Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise
MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER

(Translated from the original German by the authors)

https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf

On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
> Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise

HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
Did you have another senior moment?

This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]

> MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
>
> (Translated from the original German by the authors)
>
> https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf

EXCERPT:
Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al.. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
END OF EXCERPT

Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.

Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?

Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.

EXCERPT 2. . In
In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
END OF EXCERPT

On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.

Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
gets to name the species" overturned in this case.

There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 2:43:13 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
> > Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
> > Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise
> HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
> Did you have another senior moment?
>
>
> This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]
> > MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
> >
> > (Translated from the original German by the authors)
> >
> > https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf
> EXCERPT:
> Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
> have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
> END OF EXCERPT
>
> Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
> relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
> for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
> and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.
>
> Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
> for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
> like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?
>
>
> Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.
>
> EXCERPT 2. . In
> In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
> END OF EXCERPT
>
> On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.
>
> Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
> gets to name the species" overturned in this case.
>
>
> There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
> my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
If you would do as much as read the first page of the article, you might understand the "anti-evolutionist" reference.
You're coming across in these recent threads about birds as Feduccia's bulldog. Is that really your intent?

On 10/11/23 2:43 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
>> Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
>> Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise
>
> HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
> Did you have another senior moment?

What's your problem here? Feduccia is prominently featured.

> This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]

Could be, but you fail to mention any of the supposed flaws. Odd.

>> MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
>>
>> (Translated from the original German by the authors)
>>
>> https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf
>
>
> EXCERPT:
> Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
> have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
> END OF EXCERPT
>
> Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
> relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
> for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
> and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.

Prum, on the other hand, has not descended into crackpottery. His
criticisms (many more than you mention here) are all quite on target.

> Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
> for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
> like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?

Derailing the thread already, are we?

> Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.
>
> EXCERPT 2. . In
> In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
> END OF EXCERPT
>
> On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.
>
> Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
> gets to name the species" overturned in this case.

This seems to be a hallucination on your part. The specimen was
misidentified. That's all.

> There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
> my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).

On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 6:26:58 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 2:43:13 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >
> > > Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
> > > Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise

> > HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
> > Did you have another senior moment?

Answer: no, John just didn't think about the ambiguity inherent in the phrase,
"in anti-evolutionist treatise."

> >
> > This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]
> > > MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
> > >
> > > (Translated from the original German by the authors)
> > >
> > > https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf
> > EXCERPT:
> > Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
> > have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
> > END OF EXCERPT
> >
> > Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
> > relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
> > for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
> > and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.
> >
> > Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
> > for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
> > like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?
> >
> >
> > Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.
> >
> > EXCERPT 2. . In
> > In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
> > END OF EXCERPT
> >
> > On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.
> >
> > Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
> > gets to name the species" overturned in this case.
> >
> >
> > There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
> > my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

> If you would do as much as read the first page of the article, you might understand the "anti-evolutionist" reference.

There is no anti-evolutionist treatise mentioned on the first page.

On the second page, Junker (2022) gets mentioned, but there is nothing
anti-evolutionst in the quote from him, unless you want to libel Feduccia as "anti-evolutionist".
What he says used to be settled science about pterosaurs: those hairlike growths are not hair;
nor are they feathers. It was only when their morphology was closely studied that
"they are feathers" became the new orthodoxy.

It is only on p.7 that we get an inkling of why John used the word "treatise".
Did you happen to read that far, by the way?

> You're coming across in these recent threads about birds as Feduccia's bulldog.

Watch your language. Neither you nor John have argued against a single thing I wrote.

>Is that really your intent?

Is it really your intent to substitute personal attacks for reasoned argument?

I've caught you twice this year posting loaded questions. Here's what became of one of them:

_______________________________ excerpt, you going first_________________________

> Why not look at the paper in Nature?

I did, and I quoted a relevant piece from it in a direct reply to you.

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/WleZbPa7cR4/m/-2CXV1kdAwAJ
Re: Big Eocene Whale
Aug 7, 2023, 12:53:56 PM

Why are you showing no sign of having read what I quoted? Here is the first one-third of that:

"The adaptations of shallow-diving, slow-swimming species often comprise bone mass increase (BMI). This is produced by the infilling of the inner cavities of skeletal elements with compact bone (that is, osteosclerosis) and, in the more extreme cases, by additional deposition of bone on their external surface5 (that is, pachyostosis sensu stricto). BMI is documented in cetaceans’ amphibious close relatives11, as well as early members of the clade, the basilosaurids in particular. "

Note the bit about "shallow-diving". If you read the whole quote, you will see more clues,
and it even might explain why the artist's conception gives the critter a totally
speculative manatee-like tail.

> CNN is hardly the place to be arguing about a very partial fossil.

