The flowering plants had a quicker
generation time which allowed them to evolve faster. The dino's with
there generally large size and therefore long genereation time could
not keep up and the asteriod was the last straw. The smaller dino's
where then pushed out by the more adaptable mammels which all ready had
the small size ecological niches tied up.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Birds branched off from dinos long before this!
Ken Shaw
Whether a plant flowers has no relation to its generational length.
Why faster reproducing plants would be a problem for large dinosaurs is
also more than a little vague.
Ken
P.S. A longer reply seems to have vanished into cyberspace so if two
posts show up my apologies.
John Harshman
Second try:
None of this is true. Recent studies show that dinosaurs were at a
diversity peak just before the K/T extinction. Flowering plants have no
quicker a generation time than any other plants. Flowering plants had
nothing to do with dinosaur extinction. The smaller dinos (other than
birds) became extinct during, not after, the K/T event. There is no
evidence that mammals are more adaptable than dinosaurs. Mammals didn't
have the small size niches tied up, since there are many thousands of
species of small reptiles, amphibians, and birds.
John Harshman
Second try:
I'm not sure what your point is supposed to be. You might as well say
that tyrannosaurids branched off from dinos long before this. Because
both birds and tyrannosaurids are subgroups of Dinosauria. The only
reason we ever separated birds from dinosaurs, and not tyrannosaurids,
is that there are living birds. Look up "cladistics".
Anyway, birds are dinosaurs. All living dinosaurs are birds. But they're
dinosaurs too, in the same way that whales are mammals too.
fragallrocks
>Whether a plant flowers has no relation to its generational length.
Yes it does. Cones take three years to go from first bud to seed whilst
flower plants (angiosperms) can have generations every year or more.
The Cycads that were then the main organism in the tree niche had a
slower generation time (due to size).
The fact that the plants have a shorter generation time means that they
adapt quicker. If you study dino's you will see that they begin to
adapt (changes to the gulit etc) but the numbers are reducing as the
flowering plant number increase.
John Harshman
Very silly. You have forgotten that trees take many years after
germination before they are ready to set any seed. That eliminates any
difference between cycad and angiosperm generation times, for trees at
least. And there are plenty of other seed plants that don't take a long
time for cones to form.
DougC
uraniumcommittee wrote:
> I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
> event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
> that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
> get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
> Why large MAMMALS?
I doubt that there were any large mammals co-existing with large meat
eating dinosaurs. After the KT boundry extinction, once the little
agile mammals developed a taste for dinosaur eggs, the age of reptiles
would not make a comeback. Thereafter the small mammals took a long
time to evolve into large mammals.
Doug Chandler
Kermit
It's a chaotic situation. While we could predict large, prarie,
grass-eating grazers, it would be difficult to predict which species
exactly would give rise to them.
Not only was the physical environment and the climate somewhat
different than the eco-history that gave rise to the creataceous
dinosaurs, but the "starting line" species were very different. Plants
were, too. Flora and fauna adapt not only to the climate and terrain
but also other species and *their adaptations.
It's rather like asking "why didn't the Roman Empire rebuild after the
dark ages?". It's not clear that it would happen again even if we
*could back up the clock, so to speak, and start over. There's
certainly no reason to expect either history or evolution to produce
the same results given very different conditions.
Kermit
Noone Inparticular
What he said.
Seriously, I was going to chime in even though several other posters
hit on the theme, but Kermit says it exactly right. We will never know
exactly why large reptiles (excepting crocodilians and some monitor
lizards) didn't arise after the loss of most dinosaur lineages, but
this illustrates very nicely the very important role contingency plays
in evolution. Initial conditions have a very big impact on outcomes in
many phenomena ranging from the evolution and radiation of new species
following an extinction event to the development of human society.
> Kermit
John Harshman
I take exception to "large reptiles". It makes little sense to equate
theropods with lizards and crocodiles. The question should be why
*theropods*, specifically, didn't reclaim the large carnivore niches
they had occupied before the extinction. Obviously, there's no reason to
ask why the dinosaurs didn't reclaim the large herbivore niches, there
being no herbivorous dinosaurs left at that point. In that particular
race, mammals had a big head start.
And of course theropods did have some success as large carnivores. It
may have happened almost immediately, depending on what
gastornithids/diatrymids actually ate. But whatever, it didn't stick.
Speculation is fun.
Walter Bushell
"fragallrocks" <fragal...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I've heard it was the poisons the flowering plants could make, that done
the dinos in. Plants specialize in chemical defense. Maybe the liver of
mammals was superior?
--
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any
charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his
peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totali-
tarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943
Ken Shaw
fragallrocks wrote:
> Ken Shaw wrote:
> >Whether a plant flowers has no relation to its generational length.
>
> Yes it does. Cones take three years to go from first bud to seed whilst
> flower plants (angiosperms) can have generations every year or more.
> The Cycads that were then the main organism in the tree niche had a
> slower generation time (due to size).
Wrong. Ever heard of a fern? There were plenty of other annuals that
aren't angiosperms as well.
>
> The fact that the plants have a shorter generation time means that they
> adapt quicker. If you study dino's you will see that they begin to
> adapt (changes to the gulit etc) but the numbers are reducing as the
> flowering plant number increase.
I do study dinosaurs and you are simply wrong. First off we have next
to no information about the confirmation of dinosaur internal organs.
Secondly studies from beyond the upper great plains formations have
shown that the loss of dinosaur species' diversity there was a
loclaized phenomena.
Ken
Noone Inparticular
You're quite right. I didn't put it right mostly because I am an
immunologist without the kind of training that many biologists who
study evolution have. So I munged the paleobiology. Still, I think what
kermit wrote (which in a temporal sense was a paraphrase of what you
and a few other wrote earlier) is right on the money - likely
contingency is the explanation behind the answer to the OP's question.
>
> And of course theropods did have some success as large carnivores. It
> may have happened almost immediately, depending on what
> gastornithids/diatrymids actually ate. But whatever, it didn't stick.
>
> Speculation is fun.
Yep. I read somewhere that the most exciting phrase in science isn't
"eureka" it's "....that's funny". Don't know who said that.
Pip R. Lagenta
...in the same way that Tyrannosaurus branched off from dinosaurs.
That is to say, a bird is a dinosaur in the same way that a
Tyrannosaurus is a dinosaur. You can do this for any pair of
bird/dinosaur: "chickens branched off from dinosaurs in the same way
that Brachiosauruses branched off from dinosaurs." The branch does
not fall very far from the tree. Birds are dinosaurs.
>
--
內躬偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,
Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta
�虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌`偕爻,虜,齯滌
-- Pip R. Lagenta
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Pip R. Lagenta
(If your name is Pip R. Lagenta, ask about our dues!)
<http://home.comcast.net/~galentripp/pip.html>
(For Email: I'm at home, not work.)
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
John Harshman wrote:
>
> None of this is true. Recent studies show that dinosaurs were at a
> diversity peak just before the K/T extinction. Flowering plants have no
> quicker a generation time than any other plants. Flowering plants had
> nothing to do with dinosaur extinction. The smaller dinos (other than
> birds) became extinct during, not after, the K/T event. There is no
> evidence that mammals are more adaptable than dinosaurs. Mammals didn't
> have the small size niches tied up, since there are many thousands of
> species of small reptiles, amphibians, and birds.
Precisely my point!
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Not exactly. They're birds.
John Harshman
And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
group within Dinosauria.
Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
does not preclude the others.
John Harshman
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
John Harshman wrote:
> >
> > Not exactly. They're birds.
>
> And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
> Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
> exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
> extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
> dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
> old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
> group within Dinosauria.
>
> Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
> have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
> archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
> does not preclude the others.
