A Word on ABSRD

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Tim,
     I'm not going to defend Feduccia's viewpoint on the origins of birds, 
because I don't think he has either made a particularly strong case for his 
position or against the theropod theory.  But there is still enough doubt 
that I am not going to dismiss his views either.
     I think it is too extreme to call what Feduccia and Martin do 
"pseudoscience", much less compare it to something like phrenology.  I have 
expressed my hopes that the "Birds Came First" Theory is actually true, 
because it could very well turn out that "birds" (not Aves) did evolve from 
very primitive dinosaurs or even dinosauriforms, and that each of the two 
extremes (ABSRD, as you call it) and BAM (birds are maniraptors) only had 
half the story all along.  Whether we then expand Aves to include 
maniraptors is a bridge we will have to cross if and when we get there.
     In any case, I wouldn't be quite so confident about BAM that I would 
label the other side "pseudoscience", as it might come back to haunt you 
someday.  Granted, Larry Martin's mantra (of Garbage In, Garbage Out) has 
been overused, but it does have an element of truth to it.  Whether BAM is 
totally right or not, today's cladistic algorithms will probably be 
considered extremely primitive a few decades hence, and there's probably a 
lot more computer garbage being generated than you might think.
                     ----Ken Kinman
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