>
>Archaeopteryx is a bird with reptile teeth.
>
>I would point you to my web page or the archive where I talk about the
>transitional forms which exist between fish and amphibians.
>
Michael Pitman, a biologist wrote a book c. 1984, (the last thing I know
about him, he was teaching biology at Cambridge University. Whether he
could call himself a biologist or not, I’ll leave that argument to others.
Suffice to say he is a published author with an introduction of his book
‘Adam and Evolution’ by Dr. Bernard Stonehouse (Held posts at Oxford,
Canterbury <NZ>, Yale and British Columbia).
Here is an excerpt from his book on the item of birds. Decided to use his
text instead of my description of it, so I won’t be labeled unlearned as
before.
I hope that the claim that was made that no biologist is making the case for
creationism without using evolution is put to rest now. There are qualified
persons in biology writting and comunicating. We just don't know about
them. And this gent has credentials for those who insist on them.
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A Precision Instrument of Aerospace
The origin of birds is largely a matter of deduction. If evolution from
reptile to bird occurred, the theory insists that some kind of 'pro-avis'
- a precursor of birds - is indicated.
The dinosaurs were a special group of reptiles that once flourished on
earth as the mammals and birds flourish today. In Triassic rocks rest the
bones of aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and nothosaurs, creatures that
dominated the seas and rivers. In the air flew pterosaurs; on land a huge
range of dinosaurs came and went over a period of 150 million years. Their
graveyards are found on every continent and there are none alive today.
Where and how did they originate! Why did they die out ? We do not know.
Each distinct type of dinosaur appeared without transitional forms and,
when they died out, left no obvious descendants. There were 'lizard-
hipped' and 'bird-hipped' kinds, and evolutionists would say that their
closest kin today were crocodiles and the birds. To the creationists, the
dinosaurs were unique creations, now extinct.
Archosaurs, the most spectacular of the reptile groups which dominated
the Mesozoic, include dinosaurs, pterosaurs and crocodiles. The ptero-
saurs are flying reptiles - Rhamphorhynchus, vulture-like euetzalcoathus
with a wingspan of well over thirty feet (three times that of an albatross)
and Pteranodon. Just as dolphin-like ichthyosaurs and long-necked ples-
iosaurs were admirably engineered to fit their aquatic environment, to the
extent that the eggs were hatched inside the female, so Pteranodon, with its
twenty-five-foot wingspan and aerodynamic bony crest, illustrates brilliant
aeronautical design. Like other Cretaceous fliers it probably glided, light
as a kite, on thermal upcurrents and breezes found around cliffs. Only 30
percent of its structure is solid and sometimes the bone walls are only 1/25
inch thick. It was toothless and tail-less. With no known ancestors or des-
cendants, Pteranodon was a distinct type.
If pterosaurs will not do, could 'pro-avis' have been a feathered reptile
gliding down from treess But there is no evidence that gliding precedes
flight. As in the flying fish or flying fox, it is a distinct form
oflocomotion.
Some authors believe that birds evolved from small, agile creatures
called coelurosaurs. Curiously, these bipedal creatures were 'lizard-
hipped'; the bird-mimic Omithomimus, which resembled an ostrich with-
out feathers, is an example. Perhaps a coelurosaur developed a kind of
feathery basket on each forearm with which to swat insects: perhaps it
jumped higher and higher after the insects. The author of these ideas, John
Ostrom, an expert on birds, has pointed out that the muscular motions for
bagging flies and flying are quite different. He says:'No fossil evidence
exists of any pro-avis. It is a purely hypothetical pre-bird, but one that
must
have existed. .. ·'
There is no indication how arms turned into wings. When we find wings
as fossils, they are completely developed and fully functional. Ichrhyornis
probably resembled the tern in its appearance and mode of life. A toothed
jaw used in restoring the first specimen was later identified as belonging
to an aquatic reptile, occurring in the same habitat, probably a baby
mosasaur. Ichthyornis appears later than Jurassic Archaeopteryx.
Although no fossils lead up to or away from it, Archaeoptelyx is often
paraded as the link fossil. There are five specimens of this bird from
Solnhofen limestone in Germany. Usually shown in textbooks is the
Berlin specimen. It has birdlike features in the form of wings, beak,
sclerotic eye-rings, fusion of the upper foot-bone into an extra section of
the limb, an opposable hind-claw and, of course, feathers. Reptilian
features include teeth in the bill, claws on the wings and a long bony
feathered tail.
Are these features so reptilian ? Just as Pteranodon is seen as a distinct,
extinct type of reptile, so the creationist regards Archaeopteryx as a
distinct,
extinct type of bird. He argues that the 'reptilian features' fall within the
sphere of variability of a bird. We ourselves have arm-bones similar to
those of a bird, a whale and a bat, but are distinct from these types.