Dinosaurs as a group are extinct. Birds are different from dinosaurs as
a group. 'Dinosaurs' is a smaller group that does not include modern
birds per se, just as 'whales' does not include 'bovines'. Manatees are
not whales, even though manatees and whales may have a common ancestor.
We use different terms because the features of birds are different from
dinos.
Pip R. Lagenta
Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
<http://www.gavinrymill.com/dinosaurs/Cladogram/SaurischiaTherapoda.jpg>
<http://www.dinosauria.com/pics/clados/clado.gif>
<http://www.dinosaur-world.com/feathered_dinosaurs/aves.htm>
They are birds, they are dinosaurs, they are a floor wax AND a dessert
topping!
Augray
<1145396039.1...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> :
>John Harshman wrote:
>
>> > Not exactly. They're birds.
>>
>> And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
>> Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
>> exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
>> extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
>> dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
>> old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
>> group within Dinosauria.
>>
>> Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
>> have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
>> archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
>> does not preclude the others.
>
>Dinosaurs as a group are extinct. Birds are different from dinosaurs as
>a group.
How?
>'Dinosaurs' is a smaller group that does not include modern
>birds per se, just as 'whales' does not include 'bovines'.
Whales and bovines are not descended from each other. Birds *are*
descended from dinosaurs, and so *are* dinosaurs, just like primates
are mammals.
>Manatees are
>not whales, even though manatees and whales may have a common ancestor.
But then, no one claims that manatees are whales.
>We use different terms because the features of birds are different from
>dinos.
How?
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
Pip R. Lagenta
[snip]
Do you understand that cats are mammals *and* lemurs are mammals?
<http://www.answers.com/mammals&r=67>
Do you understand why we use the word "mammal" for these different
animals? Do you understand that we still call them mammals even
though some mammals have gone extinct?
Birds are dinosaurs. We don't care that other dinosaurs have gone
extinct. There were lots of different kinds of dinosaurs. Some were
*very* different from others... but they weren't so different that
they stopped being dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs. Birds have
changed over the years (via evolution) but they have not stopped being
dinosaurs.
Joe Blow
> John Harshman wrote:
>
>
>>>Not exactly. They're birds.
>>
>>And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
>>Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
>>exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
>>extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
>>dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
>>old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
>>group within Dinosauria.
>>
>>Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
>>have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
>>archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
>>does not preclude the others.
>
>
> Dinosaurs as a group are extinct.
More precisely, most group of dinosaurs are extinct.
> Birds are different from dinosaurs as
> a group.
The birds (a subset of dinosaurs) are not all extinct.
> 'Dinosaurs' is a smaller group that does not include modern
> birds per se, just as 'whales' does not include 'bovines'. Manatees are
> not whales, even though manatees and whales may have a common ancestor.
A bit confused. See http://tolweb.org/Coelurosauria/15769 for clarification.
Since dinosaurs contain birds, the collection of dinosaurs is greater than
the collection of birds.
> We use different terms because the features of birds are different from
> dinos.
That does not mean that birds are not dinosaurs. In the same way you could
say that whales are mammals even though they are different terms. Perhaps
on the Tree of Life Web pages you could point out where you think the
ancestrial root of the dinosaurs would be.
--
Joe
Pip R. Lagenta
>Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
No, but you may have seen a *cousin* of a T-rex in your back yard:
<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1006_041006_feathery_dino.html>
Joe Blow
> Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
>
>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>
> That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
Look closer.
--
Joe
Augray
<1145397603.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> :
>
>Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
>>
>> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
But you've probably seen a Robin, which is related to T-rex.
Matt Silberstein
uraniumc...@yahoo.com in
<1145396039.1...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>John Harshman wrote:
>
>> >
>> > Not exactly. They're birds.
>>
>> And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
>> Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
>> exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
>> extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
>> dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
>> old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
>> group within Dinosauria.
>>
>> Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
>> have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
>> archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
>> does not preclude the others.
>
>Dinosaurs as a group are extinct. Birds are different from dinosaurs as
>a group. 'Dinosaurs' is a smaller group that does not include modern
>birds per se,
Why?
>just as 'whales' does not include 'bovines'.
But Artiodactyls does include whales and cows.
>Manatees are
>not whales, even though manatees and whales may have a common ancestor.
All life shares a common ancestor.
>We use different terms because the features of birds are different from
>dinos.
Who is this "we"? Certainly not biologists. Biologists call birds
dinosaurs because they are descended from dinosaurs.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
John Harshman
You are very confused. Whales and bovines are disjunct groups. Whales,
however, *are* artiodactyls. Manatees are definitely not whales.
Manatees are afrotherians, while whales and other artiodactyls are
laurasiatherians. And these are disjunct subgroups of Eutheria.
Birds and dinosaurs, however, are not disjunct. Birds are nested within
dinosaurs.
What are the features of birds that are different from dinos? Obviously
birds have a few derived features, but it's surprisingly hard to come up
with them, and they may not be the ones you think of immediately, like
feathers and wings. And the features you come up with also depend on
where you draw the arbitrary line between "bird" and "not-bird".
Anyway, I see that you have failed to look up cladistics, so let me give
you a little lesson. A clade is a group composed of a common ancestral
species and all its descendants. Clades are nested within other clades.
In modern taxonomy, all named groups must be clades. Thus Dinosauria
includes the common ancestor of all dinosaurs and all its descendants.
Birds, being descended from that ancestor, are dinosaurs, just as
whales, being descended from the common ancestor of all mammals, are
mammals. A group called "dinosaurs" that didn't include birds would be
paraphyletic (look that up too), and we don't like paraphyletic groups
these days. Dinosauria, in order to be valid, must include birds.
Matt Silberstein
uraniumc...@yahoo.com in
<1145397603.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
>>
>> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
Did you think that T-Rex were the only dinosaurs? If not, how is that
relevant? I have not seen an elephant in my backyard (I have not
actually seen a backyard for some time), that does not mean that
elephants are not mammals.
John Harshman
> Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
>
>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>
> That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
You're pretty arrogant for a person who appears to know little about the
subject. Birds are dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurids are dinosaurs. But birds
aren't tyrannosaurids. You might like to try a Venn diagram. Make a big
circle and label it "dinosaurs". Put two smaller circles inside the big
circle, making sure they don't intersect each other. Label one "birds"
and the other one "tyrannosaurids". You could as easily have labeled the
three circles "mammals", "whales", and "cows". And your little joke was
exactly equivalent to this:
Pip says that whales are mammals, and you say,
"That's funny, I never saw a cow in the ocean!"
The reason that makes no sense is that nobody said whales were cows,
just as nobodoy said tyrannosaurids were birds. Whales and cows are
mammals; birds and tyrannosaurids are dinosaurs. See?
Shane
> Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>
>>
>> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
> That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
If I ask you if you have ever seen a mammal in your back-yard and you
answer 'yes', am I correct in concluding that you have seen a Siberian
Tiger in your backyard? If not, why not? A Siberian Tiger is a mammal.
John Harshman
> On 18 Apr 2006 15:00:03 -0700, in talk.origins ,
> uraniumc...@yahoo.com in
> <1145397603.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>>
>>That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
>
>
> Did you think that T-Rex were the only dinosaurs? If not, how is that
> relevant? I have not seen an elephant in my backyard (I have not
> actually seen a backyard for some time), that does not mean that
> elephants are not mammals.
More to the point, it doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any mammals in
your back yard if you had one, or that squirrels aren't mammals but rodents.
Matt Silberstein
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> in
<93e1g.16972$tN3....@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net> wrote:
Squirrels are pretty rats and, thus, vermin, not rodents. Pigeons,
remarkably enough, are vermin as well. And, thus, also not rodents. Or
birds. Or dinosaurs.
