from an email

[Jonathan]

I don't know if I already told you guys this, but I heard that the feathers of semi-dino birds, and I guess including archeopterix, could be misinterpreted patterns in the rock formed by the leeching/leaking of decaying flesh.
>For you non-farmer types, "Hens don't have teeth."<
I'd be interested to hear who and how many didn't know that.

[ken_behrendt]

Here's some info on the Archaeopteryx from:

http://www.exn.ca/dinosaurs/story.asp?i ... e=archives

A new theory for origins of flight

Where, then, does archaeopteryx fit in on the path to modern day birds? And what's the difference between archaeopteryx and flying dinosaurs like the pterodactyl?

The Oxford model suggests flight began as a jumping, pouncing motion. Archaeopteryx's feathers would later evolve to fully cover its wings, with feathers growing all the way in towards the body for flying rather than just control. If flight in birds had begun as a gliding motion, wings would have grown out from the body instead, as they do in flying squirrels, or bats.

Pterodactyls were capable of flight much earlier - 200 million B.C. - but their skin-membrane wings resembled those of bats rather than birds. True evolution of flight for modern birds began with animals like archaeopteryx, feeble as their flying skills were.

"What we predict is that feathers [in birds] would evolve from the tip of the wings and then go inwards," says Taylor. "And that's exactly what we see here."

ken

[snpssaini]

Hi snpssaini, the following is your signature accompanying your posts.

I make a perpetual motion machine. like b w. It is a very simple mechanism. It is on paper since 1998 . I m trying to make its prototype.

I take it then that you completed the prototype & it is successfully running ?

It is a "working" PM wheel ?

Can I ask what you are planning to do now ?

-fletcher

P.S. you can update your signature :)

Hi Fletcher,

I correct my signature. But I cannot discuss the error of my wheel.
Thanks, Sanjay

[Fletcher]

Thanks Sanjay. Best of luck sorting out the small error that will get it working.

[ovyyus]

I don't know if I already told you guys this, but I heard that the feathers of semi-dino birds, and I guess including archeopterix, could be misinterpreted patterns in the rock formed by the leeching/leaking of decaying flesh.
>For you non-farmer types, "Hens don't have teeth."<
I'd be interested to hear who and how many didn't know that.

Jonathan, I'd be interested to hear who is putting forward the rumour that fossilized feathers are just leaching patterns in the rock. Sounds like more desperate campaigning from the creationist camp to me.

[ken_behrendt]

Bill...

In the USA, the former "Creationist Movement" is now being called the "Intelligent Design Movement". Actually, it is just "old wine" in new skins although in attacking evolution, they are not longer using the word "God". I think this a "stealth" method to slip religion back into the our public schools.

Actually, however, I do find myself in agreement on one position of the ID movement. IF there are, indeed, flaws in the theory of evolution, then they should be discussed in a science class and not a religion class. Although I believe that evolutionary theory is basically correct, I would like to know what it can not explain. And, perhaps, if there are enough flaws in it, then it would be time to revise it or abolish it in favor of a new approach as to how life emerged on Earth.

One of my religious friends said that he was absolutely convinced in the concept of Intelligent Design. He then pointed out to me that it would be extremely improbable if not impossible for human beings to have evolved ears and a nose on their heads that are perfectly positioned to hold one's eyeglasses! In fact, he asserted, that proved that "blind" evolutionary forces could not be responsible! I could not object...


ken

[Jonathan]

Bill, give me more credit than that! I saw a blurb on "Discoveries this Week" on the (Discovery) Science channel. I don't recall time, date, or names; here's the general website though:
http://science.discovery.com/fansites/d ... sweek.html
I could object to your friend Ken; if our heads were different, then eyeglasses would have a different design. To believe in ID you don't have to dispove evolution. With a finite amount of knowledge at hand there are a plurality of theories that explain the data and correctly predict new data, and as a result there is at that time no way to tell which theory is best. In such a situation, the simplest theory that lends itself to the creation of cushy jobs for scientists will probably be the one that is accepted. (This is not necessarily nor exclusively the case with biology).

[rlortie]

Normally I do not involve myself in topics that get off subject as this was has. But there are always exceptions to all rules.

To believe that I have evolved into what I am by the will of ID, simply so I could hang eye glasses on my nose a bit hard to swallow.

Now I might go along with ID evolving me into a living being with the ability to hang or attach eye glasses on any living creature worthy of there need.

I have said before this planet was not designed for me, I was designed to subsist (at a meager level) on it. May it be by creation or evolution which to my thinking are one and the same.

