>From: "Tim Williams" <twilliams_alpha <at> hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: twilliams_alpha <at> hotmail.com
>To: dinosaur <at> usc.edu
>Subject: Re: Steadman's review of Mesozoic Birds
>Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:38:57 -0600
>
>David Marjanovic wrote:
>
>> > >The debate over whether the magnetite contained
>> > >in the Martian meteorite is indeed biogenic
>> > >(and therefore indicative of past or present life on the Red Planet)
>>
>>"Therefore"? We'd still have to rule out contamination -- colonization of
>>the meteorite by bacteria while it was lying around on the Antarctic ice.
>>IMHO that's quite likely what happened.
>
>This is off-topic, so I'll be brief.  (Then again, I started it.)  
>Terrigenic contamination is unlikely, since the crystals are buried in a 
>carbonaceous matrix that is itself of Martin composition.  The debate has 
>long since shifted to whether the crystals are of abiotic or biogenic 
>origin.
>
>>It is the way Feduccia keeps up his
>>hypothesis. For example, it is plain obvious from all of his writings that
>>he has no good working knowledge about dinosaurs.
>
>This is painfully true.  Some of his statements about dinosaur anatomy or 
>paleoecology date from the 1960's.  Like David, a lot of the assertions 
>made by Feduccia and Czerkas and Olson make me cringe.  Many of the 
>assertions have been contradicted over and over again, and in a multitude 
>of papers (many of which have appeared in such obscure journals as Nature 
>and Science and American Novitates).
>
>Further, there are the internal inconsistences of his 'hypothesis'.  For a 
>long, long time Feduccia was convinced that the osteological similarities 
>shared by dromaeosaurids and primitive birds were due to convergent 
>evolution.  Then dromaeosaurids turned up with honest-to-God feathers.  
>Woops.  Suddenly Feduccia was sidling up Czerkas' hypothesis: 
>dromaeosaurids and birds were closely related after all, but neither evolve 
>from dinosaurs.
>
>
>
>Tim
>
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If I understand Feduccia's stance correctly, his actual contention is not 
that dromaeosaurs are related to birds but that forms like Microraptor are 
related to birds, and not related to dromaeosaurs.  It makes little 
difference, one supposes, but nonetheless.

JGK

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