Re: How are columbiformes (doves and pigeons) related to psittaciformes?

["Dora Smith" <villandra@austin.rr.com>]

I had never heard of Feduccia until three days ago; though I had previously
copied part of his book for my notebook.    I was referred to his two books
by a web site that says that parrots and pigeons are sister groups and both
evolved from charadriiforms or something.

Now that I'm more aware of him I'm finding critiques of his two books all
over the place.

I never picked up on the fact that he is rabidly against thinking birds are
dinosaurs!    What I read of his books doesn't even address dinosaurs -
though I did loosely notice that he appeared to classify some nonavian
dinosaurs as early birds.   The state of my knowledge is such that I don't
yet know if Hesperiniformes was in class Aves on a direct line to modern
birds.   That, however, is common.

This and an odd experience I just had on the ornithology list, suggest to me
that the discovery that birds are dinosaurs separated the "men" of bird
science from the OLD "men" of bird science!  [Several of the old "men" were
females.]    I had asked the same question I posed here.   I specifically
wanted to know what Sibley said about it - which is something I haven't
entirely learned yet.   People wrote back anything but the answer to my
question.   Some wrote that all kinds of people have written on that and the
subject is very controversial.   One person explained that Charles Sibley is
not David Sibley.   Now I didn't ask what all kinds of people wrote, what
does who Charles Sibley isn't have to do with it,  and I didn't ask what is
controversial.   I never realized that the whole subject is the wrong kind
of subject for them.  I thought ornithology and is the bird science list.
I wrote back, come on, can't you answer a question with the answer.

One person wrote do you know if people are from Venus or Mars, or something.
Interesting part is this was from a man - and  I am pretty much
unequivocally from Mars.    Why did he find direct logic so
incomprehensible?   Another person wrote a long diatribe that began, "You
don't know how things once were, do you?   Things were TOUGH!   I had to get
up  at 5 AM every day and feed teh horses..." or something of that sort.
Presumably it continued to where his father whupped him; I didn't read the
whole thing.   I mean like, What?   I wrote back, what are you talking
about?

Well, I realize now that he was talking about the good old days when
ornithology wasn't science; it was just about collecting and classifying
bones and pretty feathers..  The fact that the knowledge that birds are
dinosaurs split the community of bird scientists explains why all scientific
discussion about birds is on the DINOSAUR list!   Poor people - they must be
totally out of their element in the modern world.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra@austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Lauret" <zthemanvirus@hotmail.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 6:55 AM
Subject: Re: How are columbiformes (doves and pigeons) related to
psittaciformes?


>
>
>
> >From: "Mickey Mortimer" <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>
> >Reply-To: Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com
> >To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> >Subject: Re: How are columbiformes (doves and pigeons) related to
> >psittaciformes?
> >Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 19:44:21 -0700
>
> >+AD4- I was seriously wondering whether anything more than an odd shaped
> >beak
> >+AD4- supports Feduccia's assertion that parrots are actually descended
> >from
> >+AD4- pigeons+ADs- the tooth billed pigeon to be precise.    He doesn't
> >explain the
> >+AD4- notion in either of his two books on bird evolution.    If anything
> >about
> >+AD4- wing anatomy or something was there, I didn't see it.
> >
> >If it's like most of Feduccia's assertions, I wouldn't get my hopes up.
> >+ADs--)
> >
> >Mickey Mortimer
>
> I allways thought Feduccia did the whole psittaciformes off rather fast
and
> mentioned them only fleetingly..as if he has a dislike of psittaciforms :D
> What surprises me is that he didn't seem to know the first thing about
> research claiming parrots were not closely related to pigeons at all,wich
> wasn't a new thought at the time of 'The origin and evolution of birds'.
> When you think about it such a relationship would in fact seem very
unlikely
> for the start. Seeing that columbiformes consisted of Pteroclididae and
> Columbidae,with the first representing the more primitive group it would
be
> very strange to relate such an order to another order on the basis of
> similiarity of it's more derived family to this other order.Doesn't this
> scream 'convergence'?
>
> Brian
>
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