Now that statement may sound odd for a person who claims to believe in God, my excuse is that I just do not agree on how long Gods day was related to our present meaning of a day.

What kind of debate will I fire up by saying. God created us by evolution and in the beginning we were considered a long way from the top of the food chain.

With this thinking every body gets to keep their job.

Ralph

[ovyyus]

I could object to your friend Ken...

I don't care who you object to, go for it, but what does the above mean? I have respect enough to allow Ken his views and opinions without the need to dismiss him as wrong based purely on my own personal beliefs.

Thanks for clearing up the reference to the "fossilized feathers are leaching patterns in the rock" rumour. As I thought, it's bunk. Many rumours are bunk because they serve an alterior motive - in this instance I suspect the aim is to undermine credibility of a particular viewpoint with dross speculation. I do credit you with more than that.

Ralph, I think the creationists are barking up the wrong tree - instead of trying to refute science they should be making their case for the first beginnings of life and where and how it might have originated - certainly that remains a mystery for the time being. Perfectly rational people sometimes adopt stupid positions when their belief's are threatened.

[ken_behrendt]

Bill...

I think Jonathan meant to write: "I could object to your friend, Ken...". He forgot to insert a comma. He was not objecting to me, but, rather to the strange assertion of my friend.

Yes, life is a mystery and the theory of evolution has a few problems in it. Mainly, we are told that the evolutionary process that leads to "higher", more complex, and more specialized lifeforms involves random genetic mutations that take place slowly over the course of millions of years.

That's the problem with it. The theory is not testable in a laboratory setting because huge expanses of time are required for it to occur, especially to allow for enough accumulative mutations to occur so as to produce an entirely different species that can no longer be cross bred with its progenitor.

We do have the fossils specimens that emerge from rock strata that are separated, temporally, from each other by tens or hundreds of millions of years. But, paradoxically, only very occasionally do these fossils show something that might look like a "transitional" species between a progenitor species and the one that is assumed to evolve from it. The reason? Fossilization is not a continuous process. It only happens occasionally when certain rare climatological / geological conditions are present.

With creationism we have the opposite problem. It asserts a sudden, one-time event that leads to all present species of plants and animals on Earth. Like evolution, it to is untestable in the laboratory. To verify its past existence, we are forced to turn to various legends and holy writings. In a weird sense, it is much like the story of Bessler's wheels. We can not seem to make one in the shop, but must rely on centuries old writings to verify that they once existed.

Well, perhaps we will never know for sure exactly how life emerged on Earth. But, maybe some day soon, it will be possible to create "designer" species in the lab. One might be able to design a plant or organism on a computer screen and then the computer would select the correct genes that would need to be put into an ovum to create that lifeform! I envision a world where such things as flying pigs and talking trees might be possible!


ken

[ovyyus]

Oh, yes - just one little comma changes everything :)

Yes, life is a mystery and the theory of evolution has a few problems in it. Mainly, we are told that the evolutionary process that leads to "higher", more complex, and more specialized lifeforms involves random genetic mutations that take place slowly over the course of millions of years.

I think "random mutation" only accounts for part of the process of genetic change over time. Biological conditioning and environmental pressure are hardly random and yet they effect growth and reproduction. There is an interesting study into delayed reproduction which seems to result in lengthened lifespan of the study subjects - http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/science/111403 - The point being that natural selection, which clearly exists, is rarely random or by chance. But of course that doesn't mean that selection is necessarily guided by some god-like intellegence either, otherwise a specific group of 'correct' religious believers would have taken over the World by now :)

[ken_behrendt]

Bill wrote:

The point being that natural selection, which clearly exists, is rarely random or by chance.

I like to think of natural selection as an automatic process that works to relieve the survival stress on a species caused by its ever changing environment. Species either adapt to changes in their environment and survive or they do not an perish. Natural selection is actually a property of living systems, not of their environments.

In a sense, the same applies to much of life. Ideas, theories, plans, businesses, etc. that work tend to be used and continue to exist and those that do not fall by the wayside.


ken

[ovyyus]

Yes, chance has little to do with the selection criteria.

[Jonathan]

Sorry about the comma, it was in there originally, and I removed it before posting, because it didn't sound right to me; apparently I was wrong.
Bill, I didn't understand your comments. I didn't dismiss it as a rumor. It was on a science show, and they talked to some guy who was doing the research. Except for when the show dumbs stuff down, it is usually accurate. They've had Troy Hurtubise on a couple times, with the bear suit and fire paste.