Augray
> Augray wrote:
>
>
> > >
> > >Dinosaurs as a group are extinct. Birds are different from dinosaurs as
> > >a group.
> >
>
>from some fish ancestor.
Actually, depending on your definition of fish, birds can be
considered to belong to that group (more specifically, Teleostomi).
>Birds are a distinct group.
How?
>Dinos are dead. All of them. Birds arose
>within dinos and became a separate group.
At what point did they become a separate group?
Mark Isaak
<morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
To uraniumcommittee: Note the "dinosaurian" in the middle there.
--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
Pip R. Lagenta
<eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote:
>On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:38:25 -0700, "Pip R. Lagenta"
><morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
>More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
>avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
>coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
>dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
>reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
>sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
>bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
I knew that. Some years ago, I had that tattooed on my willy. Twice.
Matt Silberstein
<morbiu...@comcast.net> in
<s2bb42h12kfdm5k6f...@4ax.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 03:08:48 GMT, Mark Isaak
><eci...@earthlinkNOSPAM.next> wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:38:25 -0700, "Pip R. Lagenta"
>><morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>>
>>More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
>>avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
>>coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
>>dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
>>reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
>>sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
>>bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
>
>I knew that. Some years ago, I had that tattooed on my willy. Twice.
>>
That sort of research has lead to 65 nanometer chips.
John Wilkins
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:38:25 -0700, "Pip R. Lagenta"
> <morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>
> More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
> avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
> coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
> dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
> reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
> sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
> bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
... animals.
>
> To uraniumcommittee: Note the "dinosaurian" in the middle there.
>
> --
> Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
> "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
> the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
> being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
> exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering
>
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos,
puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Robin Levett
Would now be a good time to mention that I met Dr Dinosaur (no, not that
one, this one - http://www.dinosaursociety.com/dr-dinosaurasp) recently; he
was taking a session at my daughter's Young Curator's Club at Orpington
museum. Not realising who he was, I pointed out that dinosaurs still live.
He, as an ABSURD BANDit, disagreed...
--
Robin Levett
rle...@rlevett.ibmuklunix.net (unmunge by removing big blue - don't yahoo)
Augray
<rnle...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in <hi1hh3-...@grendel.HAYESWAY> :
Yes, they're few and far between, but they're out there.
Robert J. Kolker
> I just finished Alvarez's book
>
> "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" the title of which is a bit misleading,
> and Mr and Mrs Rex do not appear.
>
> I am puzzled, however, by his poor argument that after the KT boundry
> event the mammals were able to take over the niches (large animals)
> that dinos had previously occupied. The question arises: Why didn't we
> get dinos all over again? Why didn't we get large reptiles, at least?
> Why large MAMMALS?
After the dinos were eliminated the largest animals left were
protomammals. So any further new forms would be elaborations of
protomammals. New species arise from variations of old species.
Another way of putting it. The small protomammals owned all the niches
by elimination.
Bob Kolker
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Modern birds are a subset of Cretaceous birds, most of which were wiped
out at the KT boundary event. ALL modern birds are feathered and have
wings and fly, or are direct descendants of those that did fly.
Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could be
called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and are too
different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have the term 'bird'.
To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
Augray
<1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> :
On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
Cretaceous.
>To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
>Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
evidence to back it up.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
other group.
See:
The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
as fish.
Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions. Birds
are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
Augray
<1145454110.3...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> :
Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
Oonnor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
How does this page support your claim?
>The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
>applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
>though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
>water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
>water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
>
>Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
>as fish.
>
>Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
>to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
believe this trait supposedly evolved?
>It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
>Birds
>are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
John Harshman
We don't actually know that. Respiratory systems don't fossilize. We
have no clear idea when, or over what period, the modern bird
respiratory system evolved. Some theropods have pneumatized bones, which
is suggestive, but there are other reasons to have pneumatized bones.
Anyway, the point is that there's no way to be sure that some or all of
the modern bird system wasn't present in Tyrannosaurus, or even Eoraptor.
> See:
>
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312310080/sr=1-1/qid=1145453804/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737020-1779102?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
>
> The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
> applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
> though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
> water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
> water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
>
> Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
> as fish.
>
> Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
> to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
You still don't understand how classification works. A given species
belongs to more than one group. Groups are nested within other groups. A
mallard is an anatid, and a bird, and a theropod, an amniote, etc., all
at once. Being a bird doesn't prevent you from being a dinosaur.
> It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions. Birds
> are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
Whales are NOT mammals; they are whales. See how silly that sounds?
John Harshman
The link isn't working right now. Who is Dr. Dinosaur?
Stanley Friesen
>Also, there were some fairly large reptiles in the ages following the
>dino extinction. Komodo dragons come to mind, plus if I remember right
>some very large crocodile/alligator species, 40-50 feet long.
>
>As I understand it, in general reptiles cannot compete with mammals for
>the large creature niches; Komodo dragons only survive because they are
>located on remote islands, for example. The very broad picture would be
>that primitive mammals out-competed reptiles, then dinosaurs nearly
>swept the board until they went extinct, when the mammals took over
>again.
Except, of course, that the komodo dragon is a *very* *poor* model for
dinosaur ecology. Dinosaurs were fully erect, highly active, probably
at least incipiently endothermic. A better model for a large dinosaur
would be one of its modern descendents, like, say, an ostrich which has
*no* trouble competing with large mammals.
>
>Of course, we don't know for certain that there were no large mammals
>livings alongside dinosaurs -- we just haven't found any evidence so
>far.
Large animals fossilize more readily than small. Given the intense
searching, I think we can safely conclude no mammal during the
Cretaceous was larger than about 20 kg.
--
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
John Harshman
> Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:38:25 -0700, "Pip R. Lagenta"
>><morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>>
>>More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
>>avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
>>coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
>>dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
>>reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
>>sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
>>bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
>
>
> ... animals.
That was the metazoan part.
Stanley Friesen
>>
>> The fact that the plants have a shorter generation time means that they
>> adapt quicker. If you study dino's you will see that they begin to
>> adapt (changes to the gulit etc) but the numbers are reducing as the
>> flowering plant number increase.
>
>I do study dinosaurs and you are simply wrong. First off we have next
>to no information about the confirmation of dinosaur internal organs.
>Secondly studies from beyond the upper great plains formations have
>shown that the loss of dinosaur species' diversity there was a
>loclaized phenomena.
>
But even there the loss of diversity was restricted to the Late
Maastrichtian (Lancian), many millions of years after flowering plants
became a major player in the ecology.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
> >Birds
> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>
> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
Birds are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct. ALL of
them.
Stanley Friesen
>Ken Shaw wrote:
>>Whether a plant flowers has no relation to its generational length.
>
>Yes it does. Cones take three years to go from first bud to seed whilst
>flower plants (angiosperms) can have generations every year or more.
On the other hand, consider quillworts - non-flowering herbs.
>The Cycads that were then the main organism in the tree niche had a
>slower generation time (due to size).
No, the main trees were conifers and ginkgoes throughout the Jurassic
and Early Cretaceous. Cycads were mainly the *shrubs* (or at least some
of the shrubs - there were also abundant tree ferns and small conifers).
>
>The fact that the plants have a shorter generation time means that they
>adapt quicker. If you study dino's you will see that they begin to
>adapt (changes to the gulit etc) but the numbers are reducing as the
>flowering plant number increase.
No, there was a greater diversity of dinosaur forms in the Late
Cretaceous than ever before, except among sauropods.
Augray
<1145455798.3...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> :
>Augray wrote:
>> On 19 Apr 2006 06:41:50 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>> <1145454110.3...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> :
>>
>> >Augray wrote:
>> >> On 19 Apr 2006 05:57:55 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>> >> <1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> :
>> >> >To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
>> >> >Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
>> >>
>> >> What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
>> >> evidence to back it up.
