Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: SOR Pamphlet #4
Message-ID: <311@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Jan-85 12:53:49 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.311
Posted: Fri Jan  4 12:53:49 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jan-85 23:53:20 EST
References: <961@utastro.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: net
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 58
Summary: 

Thanks, Bill, for a superb rebuttal to SOR #4.  It was exactly what I was
waiting for.

I'm still waiting to see Ray Miller post a revised pamphlet incorporating
corrections brought about by our comments.  Let the pious be honest for a
change.

I do, however, have one small enhancement for your rebuttals.

Ray Miller writes:
>     However, close scrutiny indicates the characteristics of Archaeopteryx  do
>not  give  much support for the evolutionary model.  Archaeopteryx did not have
>half-scales and half-feathers, but rather fully developed feathers  capable  of
>flight.   Also,  it turns out that Archaeopteryx's so-called reptilian features
>are not unique to reptiles, but are possessed by several other types of  birds.
>For  example,  the living ostrich, hoatzin, touraco, etc. are all considered to
>be 100% birds, and yet possess common traits which are labeled reptilian in Ar-
>chaeopteryx.   Furthermore,  even  the famous teeth cannot be used to label Ar-
>chaeopteryx as partially reptile.  Some reptiles have teeth and  some  do  not.
>Some  amphibians  have teeth and some do not.  Some mammals have teeth and some
>do not.  Some fish have teeth and some do not.  In  fact,  this  pattern  holds
>true throughout the entire range of the vertebrate subphylum.  Even other birds
>once had teeth, though they are now extinct.

Ray here shows an appalling lack of knowledge of comparative anatomy and the
science of classification.  First, ALL birds have scales, feathers, and half-
scale/half-feathers.  The scales are generally on the feet alone, and there is
a transition to feathers.  The scales are identical to reptilian scales, and
the histology of developing feathers and scales shows that they originate
from the same precursive structures.

Second, Ray needs to understand that the old "classes" (mammals, birds,
reptiles, fish, amphibians, etc.) are convenient when dealing with extant
groups, because (for the most part) the extant members have certain
characteristics in common.  However, if one takes a cladistic viewpoint,
fish include all their descendants: thus amphibians are a "subclass" of fish,
reptiles are a "subclass" of amphibians, and birds and mammals are "subclasses"
of reptiles.  (I've used "subclass", though the correct term is subclade or
subtaxon.)

Evolutionary biologists are familiar with the reptilian characters of ostriches,
hoatzins, etc.  Indeed, they are the ones who documented them, not creationists.
That's one of the reasons why cladograms of birds (trees of ancestry) have
those groups branching off near the bottom.

Classifications are frequently plagued with exceptions, such as lack of teeth
in some mammals, etc.  In general, cladists think that loss of a character
several times (such as loss of teeth in mammals, birds, fish, etc.) is a likely
occurance, but development of a new character the same way more than once is
an unlikely occurance.  Thus, loss of teeth in birds may have happened once to
the ancestor of all extant birds, and separately in different groups of mammals,
fish, etc.  But development of feathers probably occurred only once.  Thus,
birds and Archaeopteryx must have shared a common ancestor.  The common ancestor
probably had teeth, which Archaeopterix didn't lose, and the rest of the birds
did lose.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh