Talk:Bird evolution

Inbound links?

Is it too soon to start linking to this lonely orphan from other articles? Slurm und Drang (talk) 19:19, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

It's fine to link to it now. I'm mostly doing clean up of references and outbound links. The content is staying close to what it is now. Bongolian (talk) 19:39, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Can't we just name this...

Evolution of birds, Evolutionary origin of birds, or something else more straightforward? This counts for much of the article, by the way "few disciplines produce such acrimony", "Putative avian ancestors", "The digital homology of theropods and birds has been a subject of the highest contention" don't exactly read like a RW article to say the least... I know this is an EvoWiki port, but it leaves me wondering if we're not better off rewriting it from scratch (using the EvoWiki page as a source) Carpetsmoker (talk) 13:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with renaming it. It would seem to be an awful lot of work to start from scratch though. Bongolian (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Creationism.org on bats (related)

http://www.creationism.org/english/bats_en.htm FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 20:47, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

This page needs a serious rewrite

IMO it's terribly written and a difficult read. Especially compared to the informal and snarky rest of the wiki. It reminds me of today's illegible science papers: filled with cruft, technical jargon, and given the length of this page, it's a very difficult read, especially compared to most other articles from RationalWiki. It's most likely written by experts for experts but neither party know what good writing is really all about.

Science is a very human enterprise, in that it simultaneously exemplifies the best attributes of humanity, and the most disappointing. There is this idea, that science is an endeavor in which scholastic restraint and respect reign triumphant, and debate remains purely objective. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Bitter, vitriolic feuds are waged in science, transcending the evidence to become ideological wars.

Which is bad. It has meaningless, lofty, unnecessary, repeated words (the first sentence is particularly terrible overall).

Science exemplifies the best and most disappointing of humanity. While debate is expected to be objective, scholarly, and level-headed, reality often involves bitter and vitriolic ideological clashing.

Other examples of bad writing.

It is perhaps the most magnificent fossil ever discovered.

This statement is unsupported if not entirely opinionated. Not necessary either.

By showing that key components of "thecodont" ancestry are demonstrably incorrect, it is hoped that the serious problems with this hypothesis, can be further elucidated.

"showing" and "demonstrably" I think are repeats. It is hoped by whom? And "elucidated", probably not the best word choice.

The opposition to dinosaurian origin for birds dates from 1860. Reasons have varied. Sir Richard Owen maintained that Archaeopteryx lithographica, despite basal attributes, was a bird without issue due to his opposition to Darwinian evolution. H.G. Seeley elucidated the first cogent homoplastic argument concerning the affinities of Archaeopteryx in 1866.[1] Seeley's arguments were more objective than Owen's, who had ulterior motives, and the same can be said of those who picked up his conceptual legacy.

Despite the veracity of the work by both those supporting dinosaurian origin for birds (e.g., Huxley 1868, 1870, Baur 1883) and those advocating non-dinosaurian origin, the four decades following the initial description of Archaeopteryx lithographica were nebulous, with a plethora of theories for avian origin advanced. Putative avian ancestors ranged from therapsid mammals, to pterosaurs. Consensus in the paleontological community on the affinities of birds did not emerge until the early 20th century.

Complete cruft, being unnecessarily wordy and liberal with prepositional phrases, and it's filled with multi-syllable jargon "basal attributes", "eluciated" (there's that word again), "cogent homplastic", "affinities", "ulterior motives", "conceptual legacy", "veracity", "nebulous", "putative", and "therapsid".

Perhaps in recognition of this tremendous difficulty with the convergence argument, Feduccia has presented in The Origin and Evolution of Birds, three cases of what he considers similar examples of "massive convergenc": hesperornithiform morphology comparative to gaviiform morphology, falconiform morphology comparative to strigiform morphology, and the relationship of Hupehsuchus to mosasaurs. Yet, the comparison is entirely specious. Feduccia presents these examples as cases of convergence to a degree forbidden by standard interpretations of the process of homoplastic evolution. On the contrary, all three are stereotypical of superficial similarities resulting from well-defined convergent processes, without need of outlandish scenarios for an explanation. Moreover, in none of the cases Feduccia isolates, can one find an adequate analogy for the sheer volume of synapomorphies in dinosaurs and birds, which must be explained away by convergence.

