>I am surprised that Glenn is still trotting out Longisquama's scales as an
>example of "a partially evolved feather".
>
>As I pointed out to Glenn on the Reflector previously, there is no evidence
>that Longisquama's scales were anything more than long scales, and it
>is hopelessly out of time sequence:
>
>"...Longisquama is a poor-quality fossil, and the interpretation of single
>elements is controversial. Longisquama lacks other characters-present in
>non-avian Maniraptora-that would ally it with birds. Single features do not
>overturn a hypothesis that is strongly supported by a plethora of character
>evidence. Ironically, if one does use Feduccia and Martin's reasoning that
>Longisquama is a close bird 'ancestor' as advocated elsewhere, the
>temporal paradox increases. Longisquama comes from rocks about 220
>million years old, creating a fossil-free gap of more than 80 million years
>before the appearance of Archaeopteryx Any empirical measure of
>stratigraphic fits will prefer a hypothesis of maniraptoran relationships
over
>this one." (Norell M.A., et. al., reply to Feduccia A. & Martin L.D.,
>"Theropod-bird link reconsidered," Nature, Vol. 391, 19 February 1998,
>p754)
>
>Glenn's `creationist-bashing' web page article on Longisquama at:
>http://www.flash.net/~grmorton/longisq.htm, still contains a number of
>inaccuracies, which I had previously pointed out to him, but which he has
>not yet corrected.
Steve, you are a rhetoretician here and a poor one at that. You never
really seem to understand what you are talking about. Long gaps are quite
normal in the fossil record. There is a 100 million gap between the first
and second fossil caecilians. ("Rare Fossils of Enigmatic Amphibian,"
Science News, 138, Oct. 27, 1990, p. 270.) There is a 60 million year gap
between the first and second African turtle (Eugene S. Gaffney and James W.
Kitching, "The Most Ancient African Turtle," Nature, 369, May 5, 1994, p.
55.) There is nothing unusual about this at all. So to have an 80 million
year gap between a proto-feather and a final feather is no big deal.
And you are quite wrong when you say that this is out of time sequence.
Archaeopteryx lived about 147 million years ago and it had feathers (Paul
C. Sereno and Rao Chenggang, "Early Evolution of Avian Flight and Perching:
New Evidence from the Lower Cretaceous of China," Science, Feb. 14, 1992,
p. 845) . Longisquama lived about 220 million years ago and possessed what
appears to be a protofeather. Now given that protofeathers must occur
before feathers, longisquama with its feather is quite correctly in
sequence. I can't believe you can say what you said with a straight face.
>
>If Glenn disputes this, I wil post his web page article to the Reflector
>and critique it again, for the benefit of new Reflectorites.
Stephen go ahead. I need the publicity. It will get people to look at my
web pages. And I appreciate that.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution