Birds? Serious question

[Joshua Dyal <j-dyal@geocities.com>]

Before I begin, let me point out that I am an amateur to paleontology,
and I quickly get lost in overly technical descriptions.  I'm also a bit
out of touch wich currect primary sources for the same reason, but I do
have a serious question about the origins of birds, especially about the
remains of Protoavis.  The quotes I will put in this message all come
from Don Lessem's book King's of Creation, which is about five years
old.  He does quote all kinds of respected paleontologists, so I do have
reason to believe that it is more than just a regular secondary source,
bereft of real information.  Anyway, that's my position.  On to the
question:

About the Protoavis find, just after it's publication, Lessem quotes the
following:

>From Larry Martin:  "Sankar's Protoavis has a whole suite of characters
that are otherwise only found in birds, and are not demonstrated in any
other groups of dinosaur, which I think unequivocally shows that
Protoavis, whateverit is-- and I'm not convinced that the thing had
feathers and flew-- is a closer relative to birds than anything else
that's been presented.  That's quite different from calling it a bird."

>From Robert Bakker:  "It's one hundred percent primitve therapod, but
one hundred percent primitive bird.  The braincase is very birdlike, the
airsacs very birdlike, the quadrate strut most impressive.  It's really
remarkably like a modern bird in the quadrate-- a complex little gizmo
with a pivot joint.  I just saw the good Troodon material, and this is a
lot more birdlike in the quadrate than Troodon.  Is Protoavis a dinosaur
or already a bird?  I don't know."

John Ostrom was impressed by the quadrate as well, if he did show
reservations about Chatterjee's claim to have seem quill bumps or
birdlike vertebrae.

Theses scientists all saw the actual remains, BTW, not the reproductions
or photographs later printed.

And from Don Lessem himself:  "Chatterjee has yet to establish Protoavis
as a central fossil in bird evolution.  But Protoavis has already
provided enough fossil data to point out, to those who care to admit it,
that all the evidence of ancient birds adds up to very little, and that
the case for a dinosaurian origin for birds is still shaky, as are all
other scenarios for how birds evolved."

That brings me to my question.  From the short time I've been on this
list, I get the impression that most people here think they have the
dinosuar-bird link nailed down exactly.  Has that much changed in five
years, or is it just that people on this list are firmly in one camp and
expresses themselves accordingly?  Whatever happened to the little
Protoavis find, and what it might have meant?  The closest thing I've
heard to a Triassic ancestry for birds, from a creature like Protoavis,
is George Olshevsky's BCF theory.  Is there some evidence that is being
ignored due to partisan science, or is the case stronger than it was
five years ago?  There are still some glaring problems with the dinosaur
bird link as presented, like the timing of Archaeopteryx relative to
birdlike therapods such as Troodon (just pointing out one obvious
example).  I would think, if anything, that Lessem made the best point
when he said that, if nothing else, the Protoavis find points out that
any scenario is very poorly corroborated by fossil evidence.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not up to the minute on the debate, but I am
extremely curious.  I'm not really interested in majority opinions on
the origin of birds, either, I just want to know if anything that really
throws off other theories has been found.

Joshua Dyal
j-dyal@geocities.com