RE: Thoughts on the new Czerkas book (long)

[Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@rogers.com>]

At 08:45 PM 10/09/02 -0700, Tracy L. Ford wrote:
> Really? I find it right on the money. Other than myself, George, Greg,
> Sankar, what other paleontologist believe theropods could climb? There's a
> ton more palaeontologist don't believe they could climb.

Be that as it may, it strikes me that there is a considerable difference 
between saying "I don't believe therapods could climb" and "Therapods could 
not climb by definition".  How can you define a taxon by a behaviour about 
whose existence you can only speculate?


> We only  know how MODERN birds fly. Which muscles, etc., we don't know how
> these kind of animals could fly. We HAVE to stop thinking of modern animals
> and look at how things could have been. This is a dogma of modern science...

Wait a minute.  If you are saying that dromaeosaurs may have flown using 
different mechanisms from those in modern volant birds, fine.  If you are 
saying that they actually did fly, no question about it, and the absence of 
a known mechanism associated with flight is not a problem because maybe 
they had something else, then you are turning a speculation into a 
certainty by postulating an unknown.  That is, at the very least, 
unparsimonious.

Even in modern birds there has been argument about the flying ability of 
some species (eg the Kagu of New Caledonia), and of course the debate over 
Archaeopteryx's ability in that quarter has raged for decades.  I fail to 
see how you can be so certain that any fossil taxon flew, even if it 
apparently had the wings to do it.


--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
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