>> >
>> >For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
>> >other group.
>>
>>Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
>>respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
>>
>> O辰onnor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
>> pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
>> theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
>>
>>
>> >See:
>> >
>>
>>How does this page support your claim?
>>
>>
>> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
>> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
>> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
>> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
>> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
>> >
>> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
>> >as fish.
>> >
>> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
>> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
>>
>>You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
>>believe this trait supposedly evolved?
>>
>>
>> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
>>
>>It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
>>out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
>>
>>
Simply repeating a claim does not make it true. I've pointed out that
your claim that birds have a unique respiratory system is very likely
false. Is there any other trait you had in mind, or am I expected to
take your word for it? Your distinction between birds and dinosaurs is
completely arbitrary. At what point did the lineage leading to living
birds cease being dinosaurs and become birds?
Augray
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in
<rqr1g.48550$_S7.2...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com> :
Try this one: http://www.dinosaursociety.com/dr-dinosaur.asp
John Wilkins
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
> >>
> >> On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
> >> dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
> >> living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
> >> Cretaceous.
That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
> >>
> >>
> >> >To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
> >> >Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
> >>
> >> What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
> >> evidence to back it up.
> >
> >For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
> >other group.
>
> Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
> respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
>
> O'Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
> pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
> theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
The book referenced below states that bird respiratory system differes
from all other groups.
>
> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
> >
> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
> >as fish.
> >
> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
>
> You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
> believe this trait supposedly evolved?
'Modern birds' are not 'dinosaurs'. They belong to the group
dinosauria, but that Latin name is not synonymous with the common name
'dinosaurs'.
> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
>
> It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
> out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
> >Birds
> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>
> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct. 'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
from flying Cretaceous birds. Birds originated among the earliest
dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
John Wilkins
Augray
<1145457481.8...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> :
>
>Augray wrote:
>
>> >>
>> >> On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
>> >> dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
>> >> living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
>> >> Cretaceous.
>
>That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
So, even though you can't point to a trait that's unique to birds,
you're going to make the claim anyway?
>> >> >To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
>> >> >Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
>> >>
>> >> What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
>> >> evidence to back it up.
>> >
>> >For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
>> >other group.
>>
>> Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
>> respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
>>
>> O'Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
>> pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
>> theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
>
>The book referenced below states that bird respiratory system differes
>from all other groups.
>
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312310080/sr=1-1/qid=1145453804/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737020-1779102?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
Since that book, for the most part, contains reprints of Scientific
American articles from the last thirty years, I'd hardly consider it
to be up to date. Is there any particular article that you had in mind
to back your claim?
>> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
>> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
>> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
>> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
>> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
>> >
>> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
>> >as fish.
>> >
>> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
>> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
>>
>> You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
>> believe this trait supposedly evolved?
>
>'Modern birds' are not 'dinosaurs'. They belong to the group
>dinosauria, but that Latin name is not synonymous with the common name
>'dinosaurs'.
That's news to me. What do you base it on? It also seems to be beside
the point. Are you saying that if I were to claim that birds belonged
to the group Dinosauria, would that alleviate your objections?
>> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
>>
>> It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
>> out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
>
>It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
>past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
But since the term "fish" is a colloquial term, it's hardly expected
to be precise. On the other hand, you've yet to tell me at what point
birds ceased being dinosaurs, and what you base that claim on.
>> >Birds
>> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>>
>> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
>
>'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
That's an arbitrary claim.
>'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
>descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
>in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
>from flying Cretaceous birds.
I agree completely.
>Birds originated among the earliest
>dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
John Harshman
> "shipmodeler1" <rog...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>Also, there were some fairly large reptiles in the ages following the
>>dino extinction. Komodo dragons come to mind, plus if I remember right
>>some very large crocodile/alligator species, 40-50 feet long.
>>
>>As I understand it, in general reptiles cannot compete with mammals for
>>the large creature niches; Komodo dragons only survive because they are
>>located on remote islands, for example. The very broad picture would be
>>that primitive mammals out-competed reptiles, then dinosaurs nearly
>>swept the board until they went extinct, when the mammals took over
>>again.
>
>
> Except, of course, that the komodo dragon is a *very* *poor* model for
> dinosaur ecology. Dinosaurs were fully erect, highly active, probably
> at least incipiently endothermic. A better model for a large dinosaur
> would be one of its modern descendents, like, say, an ostrich which has
> *no* trouble competing with large mammals.
Then again, there are very few birds like the ostrich. Most of them live
(or lived) on islands with no mammalian predators or on island
continents where there were (until the last few million or thousand
years in each case) no placental predators. This could be used to argue
that, for whatever reason, mammals usually do outcompete birds on the
ground, since very few of them have given up flight except in the
absence of mammals.
>>Of course, we don't know for certain that there were no large mammals
>>livings alongside dinosaurs -- we just haven't found any evidence so
>>far.
>
> Large animals fossilize more readily than small. Given the intense
> searching, I think we can safely conclude no mammal during the
> Cretaceous was larger than about 20 kg.
I wouldn't go that far. Geographic sampling isn't all that good. There
could be some large mammals hiding in places we haven't looked, or in
places we will never be able to look because there was no ready
depositional environment.
John Harshman
Ah. I see he's not a real doctor. He has a master's degree...in science!
Remind me what ABSURD means.
Walter Bushell
John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
And isn't it quite a jump from deuterostome to chordate? Seems like
there should be a couple of steps in there.
--
"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any
charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his
peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totali-
tarian government whether Nazi or Communist." -- W. Churchill, Nov 21, 1943
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
> On 19 Apr 2006 07:38:01 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
> <1145457481.8...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> :
>
> >
> >Augray wrote:
> >
> >> >>
> >> >> On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
> >> >> dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
> >> >> living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
> >> >> Cretaceous.
> >
> >That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
>
> So, even though you can't point to a trait that's unique to birds,
> you're going to make the claim anyway?
FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
How are those?
> >> >> >To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
> >> >> >Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
> >> >>
> >> >> What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
> >> >> evidence to back it up.
> >> >
> >> >For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
> >> >other group.
> >>
> >> Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
> >> respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
> >>
> >> O'Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
> >> pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
> >> theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
> >
> >The book referenced below states that bird respiratory system differes
> >from all other groups.
> >
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312310080/sr=1-1/qid=1145453804/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737020-1779102?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
>
> Since that book, for the most part, contains reprints of Scientific
> American articles from the last thirty years, I'd hardly consider it
> to be up to date. Is there any particular article that you had in mind
> to back your claim?
I can't find it right this instant. Maybe later.
> >> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
> >> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
> >> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
> >> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
> >> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
> >> >
> >> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
> >> >as fish.
> >> >
> >> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
> >> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
> >>
> >> You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
> >> believe this trait supposedly evolved?
> >
> >'Modern birds' are not 'dinosaurs'. They belong to the group
> >dinosauria, but that Latin name is not synonymous with the common name
> >'dinosaurs'.
>
> That's news to me. What do you base it on? It also seems to be beside
> the point. Are you saying that if I were to claim that birds belonged
> to the group Dinosauria, would that alleviate your objections?
Yes. The group 'Dinosauria' includes more than the common term
'dinosaurs'.
> >> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
> >>
> >> It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
> >> out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
> >
> >It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
> >past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
>
> But since the term "fish" is a colloquial term, it's hardly expected
> to be precise. On the other hand, you've yet to tell me at what point
> birds ceased being dinosaurs, and what you base that claim on.
'Dinosaurs' is likewise a colloquial term that is far from synonymous
with 'Dinosauria'.
'Dinosaurs'
'Birds'
'Fish'
'Snails'
'Slugs'
'Trilobites'
'Crabs'
'Insects'
Some of these groups are extinct, but all are colloquial terms.
