Similarity? Structure? epidermis? Or just convenience! They had to come from somewhere and scales were the closest?
Funny, this whole notion of avines from reptiles, is relatively recent, and ignores all the other changes I mentioned above. I just loved the simulation of a bird-like ancestor floating gracefully to the ground. I wonder who pushed the 1st one, or did it just fall! (and how did it get up there in the 1st place?)
If only you could take a step back and look at what you are trying to get me to believe.
It sounds to me like your saying because you canât see how it happened, it canât have happened and the rest of us need to wake up and see things from your perspective.
Unfortunately, incredulity and the limitations of human imagination are not grounds for discrediting a highly predictive scientific model.
Scales and feathers are formed from the same essential material - ι- and β-keratins. The genes are related. Birds still have scales on their legs and feet. You are presenting a chicken and egg argument that the reason feathers exist must be due to flight, so there is no intermediate use for them and therefore nascent feathers would not find any immediate purpose. But even if you think that the relationships between scales and feathers are coincidental, you are wrong to maintain that no path exists for the development of feathers that does not necessitate flight along the way; a flight path so to speak.
Actually, that is sort of how nature works. Adapting what is at hand.
As I pointed out in my prior post, evolution is constrained. That cats and dogs have a common ancestor is consistent with evolution. That cats cannot change into dogs is consistent with evolution. That horses and dragons cannot have wings is entirely consistent with the evolutionary fact that horses belong to the superclass of tetrapods, and it is not evolutionists but YECs such as AiG who believe in dragons. It is not evolution, but rather creation that is free from constraint.
There is no evolutionary chain. Evolution doesnât proceed like a ladder. Feathers clearly evolved before flight. They were probably used for insulation or sexual display before being co-opted for flight. For a clear explanation see this video: Great Transitions: The Origins of Birds I just know you will find it informative. coursera.org has a good course on the origin of birds, and the American Museum of Natural History had a very nice exhibit on the evolution of birds. You should read more and try to visit a natural history museum.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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And what has any of this got to do with God incarnate?
Most mutations are âthis protein gets produced slightly more/lessâ, and are essentially insignificant. Most mutations that make large changes are negative. Some mutations that make large changes are positive in some situations.
You seem to think that I have no idea what I am talking about. I did Biology to degree equivalent. I do not find these things informative I find them laughable and incredulous. Feathers have one primary characteristic: they are very light. So are the bones of birds. You are going to tell me that light bones have other advantages as well as for flight? Not forgetting the ridiculously strong sternum and the muscles attached to it. Where did that come from?
Richard
Yeah I know you believe that and nothing I say will change that. Please do not keep trying to âteachâ me. I have seen more than enough evolution propaganda.
My information is gleaned from 63 long years of life. And I have been discussing Evolution and Creation for most of them. The examples change but the dogma and tunnel vision does not. You are not given the option to think, you are told how to interpret what you see. I do not believe it, period.
Sorry, but I donât get this response. @beaglelady responded to what you actually wrote, which was that feathers have one primary function, flight. The reality is that feathers have many functions and that they existed long before flight. In other words, your statement was wrong. You canât claim knowledge of a field as a defense against being corrected about an obvious error on the content of the field.
And this is my point, that you all seem to ignore. You have accepted one scenario, one idea, and one âtheoryâ You cannot think beyond it, or conceive any errors within it. Just because feathers have a thermionic quality and can be brightly coloured does not give them those reasons to exist, nor make them an advantage enough for Survival of the fittest.