All birds have feathers: no other organisms do. Archaeoptesyx has
feathers. There exists absolutely no evidence for the evolution of feathers.
The guess that DNA coding for scales 'must have' changed to produce
feathers is entirely unsubstantiated. No intermediate scale-feather exists.
Feathers are aerodynamic beauties. They are light, the shaft being
hollow, and quite different from the scales which are coded on to the feet
alone of birds. They grow from capsules called 'pin feathers' and become
lifeless when full-grown. A feather from wing or tail is composed ofa shaft
with branches, called barbs, arranged diagonally to the left and right. The
barbs have branches to right and left called barbules. These overlap
neighbouring barbules and are interlocked to each other by little hooks and
eyelets.
Some large feathers contain over a million barbules, with hooks and eye-
lets to match, in perfect order. The feather is useless without this inter-
locking mechanism which acts something like an automatic zip fastener
whose disturbance preening rearranges. When outstretched in flight, the
hooks cause the whole wing-assembly to form a continuous sheet to catch
the wind. The whole feather is a cohesive, elastic and light structure, well-
designed to function as an air-resistant surface. Sensory receptors record
its precise position. Over both wings they effect the continuous variations
and fine adjustments of more than ten thousand tiny muscles attached to
the bases of the feathers. Behold the parts ofa precision instrument ofaero-
space, unparalleled in design and workmanship by human technology.
Feathers are in no way frayed or modified scales. They even arise from a
different layer of skin cells. Whence evolved the pigment mechanism for
colouring and patterning both plumage and egg! In the latter colours are
laid down in the oviduct, in whose walls no pigment has been found. This
indicates that the organization of pigment and pattern is coded into the
avian DNA. By a megamutation!
In the earliest known fossils of pterodactyls, bats and winged insects the
instrument of flight is fully developed. Just so, the wings and feathers of
Archaeopteryx are as perfect as in modern birds. Asymmetric flight
feathers resemble those of strong fliers; tail-feather arrangement parallels
that found in modern swans and hens. It is a moot point just how good or
bad at flying Archaeopteryx was. There are living flightless birds, such as
the kiwi, with very small breastbones and not much ofa keel (on to which
the flight muscles are attached). Indeed, many birds 'have wings, won't
fly'; these include emus, cassowaries, rheas, swimming birds (penguins),
ostrichs, extinct dodos and moas.
As well as the feathers of a strong flier, Archaeopteryx has a robust
furcula which has been interpreted as the site of origin of a well-developed
pectoral muscle. The supracoracoideus muscle, the largest of those
that effect the recovery stroke ofa bird's wing, used to be thought essen-
tial for flight. Because Archaeopteryx lacked a bone necessary for its
effective function in this way, it was considered flightless. Now it has
been shown, by experiment, that it is not essential and that the dorsal
elevators can alone effect the recovery stroke of the wing. These originate
from the scapula which in Archaeopteryx forms an acute angle with the
coracoid, as it does in adults of modern flying birds. In most flightless
birds
this acute angle is lost and the scapula is more nearly vertical. Despite
interpretations to the contrary, there is 'nothing in the structure of the
girdle of Archaeopteryx that would preclude its having been a powered
flier.'
You can see why it is argued that the Archaeopteryx falls within the
sphere of variation of a bird. The bony tail ? This is a distinctive
feature and
Archaeopteryx is, in fact, classified in a sub-class on its own. In the embryo
some living birds have more tail vertebrae than 'Archy', which later fuse to
become an upstanding bone called the pygostyle. It is certainly a per-
mutation on the usual tail-end subroutine for birds, but so are its vertebrae,
which have no saddle-shaped articulations. This 'reptilian' feature is also
found in cormorants, darters, gulls and certain parrots.
The free (unfused) foot-bones and wrist-bones, found in Archyopteryx,
are also found outside reptiles - in penguins. Indeed, Archaeopteryx had
perching feet. To reduce weight, large bones in birds are hollow, strength-
ened with cross-struts inside. If the long bones ofdrchaeopreryx lack this
characteristic, it is also missing in swallows, martins, snipe and canaries.
Birds need an efficient respiratory system to serve the energetic demands
of flight. A unique system of air sacs and capillaries, through which the
flow is one way only, extends into some of the larger bones. The ventilation
promotes not only the flight but, as air flows over resonating vocal
chambers, song. Moreover, bird lungs have lung tubes not millions of tiny
air sacs like those of reptiles and mammals. How could the transitional sac-
tube organism have survived? Indeed, how could the whole, integrated
'flight-friendly' system have evolved piecemeal!
What about the teeths No living birds have socketed teeth but some fossil
ones did. Some reptiles have teeth, some have not. The same applies to
fishes, amphibia and mammals. Following the analogy that toothless birds
are more advanced, the toothless duck-billed platypus, or spiny anteater
should be considered more advanced than humans.
In an interesting experiment' outer tissue was taken from the first and
second gill arches ofa five-day-old chick embryo and combined with inner
embryonic tissue (mesenchyme) of a mouse, taken from the region where
the first molar teeth form. Normally, the enamel layer of a tooth forms
from the outer tissue and the underlying dentine and bone from the
mesenchyme - if that tissue can interact with the outer tissue. The dentine
can then induce the formation of a tooth.
Chick mesenchyme cannot form dentine so that its outer tissue never
gets the chance to form a tooth - but in the experiment, where it was art-
ificially exposed to the dentine-producing mesenchyme of mice embryos,
it did. And it formed teeth! Teeth in a bird! This startling fact is explained
by evolutionists as 'atavism', a doctrine of reversion: in this case the
'ancestral' genes for teeth are present, but suppressed by a mutation. A
modification to the genetic programme for vertebrate mesenchyme has, in
birds, disconnected it from the production of dentine and, therefore, teeth.
If, as in the above-mentioned experiment, it can be reconnected, it will
produce teeth.
In most modern birds, but not Archaeopteryx, the plan for the fibula and
tibia leg-bones is modified, developmentally, so that the fibula is much
reduced and the result is a single structure - the tibia with ankle-bones
fused to it and the 'vestigial' fibula alongside it - which articulates with
the foot-bones. Developmental manipulation of chick embryos by French-
man Armand Hamps 'allowed' the fibula to attain the same length as the
tibia - as it does normally in vertebrates; articulation with the ankle-bone
changed accordingly.6 Where the evolutionist sees Hamps's results as an
expression of ancestral relationship in leg-bones, the creationist sees it
as a
modification, suitable for most birds, in the vertebrate programme.
A similar interpretation applies to wing-claws. In most modern birds
they are suppressed but the young ostrich, rhea and the touraco of Africa
have them. So do young South American hoatzin, a bird which shares a
number of features with Archaeopteryx. It leaps, flaps and dives about the
wooded rivers and swamps of the Amazon valley today.
Archaeopteryx could represent a group of distinct organisms that showed
the characteristics of bird and reptile. No other fossils lead either to or
from
it. Stephen Could and Niles Eldredge therefore claim it does not count as a
missing link. Links are not links if they are mosaics of complete functional
traits from other groups. Whales and seals have a mixture of fish and
mammal traits, penguins have fin-shaped wings and bats are a mixture of
bird and mammal but no one calls them intermediate. No doubt Arch-
aeopteryx is an odd mixture of subroutines but so are many other creatures.
Because bird types found from the early Cenozoic, it seems only a
matter of time before they are found in the Cretaceous or Jurassic beds.
Already Cretaceous Ichthyornis shows signs of having been a tern: and in
1977 ‘Dinosaur’ Jim Jensen found an avian femur and two connected
shoulder bones in Jurassic rocks, where he had previously excavated his
dinosaurs in Western Colorado.s The splendid isolation ofArchaeopteryx
was relieved by a bird which predated it·
There is no decisive genetic or fossil evidence for evolution from scale to
feather, cold to warm-bloodedness, non-flight to flight. Almost every
tissue, bone and organ differs dramatically in birds. Eggs have now to be
incubated at constant tempe'atu'es. Birds have a third eyelid, a 'nictitat-
ing' membrane which functions as a transparent windscreen wiper during
flight. It is drawn protectively across from the inner angle of the eye
hundreds of times a minute, cleansing the surface of dust, small flying
insects and the other debris which rapid flight encounters. A fast-moving
vehicle needs uninterrupted vision. Man and other mammals possess a
rudimentary nictitating membrane inthe inner angle of the eye and this is
taken by Darwinians as proof of common ancestry. But some sharks,
reptiles, rabbits, the walrus and the duck-billed platypus have such a
membrane. No one claims anyspecial relationship is thereby proved -
unless the inference of thematic vertebrate design is drawn. Perhaps all
vertebrates possess the full basic plan from which 'seed-information' is
genetically exp'essed or suppressed. Appropriate gene control would have
been initially encoded into different types of vertebrate. In this case, the
upshot would be an operative nictitating membrane (or other feature)
where it was required, and an apparently vestigial or adapted appearance
in other types of vertebrate.
Birds have air sacs for buoyancy, bills, powerful breast muscles, avian
feet, gizzards instead of large jaws and heavy teeth for mastication, a large
strong heart, wings, feathers and other non-reptilian features. Such
structural discontinuities isolate the avian sphere of variation from that of
reptiles or mammals. Such features, which add up to a distinct stock, are all
essential to their poetry in motion, to their lordship of the air.
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That is all. Let’s hope that we stop using Archaeopteryx as some type
of transitional fossil between reptiles and birds. I guess, old habits are
hard
to break.
Best Regards
Dario Giraldo