"I'm not an expert, BUT......."

Naraoia said:

Mid- or Late Jurassic at the latest, but could be even earlier if I forgot something. Archaeopteryx is Late Jurassic, and off the top of my head Pedopenna and Anchiornis are both older. Bird-birds are Early Cretaceous onward.

(You do know that the Cretaceous makes up something like half the age of dinosaurs.)

And why "fake"? Any actual evidence that they are fake? Does Anchiornis have fake melanosomes?

It turned this sort of animal into this, this, this and this, among others.

... yeah. They really didn't. You seem completely unaware of dinosaur diversity and history. Dinosaurs being popular as they are, that's probably one of the easiest gaps of scientific knowledge to fill in... (And they are one area where Wikipedia tends to be a good source.)

A wasp nest is not part of the wasp. Making paper is not a unique function of the wasp body. Most wasp species do quite fine without paper nests. So what?

I see you conveniently forgot to tell me which defining characteristics of animals we lack. I didn't forget my question, though. Any ideas?

(Of course, it would be easier if you actually knew what an animal was...)

One, it's not the definition of random, two, I've just shown it wrong in front of your eyes.

Apart from that, nothing

And the random defined the trend.

*points to Lion Hearted's post*, although with caveats.

FWIW, I'm still not sure if it's right to say natural selection is not random. It defines a statistical trend, sure, but good genes don't guarantee reproductive success.

I think when I brought this up in a thread here, someone reminded me that Hardy-Weinberg + selection does evolve deterministically with time. So maybe it's better to call natural selection chaotic as opposed to random.

Gah, I feel so thick contemplating this. Stupid population genetics.

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One dinosaur evolved into another dinosaur is very similar (to me) as one bacterium evolved into another bacterium. Dinosaur did not evolved into anything which is not a dinosaur. Those fake birds are actually dinosaurs, aren't they? (Yes, I know little about dinosaurs)

So, what is the definition of random? Where in its definition that implies anything called a "trend"?

Lion Hearted Man said:

Mutationis random, and is not the only thing that occurs in evolution. Natural selection is not a random process at all.

I swear that I and many others have brought this up to you before.

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Glad to see you recognized that.

As far as the "additional" factors in the "nature", I am afraid it will even hit the idea of evolution harder.

First, environments changed in cyclic way. Do you see a cyclic process in the mechanism, or the consequence of evolution? No. Absolutely not. For example, the extinction of dinosaurs did not bring back the era of amphibians.

Split Rock said:

True enough.



Yes, they are technically avian dinosaurs, or avian theropods. Commonly referred to as birds.. remember that birds were called "birds" before anyone knew about dinosaurs, or the connection between dinosaurs and birds.

Why do you continue to call them "fake?" This is really starting to sound like bearing false witness.

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Did they have true feather? I was told bird is defined by having feather.

juvenissun said:

Did they have true feather? I was told bird is defined by having feather.

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Feathered dinosaur fossils find has Chinese scientists all aflutter | Science | The Guardian

mzungu said:

The I and my father are one is something I can say about my father too.

AV1611VET said:

Would you say you and your father are yacheed or echad, though?

How about this one?

Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
6 But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

Or this doosey?

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

mzungu said:

None of the above have enything to do with Jesus claiming to be God!

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Fair enough -- care to address 'yacheed' and 'echad'?

I do believe that's your primary language, is it not?

AV1611VET said:

Fair enough -- care to address 'yacheed' and 'echad'?

I do believe that's your primary language, is it not?

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Sounds like Jewish to me; Perhaps if you quoted them in their original text?

mzungu said:

Sounds like Jewish to me; Perhaps if you quoted them in their original text?

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Perhaps if he did his own homework for once?

mzungu said:

Sounds like Jewish to me; Perhaps if you quoted them in their original text?

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-- Sorry, my mistake.

juvenissun said:

One dinosaur evolved into another dinosaur is very similar (to me) as one bacterium evolved into another bacterium. Dinosaur did not evolved into anything which is not a dinosaur.

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NOTHING EVER EVOLVES INTO ANYTHING THAT IS NOT "IT".

Why do I have a feeling that this isn't the last time I have to shout this at you?

Stop fixating on names for a moment, and look at the damned creatures. Seriously? Eoraptor --> Stegosaurus ("dinosaur --> dinosaur") is a MUCH bigger change than Anchiornis ---> Confuciusornis ("dinosaur --> bird").

(And before you get any erroneous ideas, I'm not trying to imply that one creature was a direct ancestor of the other, just that the second evolved from something similar to the first.)

Those fake birds are actually dinosaurs, aren't they? (Yes, I know little about dinosaurs)

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Technically, yes, for the same reason my mother is still a member of her family even though she got married and received a different name twenty-five years ago. All 10000 or so living species of bird are still dinosaurs for the same reason.

More on the system we use to classify organisms here.

So, what is the definition of random?

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I told you. A process is random if it can produce more than one outcome from the exact same starting conditions. That's the best definition of randomness I've come across. You could also define "random" as "unpredictable even in principle", which is basically the same thing.

Where in its definition that implies anything called a "trend"?

