Re: New alvarezsaurid

[Dinogeorge <Dinogeorge@aol.com>]

In a message dated 98-03-23 02:50:28 EST, jaemei@hotmail.com writes:

<< The case is open, with both sides having their qualifying points, so I'm 
 going to be the good little scientist and wait. (Actually, I'd like to 
 see the rest of *Protoavis'* skeleton.) >>

Current BADD theory requires us to accept a miracle: that a large suite of
anatomical features and adaptations highly specific to avian flight appeared
by chance in a group of cursorial predators clearly <i>not</i> predisposed to
flight, suddenly yielding, as if from nothing, a well-adapted flying animal.
The competing hypothesis, that modern birds acquired flight-related features
as adaptations to an arboreal lifestyle and thus <i>could not</i> have
descended from flightless, ground-dwelling dinosaurs, requires an equivalent
miracle: that the same large, highly specific suite of anatomical characters
chanced to arise in dinosaurs and birds independently, essentially
simultaneously, and in radically different lifestyles.

BCF presents a way of avoiding such miracles. It's as simple as that.