Try reading this jargon-filled ("synapomorphies", "isolates", no examples, explanation, or links of what the traits between "hesperornithiform morphology" and "gaviiform morphology" actually are), preposition-filled (count the "of", "by" "from", "for" words) paragraph. It's hard.

Probalistic woes aside, convergence is fatally undermined by the lack of any clear evolutionary impetus for such a tremendous degree of phenotypic mimicry, and this flaw is rightly seen as insurmountable. The fossils at hand beg the question: why should two lineages, derived from separate ancestors or at the very least following radically different evolutionary trajectories, be so stunningly similar to each other? None of the stimuli, which promulgate convergent evolution, are at large in the case of dinosaur and avian phylogeny. Aside from common ancestry, how is the prospective opponent of theropod origin to explain why, for example, Deinonychosauria and Aves should both possess diamond-shaped dorsal supraoccipitals? How does convergence account for a strongly twisted paroccipital process seen in these clades, or an infratemporal fenestra reduced to a foramen (or eliminated altogether)? What of auxiliary processes of the caudodorsal surface of the ischia, or maxillary sinuses with accessory maxillary fenestrae?

Everything about this paragraph is terrible. What the fuck is "diamond-shaped dorsal supraoccipitals" or "a strongly twisted paroccipital process" or a "an infratemporal fenestra reduced to a foramen" or the "auxiliary processes of the caudodorsal surface of the ischia or "maxillary sinuses with accessory maxillary fenestrae?" If they're supposed to be examples, they don't do a good job at supporting the argument. It certainly doesn't convince me either way. It's just a bunch of crap. Like most of this article.

This writing slogs for the entire page. This article is inappropriate for RationalWiki's audience who are likely unfamiliar with phrases like "the first true rhamphotheca". It seems to be missional but this article seriously sucks. It doesn't really say much or excuse the flaws that it's a port from EvoWiki. Legibility of science papers is a real problem and this article is a good example of what's wrong with science papers today. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 21:09, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Relevance to RW

To what extent is this relevant to RW? Too long and 'too many technicalities', and no mention of Jurassic Park or bird brains. Anna Livia (talk) 18:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

This page was one of the Category:EvoWiki ports. EvoWiki is now defunct, and we were offered their contents for inclusion in RationalWiki. We took the better-quality articles on that Wiki and ported them here. The page is missional because, while not directly addressing pseudoscience, it does support our refutation of creationism, and there are links to this page many other pages, including baraminology. Bongolian (talk) 20:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

See the entry above this one.

Could there be another page aimed at 'those of us who are broadly popular science' level (though not averse to 'technical words') as well as the bird experts (who may be 'generalist level in other fields). Anna Livia (talk) 23:51, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly possible, but I'm not too motivated to do it on my own. If there were one or more other (@LeftyGreenMario?) who were interested, I would likely join in. Bongolian (talk) 02:34, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

@Bongolian I can pitch into rewriting the thing, but it'll take A LOT of time considering how long this page is already and I'm not an ornithologist, more of an amateur bird enthusiast that watches birds as a hobby. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 21:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMario, @Anna Livia: I've done some editing towards the beginning of the page. Hopefully the "key concepts" section that I added at the beginning will help people get up to speed for the rest of the page. A synopsis of the denser sections, particularly the Feduccia section, would also be an improvement. Bongolian (talk) 20:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

How feasible would it be to have the RW equivalent of Wikisource for 'specialist-technical' articles like this (and any other field from astrophysics via eschatology to zoomorphology) and a 'RW general readers/RW orientated' article (we are all generalists in subjects that are not our areas of expertise). There is room for both. Anna Livia (talk) 23:21, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm thinking of keeping the long technical details in TLDR subsections that would be hidden from view unless specifically unhidden (Template:Collapse). I don't think there's sufficient expertise on RW that such a 'specialist-technical' grouping would be populated by very many articles, a probably no new articles. Bongolian (talk) 23:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Another example might include the science behind 'cohabiting and intersecting minerals and crystals' (geological matrices) etc - when for most people 'a dripping hardwater tap would take this long to produce a sequin's thickness of limescale and that long to produce a stalactite.'

As people may post such 'detailed information' some system of presentation used on an 'as and when required' basis might be useful. Anna Livia (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)