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Definitions don't have to tell you everything about a phenomenon. Where in the definition of "chemical bond" is there anything called a "crystal"? Where in the definition of "road travel" is there anything called a "traffic jam"?

ETA: speaking of definitions: which defining characteristic of animals do humans lack?

juvenissun said:

Glad to see you recognized that.

As far as the "additional" factors in the "nature", I am afraid it will even hit the idea of evolution harder.

First, environments changed in cyclic way.

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Evidence please. And be more specific. "Environments" covers an awful lot of things.

Do you see a cyclic process in the mechanism, or the consequence of evolution? No. Absolutely not. For example, the extinction of dinosaurs did not bring back the era of amphibians.

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I think you are looking for repetition on the wrong level. Even if some aspect of the envrionment undergoes cycles, evolution has moved on between two points of the same phase - and evolution is influenced by more than the "environment". There are interactions between species, there are random events like mutations, and there are rare innovations that change the game (like the evolution of sex or jaws). The whole setup is so complex that you can never quite return exactly where you started.

Patterns may return over and over, but their specifics will be different every time. Tropical rainforests existed for hundreds of millions of years, but Carboniferous trees were very different from modern ones (with rare exceptions). Big sabre-toothed predators evolved over and over again in the mammalian lineage - in several different groups.

(Convergent evolution is another phenomenon you might want to familiarise with.)

juvenissun said:

Did they have true feather? I was told bird is defined by having feather.

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Yes. They did. Good and proper flight feathers included.

I don't see any reason to fly, or to swim, enviroment dispare someone might call it!!!

Lillen said:

I don't see any reason to fly, or to swim, enviroment dispare someone might call it!!!

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Cryptosporidium

Split Rock said:

Yes, some do.

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OK, that is obviously an advantage. If so, why most (?) of them don't? Was there not enough time?

By the way, is the so-called "feather" discovered not a full fledged feather, but only feather-like? It seems there was only ONE such thing found. If that is true, then I won't claim that they have feather. One is not good enough. There has to be at least 100 to make such claim.

juvenissun said:

Glad to see you recognized that.

As far as the "additional" factors in the "nature", I am afraid it will even hit the idea of evolution harder.

First, environments changed in cyclic way. Do you see a cyclic process in the mechanism, or the consequence of evolution? No. Absolutely not. For example, the extinction of dinosaurs did not bring back the era of amphibians.

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You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The modern theory of evolution can be summed up very basically with two facets:

1) Genetic diversity exists via random mutation
2) Selection acts upon the diversity via non-random processes

Those two things comprise evolution. So evolution is not "just" random, though it has a random component.

Naraoia said:

NOTHING EVER EVOLVES INTO ANYTHING THAT IS NOT "IT".

Why do I have a feeling that this isn't the last time I have to shout this at you?

Stop fixating on names for a moment, and look at the damned creatures. Seriously? Eoraptor --> Stegosaurus ("dinosaur --> dinosaur") is a MUCH bigger change than Anchiornis ---> Confuciusornis ("dinosaur --> bird").

(And before you get any erroneous ideas, I'm not trying to imply that one creature was a direct ancestor of the other, just that the second evolved from something similar to the first.)

Technically, yes, for the same reason my mother is still a member of her family even though she got married and received a different name twenty-five years ago. All 10000 or so living species of bird are still dinosaurs for the same reason.

More on the system we use to classify organisms here.

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Except may be the birds, which animal is evolved from dinosaurs (not classified as a dinosaur)?

Naraoia said:

NOTHING EVER EVOLVES INTO ANYTHING THAT IS NOT "IT".

Why do I have a feeling that this isn't the last time I have to shout this at you?
...

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Hmm, you could have something strangely clever there. Perhaps the best definition of 'kind' I have yet heard. "It". So 'it' begets little 'its'..even if they are somewhat different. Possibly, if evolving happened real fast in the past, 'it' changed 'it's' self quite a bit while living. Or both. Either way it seems to work.

Lion Hearted Man said:

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The modern theory of evolution can be summed up very basically with two facets:

1) Genetic diversity exists via random mutation
2) Selection acts upon the diversity via non-random processes

Those two things comprise evolution. So evolution is not "just" random, though it has a random component.

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The process must be first random, then subject to selection.

If the selections are limited (there are only so many types of environmental pressures), then there will be little "forward" evolution, but should have more frequent sideward, or backward evolution. But obviously we only see a record of forward evolution.

Naraoia said:

I told you. A process is random if it can produce more than one outcome from the exact same starting conditions. That's the best definition of randomness I've come across. You could also define "random" as "unpredictable even in principle", which is basically the same thing.

Definitions don't have to tell you everything about a phenomenon. Where in the definition of "chemical bond" is there anything called a "crystal"? Where in the definition of "road travel" is there anything called a "traffic jam"?

ETA: speaking of definitions: which defining characteristic of animals do humans lack?

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I have said: none. Whatever single process we can do or we have, at least one animal also has it or can do it too.

But, as I said, we raised fire. None of the animal can do the similar. If you like to see the break down processes, it includes at least: find flint > make sparks > ignite small fibers > add fuel. So, tell me an animal which can perform a comparable process.

That is what human has and animals don't have. And it is NOT an evolutional product.