Re: Hongshanosaurus houi, new psittacosaur

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

George Olshevsky (Dinogeorge@aol.com) wrote:

<Frankly, I think the overall relationship of heterodontosaurs with 
marginocephalians is pretty obvious and doesn't really need a phylogenetic
analysis. Right now we don't have anything marginocephalian temporally
between heteros and the rest to be able to say more than that heteros are
basal marginocephalians.>

  This list is filled with "what is obvious" mounted-on-a-horse and
uncorroborated so-called "data". Until any theory is explicitly stated, it
lacks value because it cannot be tested. This theory is not dogmatic, it
has not been implicated further than beign suggested in figures, and all
phylogentic analyses thus far published have shown the opposite, both
cladistic and non. Most verbal implications of the relationship have
lacked character support, or explanations WHY the relationship may be more
likely than the competing theory, which places them as the stem to
Ornithopoda, rather than the sistergroup to Marginocephalia. just "one"
step away. This shows easily how convergence can occur, and sadly without
explicit reasons why something may be so, feelings are just feelings.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com