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Re: A load of questions
I just want to second some of the points Stan Friesen made about
Protoavis, just in case someone gets the false impression he was
spouting off. All of the following comments are based on what I've
seen at meetings and in the literature over the past couple of years;
correct me if I've missed something.
1) Apart from Larry Martin, no-one working on the problem of avian
origins appears to support Chatterjee's claims.
2) Chatterjee's phylogenetic arguments are weak; unlike virtually
everybody else in this debate, he relies on "looks like a bird to
me"-type arguments instead of making explicit, quantitative
phylogenetic analyses.
3) Precious little has been published about Protoavis in the last
couple of years, and I haven't seen a full-scale rebuttal. Perhaps
none of the heavyweights in this area even cares to invest research
time in rebutting the theory.
4) Of course Chatterjee could still turn out to be right. However,
there is no particular reason to think he will, apart from taking his
word for it.
5) Friesen is on the mark (like usual) with regard to herrerasaurids.