> >> >Birds
> >> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
> >>
> >> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
> >
> >'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>
> That's an arbitrary claim.
>
>
> >'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
> >descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
> >in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
> >from flying Cretaceous birds.
>
> I agree completely.
>
>
> >Birds originated among the earliest
> >dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>
> That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
Walter Bushell
John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Birds and dinosaurs, however, are not disjunct. Birds are nested within
> dinosaurs.
Goodness gracious, birds nest in trees (or on the ground) not dinosaurs.
Wakboth
Matt Silberstein kirjoitti:
> On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:50:45 GMT, in talk.origins , John Harshman
> <jharshman....@pacbell.net> in
> <93e1g.16972$tN3....@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net> wrote:
>
> >Matt Silberstein wrote:
> >
> >> On 18 Apr 2006 15:00:03 -0700, in talk.origins ,
> >> uraniumc...@yahoo.com in
> >> <1145397603.4...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>>That's funny, I never saw a T-rex in my back-yard!
> >>
> >>
> >> Did you think that T-Rex were the only dinosaurs? If not, how is that
> >> relevant? I have not seen an elephant in my backyard (I have not
> >> actually seen a backyard for some time), that does not mean that
> >> elephants are not mammals.
> >
> >More to the point, it doesn't mean that there wouldn't be any mammals in
> >your back yard if you had one, or that squirrels aren't mammals but rodents.
>
> Squirrels are pretty rats and, thus, vermin, not rodents. Pigeons,
> remarkably enough, are vermin as well. And, thus, also not rodents. Or
> birds. Or dinosaurs.
Squirrels are rats are vermin.
Pidgeons are vermin.
Thus, simple logic tells us that squirrels are pidgeons, and vice
versa, which neatly solves the problem of there not being baby pidgeons
to be seen: they're squirrels.
-- Wakboth
Augray
<jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in
<fGs1g.17113$tN3....@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net> :
>Augray wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:03:03 GMT, John Harshman
>> <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote in
>> <rqr1g.48550$_S7.2...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com> :
>>
>>
>>>Robin Levett wrote:
[snip]
>>>>Would now be a good time to mention that I met Dr Dinosaur (no, not that
>>>>one, this one - http://www.dinosaursociety.com/dr-dinosaurasp) recently; he
>>>>was taking a session at my daughter's Young Curator's Club at Orpington
>>>>museum. Not realising who he was, I pointed out that dinosaurs still live.
>>>>He, as an ABSURD BANDit, disagreed...
>>>>
>>>
>>>The link isn't working right now. Who is Dr. Dinosaur?
>>
>>
>> Try this one: http://www.dinosaursociety.com/dr-dinosaur.asp
>>
>Ah. I see he's not a real doctor. He has a master's degree...in science!
>
>Remind me what ABSURD means.
Anything But a Small Undiscovered Running Dinosaur (I had to look it
up myself).
John Harshman
> Augray wrote:
>
>>On 19 Apr 2006 07:38:01 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>><1145457481.8...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> :
>>
>>
>>>Augray wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
>>>>>>dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
>>>>>>living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
>>>>>>Cretaceous.
>>>
>>>That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
>>
>>So, even though you can't point to a trait that's unique to birds,
>>you're going to make the claim anyway?
>
>
> FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
>
> How are those?
Not so good. Microraptor gui, a dromaeosaurid theropod, could fly. Many
theropods were toothless, and many extinct birds had teeth. Neither of
these is diagnostic.
So we're reduced to arguing the semantics of a vernacular term. Boring.
Yes, the term as commonly used by non-scientists doesn't include birds.
But we try for a bit more technical language here on TO. There are
advantages to cladistic thinking that you should definitely consider.
"Dinosaurs" as a group excluding birds is just an arbitrary collection
of species. If you include birds, though, it's a clade, a real
evolutionary entity. Including birds as dinosaurs can save you from
categorical mistakes like you indulged in at the start of this thread.
Birds are fish too, by the way. We're all fish. Just particularly weird
fish with a variety of bizarre adaptations to a terrestrial lifestyle.
If you think of it that way, evolutionary history becomes much more
compelling, in my opinion.
>>>>>It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
>>>>
>>>>It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
>>>>out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
>>>
>>>It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
>>>past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
>>
>>But since the term "fish" is a colloquial term, it's hardly expected
>>to be precise. On the other hand, you've yet to tell me at what point
>>birds ceased being dinosaurs, and what you base that claim on.
>
> 'Dinosaurs' is likewise a colloquial term that is far from synonymous
> with 'Dinosauria'.
>
> 'Dinosaurs'
> 'Birds'
> 'Fish'
> 'Snails'
> 'Slugs'
> 'Trilobites'
> 'Crabs'
> 'Insects'
>
> Some of these groups are extinct, but all are colloquial terms.
Some of them correspond to actual clades, like birds, trilobites, slugs,
and insects. Others can easily be made into clades by including their
excluded subgroups: birds within dinosaurs, tetrapods within fish, slugs
within snails. Crabs are polyphyletic if you count everything with
"crab" in its name; can't do anything for you there.
Colloquial terms are not a good thing to use in discussions of science.
"Dinosaur" excluding birds defines a group with no real existence.
>>>>>Birds
>>>>>are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>>>>
>>>>Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
>>>
>>>'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>>
>>That's an arbitrary claim.
>>
>>
>>
>>>'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
>>>descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
>>>in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
>>
>>>from flying Cretaceous birds.
>>
>>I agree completely.
>>
>>
>>
>>>Birds originated among the earliest
>>>dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>>
>>That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
>
>
> See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
For those of us who aren't reading it right now, you will have to say
what you mean. Birds, according to most modern accounts, are
maniraptorans, probably most closely related to dromaeosaurs, and these
are many nodes removed from the earliest dinosaurs. The fossil record
being what it is, we don't know just when birds first evolved. But a
good guess would be sometime in the Late Jurassic, around 70 million
years after the first dinosaurs.
John Harshman
> In article <eBd1g.3028$Lm5....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>,
> John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Birds and dinosaurs, however, are not disjunct. Birds are nested within
>>dinosaurs.
>
>
> Goodness gracious, birds nest in trees (or on the ground) not dinosaurs.
>
Who says dinosaurs don't nest in trees (or on the ground)?
John Harshman
> In article <%rr1g.48552$_S7....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
> John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>
>>John Wilkins wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:38:25 -0700, "Pip R. Lagenta"
>>>><morbiu...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Birds are exactly dinosaurs. Birds are precisely dinosaurs.
>>>>
>>>>More precisely, they are ornithurine ornithothoracine pygostylian
>>>>avialan eumaniraptoran maniraptoran maniraptoriform tyrannoraptoran
>>>>coelurosaurian avetheropod tetanuran neotheropod theropod saurischian
>>>>dinosaurian archosaurian archosauromorphan saurian diapsid romeriid
>>>>reptilian amniote anthracosaurian tetrapod stegocephalian
>>>>sarcopterygian gnathostomate craniate vertebrate chordate deuterostome
>>>>bilaterian metazoan opisthokont eukaryotes.
>>>
>>>
>>>... animals.
>>
>>That was the metazoan part.
>
>
> And isn't it quite a jump from deuterostome to chordate? Seems like
> there should be a couple of steps in there.
Not that I know of. Current phylogenies of deuterostomes divide them
into two groups, chordates and everything else. There are a number of
fossils of unknown relationships that might fit on the chordate lineage,
or on the stem-deuterostome lineage, but might not. So that is really it
as far as we can tell right now.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
> On 19 Apr 2006 07:38:01 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
> <1145457481.8...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> :
>
> >
> >Augray wrote:
> >
> >> >>
> >> >> On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
> >> >> dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
> >> >> living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
> >> >> Cretaceous.
