Re: "Confuciornis Bird"

[Jeff Poling <jpoling@infinet.com>]

At 01:38 PM 1/22/96 -0500, Ronald Orenstein wrote:
>Before everyone gets worked up about the drivel posted on this recently and
>we take it all out on poor Larry Martin - don't you recognize a creationist
>when you see one?  Clearly this "article" was written to claim that
>Confuciornis is "proof" that birds didn't evolve from dinos OR ANYTHING
>ELSE, not that LM's theories about bird origin (which, whatever else you may
>think about them, are certainly not creationist!) are to be preferred.

   ...which was exactly the point of my posting it to the list.  Nothing
Martin or others said lead to the conclusions that were made ... indeed,
there was no supporting arguments or facts given at all that support the
conclusion made.  But this was, however, a news article that appeared in a
US paper.  Full of conclusions with no supporting evidence.  The article
should have at least said WHY the ornithologists believe this just for
education's sake.

   I don't have poor opinions of anybody mentioned in that article save
Feduccia, whose statements about the fossil record and rather brusque (some
might even consider it rude) response to Mark Norell's invitation to visit
the new AMNH dinosaur exhibits, make me wary of any statement he makes.

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