But there were also numerous dinosaurs and similar creatures which were of similar weight as birds, and they died out. Heck some of them looked so much like birds that you would have to examine them closely to determine they were not. Yet they died too.
I think its more complicated. One thing I notice is that aves had an enlarged hip- they could lay much larger eggs per pound than the similar creatures. Pre-strike it did not seem to be much of an advantage. But I guess it allowed them to travel further while pregnant and have babies closer to self-sufficiency than the other forms.
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swamidass
(S. Joshua Swamidass)
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Perhaps, but how did evolution ‘know’ to produce a form with this peculiarity just before the big strike which would make it a decisive advantage? There is no reason in principle any creature from that group had to survive the CT boundary event. It seems to me that birds were the point from the beginning. The dinosaurs were experiments gone awry on the way to get there.
Also you should read Chatterjee’s papers and see what he is actually proposing. As someone who dedicated much of his life to dinosaurs and their evolution, this thread makes my stomach hurt.
Recently I have watched a lot of youtube videos on the dinosaur/bird relationship. I was not aware of just how close they were. T-rex had a wishbone they say.
For a while I had the idea that some dinos were just birds. this has become very established to me.
YEC thinkers still see dinos as a real group of creatures. so they don’t welcome feathers on them. This because evolutionists say it shows birds evolved from dinos AND flight came after feathers were on bodies for other non flying reasons. so they squirm.
I love it. I say it shows some dinos, the theropods/T-rex, really were just flightless ground birds. not reptiles dinos.
Further. on a blog by a poster here called JOEL DUFF, not YEC, he has a great article on the terror birds of s America. it shows how big, big headed, and how diverse birds can be while flightless.
What you say has nothing to do with modern research into theropods and thier connections to birds.
this can be seen on the youtube in several great shows. Off hand i remember the TURING a chicken into T rex by horner/advisor to jurrasic park movies.
Its about comparative anatomy AND IN THESE CASES the case is well made that t rex had a wishbone because he was a flightless ground bird. not a reptile or monster etc etc.
In fact the reason they SAY birds are/come from dinos is because of the great likeness in bodyplans of theropods to birds. however they just are still shy of a dozen.
there are no dinosaurs and theropod dinos are not dinos BUT only flightless ground birds.
feathers and all!!
What? Why? Its simply using the same anatomical features they use to say the birds are from theropod dinos. Any knowledge on the subject is the reference.
Both these are fine. What is problematic is explaining how a blind and unguided process build a flight feather which is made of keratin proteins and essentially 3D printed by the transcription translation process.
What I wanted to bring up was the manufacturing of a flight feather and the origin of that process was probably above the pay grade of dinosaurs reproducing.