> >
> >That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
>
> So, even though you can't point to a trait that's unique to birds,
> you're going to make the claim anyway?
FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
How are those?
> >> >> >To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
> >> >> >Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.
> >> >>
> >> >> What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
> >> >> evidence to back it up.
> >> >
> >> >For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
> >> >other group.
> >>
> >> Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
> >> respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:
> >>
> >> O'Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
> >> pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
> >> theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.
> >
> >The book referenced below states that bird respiratory system differes
> >from all other groups.
> >
> >http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312310080/sr=1-1/qid=1145453804/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737020-1779102?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books
>
> Since that book, for the most part, contains reprints of Scientific
> American articles from the last thirty years, I'd hardly consider it
> to be up to date. Is there any particular article that you had in mind
> to back your claim?
I can't find it right this instant. Maybe later.
> >> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
> >> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
> >> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
> >> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
> >> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
> >> >
> >> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
> >> >as fish.
> >> >
> >> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
> >> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
> >>
> >> You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
> >> believe this trait supposedly evolved?
> >
> >'Modern birds' are not 'dinosaurs'. They belong to the group
> >dinosauria, but that Latin name is not synonymous with the common name
> >'dinosaurs'.
>
> That's news to me. What do you base it on? It also seems to be beside
> the point. Are you saying that if I were to claim that birds belonged
> to the group Dinosauria, would that alleviate your objections?
Yes. The group 'Dinosauria' includes more than the common term
'dinosaurs'.
> >> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
> >>
> >> It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
> >> out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
> >
> >It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
> >past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
>
> But since the term "fish" is a colloquial term, it's hardly expected
> to be precise. On the other hand, you've yet to tell me at what point
> birds ceased being dinosaurs, and what you base that claim on.
'Dinosaurs' is likewise a colloquial term that is far from synonymous
with 'Dinosauria'.
'Dinosaurs'
'Birds'
'Fish'
'Snails'
'Slugs'
'Trilobites'
'Crabs'
'Insects'
Some of these groups are extinct, but all are colloquial terms.
> >> >Birds
> >> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
> >>
> >> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
> >
> >'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>
> That's an arbitrary claim.
>
>
> >'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
> >descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
> >in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
> >from flying Cretaceous birds.
>
> I agree completely.
>
>
> >Birds originated among the earliest
> >dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>
> That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
John Harshman wrote:
> >
> > FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
> >
> > How are those?
>
> Not so good. Microraptor gui, a dromaeosaurid theropod, could fly. Many
> theropods were toothless, and many extinct birds had teeth. Neither of
> these is diagnostic.
These characters are used by laymen to categorize groups.
No modern bird has teeth. Agreed?
Well, I didn't start using the term 'dinosaurs' and say 'dinosaurs are
birds'. That's overly simplistic and false as such.
> Yes, the term as commonly used by non-scientists doesn't include birds.
> But we try for a bit more technical language here on TO.
But that's not what I am complaining about.
> There are
> advantages to cladistic thinking that you should definitely consider.
> "Dinosaurs" as a group excluding birds is just an arbitrary collection
> of species. If you include birds, though, it's a clade, a real
> evolutionary entity. Including birds as dinosaurs can save you from
> categorical mistakes like you indulged in at the start of this thread.
>
> Birds are fish too, by the way. We're all fish. Just particularly weird
> fish with a variety of bizarre adaptations to a terrestrial lifestyle.
> If you think of it that way, evolutionary history becomes much more
> compelling, in my opinion.
At some point, all such distinction arbitrary. Many find it useful to
distinguish birds from dinosuars. Distinction into classes based on
appearance is a useful feature of language, so that when I say the word
'Esquimaux' people don't think I am talking about Watusi. They picture
in their mind the dwellers of arctic regions, rather than of tropical
ones.
Same thing applies to 'polar bear' and 'tiger'.
It includes Aptosaurus and T-Rex, Triceratops, etc. That's what people
think of when you use the word 'dinosaur'. For most purposes, that's
just fine.
> >>>>>Birds
> >>>>>are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
> >>>>
> >>>>Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
> >>>
> >>>'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
> >>
> >>That's an arbitrary claim.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
> >>>descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
> >>>in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
> >>
> >>>from flying Cretaceous birds.
> >>
> >>I agree completely.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Birds originated among the earliest
> >>>dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
> >>
> >>That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
> >
> >
> > See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
>
> For those of us who aren't reading it right now, you will have to say
> what you mean. Birds, according to most modern accounts, are
> maniraptorans, probably most closely related to dromaeosaurs, and these
> are many nodes removed from the earliest dinosaurs. The fossil record
> being what it is, we don't know just when birds first evolved. But a
> good guess would be sometime in the Late Jurassic, around 70 million
> years after the first dinosaurs.
That's what one article in the book says too. The problem is the
paucity in the fossil record.
Augray
>
>Augray wrote:
>> On 19 Apr 2006 07:38:01 -0700, uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote in
>> <1145457481.8...@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> :
>>
>> >Augray wrote:
>> >
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
>> >> >> dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
>> >> >> living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
>> >> >> Cretaceous.
>> >
>> >That does not make them dinosaurs. Dinos are extinct.
>>
>> So, even though you can't point to a trait that's unique to birds,
>> you're going to make the claim anyway?
>
>FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
>
>How are those?
Terrible. For example, since tooth loss occurred several times in side
branches leading to living birds, you would have "birds" showing up
independently several times in the family tree. For instance,
Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis had no teeth, but were very much like
Archaeopteryx, Similarly, Confuciusornis, only slightly more advanced,
also lacked teeth. But between them on the family tree, more derived
than Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis, but less derived than
Confuciusornis, is Sapeornis, which *had* teeth. Note that I'm not
claiming that Sapeornis is descended from either Shenzhouraptor or
Jixiangornis, but it is clearly further along on the path to modern
birds than either of those two.
In news:1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com you made
the claim that
Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could
be called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and
are too different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have
the term 'bird'.
But using this definition, Confuciusornis, from the Early Cretaceous,
is a dinosaur, even though it lacked teeth and could fly. It would
seem that you're making this up as you go along.
Like what? Birds?
>> >> >It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.
>> >>
>> >> It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
>> >> out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.
>> >
>> >It's not any more arbitrary than the modern meaning of 'fish'. In the
>> >past, 'fish'. could mean any water-dwelling creature.
>>
>> But since the term "fish" is a colloquial term, it's hardly expected
>> to be precise. On the other hand, you've yet to tell me at what point
>> birds ceased being dinosaurs, and what you base that claim on.
>
>'Dinosaurs' is likewise a colloquial term that is far from synonymous
>with 'Dinosauria'.
>
>'Dinosaurs'
>'Birds'
>'Fish'
>'Snails'
>'Slugs'
>'Trilobites'
>'Crabs'
>'Insects'
>
>Some of these groups are extinct, but all are colloquial terms.
Certainly not. "Trilobites" is hardly a colloquial term.
>> >> >Birds
>> >> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>> >>
>> >> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
>> >
>> >'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>>
>> That's an arbitrary claim.
>>
>>
>> >'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
>> >descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
>> >in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
>> >from flying Cretaceous birds.
>>
>> I agree completely.
>>
>>
>> >Birds originated among the earliest
>> >dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>>
>> That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
>
>See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
I very much doubt that the book makes this claim.
Robert J. Kolker
Birds and the large/medium dinosaurs have homologous features,
particularly the arrangement of the bones. Birds may well be the latter
day descendents of some kind of dinosaurs that survived the disaster
65,000,000 ybp. There is a serious similarity between birds and
velocoraptors.
Bob Kolker
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
> >FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
> >
> >How are those?
>
> Terrible. For example, since tooth loss occurred several times in side
> branches leading to living birds, you would have "birds" showing up
> independently several times in the family tree.
All modern birds are toothless, but that does not mean no other animals
are or were. When I say the word 'bird' (meaning modern bird) the
concept of a beak is central.
> For instance,
> Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis had no teeth, but were very much like
> Archaeopteryx, Similarly, Confuciusornis, only slightly more advanced,
> also lacked teeth.
When I say 'bird', I mean 'modern bird'. Please observe this
convention. The animals you're talking about are earler forms.
> But between them on the family tree, more derived
> than Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis, but less derived than
> Confuciusornis, is Sapeornis, which *had* teeth. Note that I'm not
> claiming that Sapeornis is descended from either Shenzhouraptor or
> Jixiangornis, but it is clearly further along on the path to modern
> birds than either of those two.
>
> In news:1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com you made
> the claim that
>
> Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could
> be called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and
> are too different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have
> the term 'bird'.
>
> But using this definition, Confuciusornis, from the Early Cretaceous,
> is a dinosaur, even though it lacked teeth and could fly. It would
> seem that you're making this up as you go along.
It is not always, if ever, possible to use terms that were intended to
apply to contemporary animals to apply to ancient ones.
Predecesors of modern birds. 'Birds' means 'modern birds' (post KT).
It does. I just read it yesterday.
Walter Bushell
John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> > In article <eBd1g.3028$Lm5....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>,
> > John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Birds and dinosaurs, however, are not disjunct. Birds are nested within
> >>dinosaurs.
> >
> >
> > Goodness gracious, birds nest in trees (or on the ground) not dinosaurs.
> >
> Who says dinosaurs don't nest in trees (or on the ground)?
Of course they do, they just don't nest in dinosaurs. Usually. More
often they nest in human build bird houses.
Bill Hudson
uraniumc...@yahoo.com wrote:
[snip]
>
> All modern birds are toothless, but that does not mean no other animals
> are or were. When I say the word 'bird' (meaning modern bird) the
> concept of a beak is central.
>
[snip]
>
> When I say 'bird', I mean 'modern bird'. Please observe this
> convention. The animals you're talking about are earler forms.
>
[snip]
>
> Predecesors of modern birds. 'Birds' means 'modern birds' (post KT).
[snip]
I am by no means an expert, but it appears to me that you are trying to
forward an 'argument by definition'; You attempt to tightly define the
term 'bird' so that you are right and your opponents are wrong. This
is a 'humpty-dumpty' argument, in my opinion.
"When I use a word, it means exactly what I intend it to mean, no more,
no less."
- Humpty Dumpty to Alice, Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis
Carroll.
Ferrous Patella
Try again, this time it all caps.
--
Ferrous Patella (Homo gerardii)
T.A., Philosophy Lab
University of Ediacara
Å vite hva man ikke vet,
er også en slags allvitenhet.
John Harshman
Birds are dinosaurs. Birds arose long before the K/T boundary. Birds are
the only dinosaurs that survived the K/T extinction, so far as we know.
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
No, they are not. We should not use the names of contemporary creatures
to apply to extinct ones or ancient ones. 'Birds' as we understand that
term did not come into being until after the KT boundary event.
John Harshman
> John Harshman wrote:
>
>
>>>FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
>>>
>>>How are those?
>>
>>Not so good. Microraptor gui, a dromaeosaurid theropod, could fly. Many
>>theropods were toothless, and many extinct birds had teeth. Neither of
>>these is diagnostic.
>
> These characters are used by laymen to categorize groups.
Since when do we do taxonomy by public polling? If you want to decide
matters of science that way, then you should be a creationist.
> No modern bird has teeth. Agreed?
Agreed, but so what?
Nobody said dinosaurs are birds. We all said birds are dinosaurs. Do you
see the difference?
>>Yes, the term as commonly used by non-scientists doesn't include birds.
>>But we try for a bit more technical language here on TO.
>
> But that's not what I am complaining about.
What are you complaining about?
>>There are
>>advantages to cladistic thinking that you should definitely consider.
>>"Dinosaurs" as a group excluding birds is just an arbitrary collection
>>of species. If you include birds, though, it's a clade, a real
>>evolutionary entity. Including birds as dinosaurs can save you from
>>categorical mistakes like you indulged in at the start of this thread.
>>
>>Birds are fish too, by the way. We're all fish. Just particularly weird
>>fish with a variety of bizarre adaptations to a terrestrial lifestyle.
>>If you think of it that way, evolutionary history becomes much more
>>compelling, in my opinion.
>
> At some point, all such distinction arbitrary. Many find it useful to
> distinguish birds from dinosuars. Distinction into classes based on
> appearance is a useful feature of language, so that when I say the word
> 'Esquimaux' people don't think I am talking about Watusi. They picture
> in their mind the dwellers of arctic regions, rather than of tropical
> ones.
>
> Same thing applies to 'polar bear' and 'tiger'.
All of which is irrelevant. Nobody says that eskimos are watusi, or that
polar bears are tigers. These are examples of disjunct groups. Birds and
dinosaurs are examples of nested groups. What good does it do to say
that birds are not dinosaurs? In fact, it leads to false conclusions
about anatomy, behavior, and many other features.
If you're going by that scale, it also includes Dimetrodon and
Plesiosaurus. Why would you want to do that? Why accept the definitions
of a public that doesn't know and doesn't care much about the subject
over the definitions used by scientists? And why tell people here that
they are wrong when they use those definitions?
>>>>>>>Birds
>>>>>>>are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
>>>>>
>>>>>'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>>>>
>>>>That's an arbitrary claim.
>>>>
>>>>>'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
>>>>>descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
>>>>>in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
>>>>>from flying Cretaceous birds.
By the way, there is little evidence to suggest that most birds died out
in the Cretaceous (which I take to mean that the end-Cretaceous
extinction took a major toll on birds). The enantiornithines became
extinct, all toothed birds became extinct, and some neornithines
survived. But we have no clear idea how many species of each there were
at the time. It might be that only a few species became extinct, or
several thousand. No way to tell.
>>>>I agree completely.
>>>>
>>>>>Birds originated among the earliest
>>>>>dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>>>>
>>>>That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
>>>
>>>See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
>>
>>For those of us who aren't reading it right now, you will have to say
>>what you mean. Birds, according to most modern accounts, are
>>maniraptorans, probably most closely related to dromaeosaurs, and these
>>are many nodes removed from the earliest dinosaurs. The fossil record
>>being what it is, we don't know just when birds first evolved. But a
>>good guess would be sometime in the Late Jurassic, around 70 million
>>years after the first dinosaurs.
>
> That's what one article in the book says too. The problem is the
> paucity in the fossil record.
So why did you say that birds originated among the earliest dinosaurs?
Doesn't that contradict what I just said? What does your book actually say?
Robert J. Kolker
>
> Birds are dinosaurs. Birds arose long before the K/T boundary. Birds are
> the only dinosaurs that survived the K/T extinction, so far as we know.
Modern birds may be descendants of dinosaurs that survived the wreck of
65 million years b.p.. There is a similarity in the skeletal structure
of birds now existing and flying dinosaur fossils. Just is we are the
descendants of mammals that survived the disaster. There were no
primates back then.
Bob Kolker
John Harshman
But earlier you appealed to the colloquial definition, and certainly the
public, when they think of Archaeopteryx at all, think of it as a bird.
And surely you have heard talk of Mesozoic "toothed birds". If they're
not birds, what are they? In fact you are here proposing a unique and
personal definition of the term "bird" which corresponds to nobody
else's definition, scientific or common. It comes closest to Neornithes,
except that there are Cretaceous neornithines. In fact, post-KT birds
aren't even a clade. They're a polyphyletic assemblage, since a minimum
of 7 neornithine lineages (and probably many more) crossed the KT
boundary. You really do seem to be making it up as you go along.
