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Re: New Ruben Paper

While Mike's objections are all valid, my personal favorite stems from the cognitive dissonance that arises from their claims in the paper and press:

1) Birds could not have evolved from animals that did not have flow-throw lungs

2) Birds "evolved" in the Jurassic before bird-like dinosaurs (i.e. Archaeopteryx is a bird)

3) The neornithine condition is necessary to have flow-through lungs.

Someone point out what I'm missing, but didn't Ruben and friends just prove that birds couldn't have evolved from...other birds???

Seriously, WTF are they thinking?

Scott Hartman
Science Director
Wyoming Dinosaur Center
110 Carter Ranch Rd.
Thermopolis, WY 82443
(800) 455-3466 ext. 230
Cell: (307) 921-8333

www.skeletaldrawing.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Habib <habib@jhmi.edu>
To: marksabercat@yahoo.com
Cc: mike@indexdata.com; danvarner@aol.com; dinosaur@usc.edu
Sent: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 2:37 pm
Subject: Re: New Ruben Paper






Not quite - the premise is that several adaptations of the avian hip and femur excursion allow the pelvic girdle and thigh musculature to help support the lower, lateral abdominal walls, which appears to provide resistance to collapse for the posterior abdominal air sacs in living birds. It's actually a neat finding, and not at all implausible. The problems don't hit until later in the discussion, at which point the authors make a number of poor assumptions, including 0D
(but not limited to): 1) lack of the modern-condition air sac expansion makes flight impossible; 2) lack of the modern-condition posterior air sac expansion means a flow-through lung was not present, and 3) the only way to support the posterior air sacs is with the pelvic condition seen in living neornithines.Â
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I'd be curious to hear what the authors think of flight and respiration in pterosaurs.Â
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Cheers,Â
Â

--MikeÂ
Â


Michael Habib, M.S.Â

PhD. CandidateÂ

Center for Functional Anatomy and EvolutionÂ

Johns Hopkins School of MedicineÂ

1830 E. Monument StreetÂ

Baltimore, MD 21205Â

(443) 280-0181Â

habib@jhmi.eduÂ
Â

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On Jun 9, 2009, at 4:19 PM, Mark Hallett wrote:Â
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As we always say, "wait for the paper", but is Ruben's entire >
premise actually based (on the the implication as I understand it > from the SCIENCE DAILY article) that birds have inflexible or only > potentially flexible knee joints? This is incorrect. --MarkÂ

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--- On Tue, 6/9/09, Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com> wrote:Â

Â

From: Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>Â

Subject: New Ruben PaperÂ

To: Danvarner@aol.comÂ

Cc: dinosaur@usc.eduÂ

Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 9:18 AMÂ

Danvarner@aol.comÂ



writes:Â

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htmÂ;

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From the article:Â

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"Frankly, there's a lot of museumÂ

politics involved inÂ

this, a lot of careers committed to aÂ

particular pointÂ

of view even if new scientific evidenceÂ

raisesÂ

questions," Ruben said.Â

Â

*nods wisely*Â

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_/|_ >> 
___________________________________________________________________Â

/o ) \/ Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>Â

http://www.miketaylor.org.ukÂ;

)_v__/\ "Don't you practise your alliteration on me!"Â

-- Monty Python.Â

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