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From: hammond@petrus.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: EnGardaeopteryx  (part 4 of 6)
Message-ID: <296@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Feb-85 09:23:59 EST
Article-I.D.: petrus.296
Posted: Tue Feb 26 09:23:59 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Feb-85 12:31:20 EST
References: <732@uwmacc.UUCP> <620@mhuxt.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 30

>      Just what would you require of an intermediate specie between birds
> and reptiles, Paul?  You criticized Arch.'s feathers as being almost
> identicle with modern bird feathers.  You want maybe some sort of useless
> half-feather?  Why would something like that be selected for?
> Why would you expect a specie with useless features to survive
> long enough to leave any kind of fossil record?
> -- 
> Jeff Sonntag
> ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j

I do expect there to be intermediate forms.  Arch.'s feathers, being
almost identical to modern feathers, are at best at the near end of
the intermediate spectrum.  I expect to find earlier intermediates.

You seem to be giving up on the whole point of Paul's argument,
that the fossil record doesn't support intermediates.
Paul (I suspect) says they aren't there because they never were.
You say they aren't there because the transition had to happen
very rapidly, since the intermediate forms were "useless features."
That explains the lack, but I don't see how it shows that the
fossil record supports evolution.  It merely says that the record
does not contradict evolution.

I am not supportive of creationism so much as interested
in how some of the enormously complex systems we see today (bird's
flight, ...) evolved from some simple organisms.  I'll settle for
a plausible explanation of what the intermediate steps were and why
they survived long enough to mutate into the present forms.

Rich Hammond (decvax | ucbvax | ihnp4  !bellcore!hammond)