Why, if I may ask, are you so adamant about birds not being dinosaurs?
John Harshman
> In article <8at1g.17119$tN3....@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net>,
> John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Walter Bushell wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <eBd1g.3028$Lm5....@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com>,
>>> John Harshman <jharshman....@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Birds and dinosaurs, however, are not disjunct. Birds are nested within
>>>>dinosaurs.
>>>
>>>
>>>Goodness gracious, birds nest in trees (or on the ground) not dinosaurs.
>>>
>>
>>Who says dinosaurs don't nest in trees (or on the ground)?
>
>
> Of course they do, they just don't nest in dinosaurs. Usually. More
> often they nest in human build bird houses.
>
This sounds like a mare's nest to me.
Augray
<1145466334.7...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> :
>Augray wrote:
>
>> >FLIGHT! TOOTHLESSNESS!
>> >
>> >How are those?
>>
>> Terrible. For example, since tooth loss occurred several times in side
>> branches leading to living birds, you would have "birds" showing up
>> independently several times in the family tree.
>
>All modern birds are toothless, but that does not mean no other animals
>are or were. When I say the word 'bird' (meaning modern bird) the
>concept of a beak is central.
Why didn't you say so? Confuciusornis had a beak. Similarly, the
recently described Hongshanornis could fly, lacked teeth, and had a
beak, but is from the Early Cretaceous, and is less derived than
modern birds.
>> For instance,
>> Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis had no teeth, but were very much like
>> Archaeopteryx, Similarly, Confuciusornis, only slightly more advanced,
>> also lacked teeth.
>
>When I say 'bird', I mean 'modern bird'. Please observe this
>convention. The animals you're talking about are earler forms.
And how does one recognize a "modern bird"? Certainly not from the
lack of teeth or the presence of a beak.
>> But between them on the family tree, more derived
>> than Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis, but less derived than
>> Confuciusornis, is Sapeornis, which *had* teeth. Note that I'm not
>> claiming that Sapeornis is descended from either Shenzhouraptor or
>> Jixiangornis, but it is clearly further along on the path to modern
>> birds than either of those two.
>>
>> In news:1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com you made
>> the claim that
>>
>> Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could
>> be called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and
>> are too different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have
>> the term 'bird'.
>>
>> But using this definition, Confuciusornis, from the Early Cretaceous,
>> is a dinosaur, even though it lacked teeth and could fly. It would
>> seem that you're making this up as you go along.
>
>It is not always, if ever, possible to use terms that were intended to
>apply to contemporary animals to apply to ancient ones.
That's your problem, not mine. You can't seem to decide what a "bird"
is. Hence my charge that you're making it up as you go along.
[snip]
>> >> >> >The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
>> >> >> >applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
>> >> >> >though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
>> >> >> >water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
>> >> >> >water-dwelling creatures with lungs).
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
>> >> >> >as fish.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
>> >> >> >to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
>> >> >> believe this trait supposedly evolved?
>> >> >
>> >> >'Modern birds' are not 'dinosaurs'. They belong to the group
>> >> >dinosauria, but that Latin name is not synonymous with the common name
>> >> >'dinosaurs'.
>> >>
>> >> That's news to me. What do you base it on? It also seems to be beside
>> >> the point. Are you saying that if I were to claim that birds belonged
>> >> to the group Dinosauria, would that alleviate your objections?
>> >
>> >Yes. The group 'Dinosauria' includes more than the common term
>> >'dinosaurs'.
>>
>> Like what? Birds?
>
>Predecesors of modern birds. 'Birds' means 'modern birds' (post KT).
But since animals that were pretty much identical to "modern birds"
were present during the Cretaceous, your definition would seem to be
arbitrary
[snip]
>> >> >> >Birds
>> >> >> >are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.
>> >> >
>> >> >'Dinsosaurs' are all extinct.
>> >>
>> >> That's an arbitrary claim.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >'Birds' (i'e., modern birds) are
>> >> >descended from a larger class of ancient birds, most of which died out
>> >> >in the Cretaceous. All modern birds, even flightless ones, are desended
>> >> >from flying Cretaceous birds.
>> >>
>> >> I agree completely.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >Birds originated among the earliest
>> >> >dinosaurs, all of which were bipedal.
>> >>
>> >> That's a very unique assertion. Can you back it up with evidence?
>> >
>> >See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
>>
>> I very much doubt that the book makes this claim.
>
>It does. I just read it yesterday.
Then you're misremembering it. The earliest dinosaurs are from the
Late Triassic, which is *not* when birds branched off.
Matt Silberstein
<Wakbo...@yahoo.com> in
<1145462020.0...@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:
Now that makes sense.
--
Matt Silberstein
Do something today about the Darfur Genocide
http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org
"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"
uraniumc...@yahoo.com
Augray wrote:
>
> >
> >All modern birds are toothless, but that does not mean no other animals
> >are or were. When I say the word 'bird' (meaning modern bird) the
> >concept of a beak is central.
>
> Why didn't you say so? Confuciusornis had a beak. Similarly, the
> recently described Hongshanornis could fly, lacked teeth, and had a
> beak, but is from the Early Cretaceous, and is less derived than
> modern birds.
'Birds' means 'modern birds'. But the beak in some form or another is a
typical trait for using the English word 'bird'. All creatures referred
to by that English word have beaks. It is a mistake to apply the word
'bird' to ancient creatures who were the ancestors of birds, because
when the English language was developed, there was no concept of
incredibly ancient extinct animals.
> >> For instance,
> >> Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis had no teeth, but were very much like
> >> Archaeopteryx, Similarly, Confuciusornis, only slightly more advanced,
> >> also lacked teeth.
> >
> >When I say 'bird', I mean 'modern bird'. Please observe this
> >convention. The animals you're talking about are earler forms.
>
> And how does one recognize a "modern bird"? Certainly not from the
> lack of teeth or the presence of a beak.
Certainly, among other features. Show me a bird with a teeth.
> >> But between them on the family tree, more derived
> >> than Shenzhouraptor and Jixiangornis, but less derived than
> >> Confuciusornis, is Sapeornis, which *had* teeth. Note that I'm not
> >> claiming that Sapeornis is descended from either Shenzhouraptor or
> >> Jixiangornis, but it is clearly further along on the path to modern
> >> birds than either of those two.
> >>
> >> In news:1145451475.9...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com you made
> >> the claim that
> >>
> >> Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could
> >> be called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and
> >> are too different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have
> >> the term 'bird'.
> >>
> >> But using this definition, Confuciusornis, from the Early Cretaceous,
> >> is a dinosaur, even though it lacked teeth and could fly. It would
> >> seem that you're making this up as you go along.
> >
> >It is not always, if ever, possible to use terms that were intended to
> >apply to contemporary animals to apply to ancient ones.
>
> That's your problem, not mine. You can't seem to decide what a "bird"
> is. Hence my charge that you're making it up as you go along.
> >> >Yes. The group 'Dinosauria' includes more than the common term
> >> >'dinosaurs'.
> >>
> >> Like what? Birds?
> >
> >Predecesors of modern birds. 'Birds' means 'modern birds' (post KT).
>
> But since animals that were pretty much identical to "modern birds"
> were present during the Cretaceous, your definition would seem to be
> arbitrary.
This is a linguistic matter. See above.
> >> >See the SA book. I'm reading it right now.
> >>
> >> I very much doubt that the book makes this claim.
> >
> >It does. I just read it yesterday.
>
> Then you're misremembering it. The earliest dinosaurs are from the
> Late Triassic, which is *not* when birds branched off.
Let me check again.