Sort Your Story Out! (Was: 2 refs that were once new...)

[Mike Taylor <mike@tecc.co.uk>]

> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:23:09 +0200
> From: "David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
> 
> [From] J. R. Speakman & S. C. Thomson: Flight capabilities of
> *Archaeopteryx*, Nature 370, 514 (18 August 1994)
> 
> "Evaluations of muscle power^2 and osteology of the wrist^3 both
> concluded that *Archaeopteryx* could not sustain powered (flapping)
> flight, but this is at odds with the asymmetry of its flight
> feathers, which is indicative of aerodynamic function^4,5.

OK, wait a minute.  Here's the situation.  We have people who say that
Archie couldn't fly (read "flapping flight"), period.  Then we have
the camp that says it was endotherminc and therefore able to generate
enough muscle power to fly.  And as if that weren't bad enough, you
then have people like Paladino, Spotila and Dodson (see their _A
Blueprint for Giants: Do Living Reptiles, Birds or Mammals Provide the
Best Model for the Physiology of Large Dinosaurs?_ in _The Complete
Dinosaur_) who claim that Archie, like all dinosaurs, was ectothermic
but was capable of powered flight anyway!

How can people disagree _that_ badly?  Surely the evidence can't be
quite so ambiguous?  Can it?

> Means, Archie was incapable of both flapping and gliding.

How does this mean it's incapable of gliding?  Surely that needs
neither the muscular power required for flapping flight, nor the wrist
shape required for the flapping stroke?

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor   <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>   www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Good luck, everyone" -- Bob the Angry Flower after the WTC
         disaster.  See http://angryflower.com/septem.gif