Re: THEROPOD-BIRD CONVERGENCE

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/23/00 7:14:58 AM EST, darren.naish@port.ac.uk writes:

<< Looking at this impartially, they are flatly contradicting themselves. >>

Darren, as usual, is quite correct. Convergence is an increase in similarity 
between two kinds of organisms that results from adaptation to a similar 
lifestyle. What the ornithologists are calling "convergence" between 
coelurosaurs and birds is similarity that is due neither to similar lifestyle 
(birds and coelurosaurs surely had quite different lifetyles) nor to common 
ancestry but to >chance< alone. That is why I've (repeatedly) described their 
hypothesis as a "miracle."