Comments on: “Feathered” Dinosaur Was Bald

By: ukulelemike

ukulelemike — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:45:33 +0000

Actually, I thought those fibers look more like this dino had a Fonzie-esque ducktail! Aayyy!
It may well be that many of the dinos were really neither birds nor specifically reptiles, but something totally separate from both. Of course, being a young-earther, I believe that they co-existed with man, and some of the best examples of what a couple of them looked like can be gained from a first-person description in the book of Job, chapters 40 and 41, where the Behemoth and Leviathan are described.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:14:14 +0000

slowwalker-32: tongue in cheek as that may have been, it is precisely the point.

Impressions in stone are not living specimens, or skeletons of living animals that can be directly traced to the specimen they came from.

They are impressions in stone.

And as anyone can tell you who has moved a horn to a thumb or a leg to an arm or a quadruped to a biped or a deformed dwarf to a new species of human, most of what has been done with fossils amounts to SPECULATION.

We’ve always, for example, held the dinosaurs to be reptiles (which are by definition cold-blooded). It seems pretty much the scientific consensus now that, by definition, they are not. (Birds sure aren’t.)

Intelligent, informed speculation is NOT knowledge. It can be no more than it is. And should be updated as more information becomes available.

But unlike fossils, you can’t set it in stone.

By: slowwalker-32

slowwalker-32 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:11:47 +0000

Alas! we will never know the truth about whether some of the early dinosaurs had or did not have feathers, of if they tasted like chicken!

By: ahoward3

ahoward3 — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:11:51 +0000

Dino proteins? Fossils have protein? I’m with DWA, let’s have real science, not name calling (they appear alot like “creationists”) and BAND or BAD opinions - controversy leads to critical thinking and keeps us away from a faith in the latest opinon of the day…

By: DWA

DWA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:55:34 +0000

red_pill_junkie:

And maybe not even then.

I guess that what I’m seeing here is that these dueling scientists are in the same position vis-a-vis me that I would be in coming out of the woods and saying: I saw a sasquatch! You would say: really? Where’s your proof? I’d say: don’t have any but I know what I saw! You’d say: fine, you have your prooof. But I’m sure you understand that I don’t have MINE yet.

And I guess I would have to, eh?

If someone tells me, no feathers, and someone else says, he’s crazy! FEATHERS! All I can say as a layman is: somebody give me your proof!

I could understand you not wanting to go chapter and verse with me, believe me there. (It’s why I tell people to read up on the sasquatch themselves, it’s what I did.) But what I see here, absent backing of competing claims, is: a controversy.

And scientists must remember how much of that there has been in paleontology before they go too far with assertions they cannot readily prove.

These heretics DID, after all, get published.

By: red_pill_junkie

red_pill_junkie — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:45:34 +0000

I’m a layman in these matters too, but I have also read there has been some study of the proteins found in the soft tissue of fossil theropod bones, that have proved they ressemble avian proteins. These guys seem to skip that.

Nevertheless, this controversy will only be settled when another Sinosauropterix is found. Is that so much to ask?

By: DWA

DWA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:49:15 +0000

sordes:

You may be right.

But all a layman sees when he looks at the above article is: controversy. With points being made that are in no way conclusively refuted.

And all a layman can say to that is: we have seen this before.

Science is a very, very emotional field, when it gets right down to it. All I say is: show me the evidence, and refute the other side clearly.

The above doesn’t look so very very sure to me. At all.

By: Artist

Artist — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:28:28 +0000

Well, I’m convinced!

By: Sordes

Sordes — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:16:57 +0000

Today it is really very very sure that many theropods had feathers, and not only fur-like structures like emus or kiwis, but also actual feathers. Surely not in all cases so extreme like Microraptor gui, whose fossils show without any doubt that it had true feathers, but even comparably large theropodes like Deinonychus had wing-like arms with big feathers. And this is no speculations, as they had even physiological scars on their arm bones which are identical to those of bird wing bones where the big feathers are.

By: DWA

DWA — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:33:20 +0000

Science changes its mind about, oh, every five minutes or so.

Not complaining or anything. Just noting - as it’s always good to do - that we know NOTHING about the fossil record, other than what we SPECULATE from fossils.

As we are shown, again, for the how-many-thousandth time now…?