The problem with this insincere comment is that CNN is all everyone else has access to,
including Harshman with his unhelpful "Sure. Why?"

Now that you can teleport to what I quoted, do you have the minimal backbone
to argue about it? Feel free to ask for more quotes.

======================= end of excerpt ===============-- https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/WleZbPa7cR4/m/zwzLGzeoBAAJ
Re: Big Eocene Whale
Aug 17, 2023, 12:18:57 PM

You did not have the minimal backbone. You vanished, never to be seen again on the thread.

Sound familiar?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 10/11/23 5:00 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 6:26:58 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 2:43:13 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
>>>> Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise
>
>>> HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
>>> Did you have another senior moment?
>
> Answer: no, John just didn't think about the ambiguity inherent in the phrase,
> "in anti-evolutionist treatise."

What ambiguity? As is so often the case, I have no idea what your vague
hints are trying to convey.

>>> This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]
>>>> MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
>>>>
>>>> (Translated from the original German by the authors)
>>>>
>>>> https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf
>>> EXCERPT:
>>> Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
>>> have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
>>> END OF EXCERPT
>>>
>>> Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
>>> relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
>>> for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
>>> and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.
>>>
>>> Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
>>> for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
>>> like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?
>>>
>>>
>>> Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.
>>>
>>> EXCERPT 2. . In
>>> In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
>>> END OF EXCERPT
>>>
>>> On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.
>>>
>>> Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
>>> gets to name the species" overturned in this case.
>>>
>>>
>>> There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
>>> my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Nyikos
>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>> University of South Carolina
>>> https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>> If you would do as much as read the first page of the article, you might understand the "anti-evolutionist" reference.
>
> There is no anti-evolutionist treatise mentioned on the first page.
>
> On the second page, Junker (2022) gets mentioned, but there is nothing
> anti-evolutionst in the quote from him, unless you want to libel Feduccia as "anti-evolutionist".
> What he says used to be settled science about pterosaurs: those hairlike growths are not hair;
> nor are they feathers. It was only when their morphology was closely studied that
> "they are feathers" became the new orthodoxy.
>
> It is only on p.7 that we get an inkling of why John used the word "treatise".
> Did you happen to read that far, by the way?

John didn't use the word "treatise". It's part of the title. The whole
thing is a response to a creationist article. How was that not clear?

>> You're coming across in these recent threads about birds as Feduccia's bulldog.
>
> Watch your language. Neither you nor John have argued against a single thing I wrote.

You haven't written anything on the subject yet.

>> Is that really your intent?
>
> Is it really your intent to substitute personal attacks for reasoned argument?
>
> I've caught you twice this year posting loaded questions. Here's what became of one of them:

I'll snip another attempt at thread derailment.

On 10/11/23 5:00 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 6:26:58 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 2:43:13 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 12:02:26 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why do we know that birds are living dinosaurs?
>>>> Evaluation of reasoning in anti-evolutionist treatise
>
>>> HUH??? the whole article is devoted to refuting creationist arguments.
>>> Did you have another senior moment?
>
> Answer: no, John just didn't think about the ambiguity inherent in the phrase,
> "in anti-evolutionist treatise."
>
>
>>>
>>> This is not to say the article is free of flaws. [Big understatement here]
>>>> MARTIN NEUKAMM & ANDREAS BEYER
>>>>
>>>> (Translated from the original German by the authors)
>>>>
>>>> https://www.ag-evolutionsbiologie.net/pdf/2023/evolution-why-birds-are-living-dinosaurs.pdf
>>> EXCERPT:
>>> Today, only a very few dinosaur specialists and paleornithologists dispute this finding, and the few who do so seem to
>>> have ideological rather than scientific reasons (cf. PRUM 2003; SMITH et al. 2015; RAUHUT & FOTH 2020).
>>> END OF EXCERPT
>>>
>>> Relying on PRUM to distinguish ideological from scientific reasons is like
>>> relying on Lysenko to do the same. Prum lambasted Feduccia
>>> for having "abandoned science" by refusing to stick his neck out
>>> and hypothesize some group of archosauria as the sister group of birds.
>>>
>>> Richard Dawkins was recently lambasted as having "abandoned science"
>>> for much weightier reasons. As an atheist like Dawkins and a leftist
>>> like the lambasters, you may well have conflicted feelings about this. Do you?
>>>
>>>
>>> Another one-sided passage seems to be where you got the subtitle for this thread.
>>>
>>> EXCERPT 2. . In
>>> In fact, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is so strikingly similar to that of the predatory dinosaur Compsognathus that two apparently featherless specimens of the proto-bird were mistaken for this non-avian theropod for decades (SHIPMAN 1999, pp. 43 ff.).
>>> END OF EXCERPT
>>>
>>> On the other hand, another specimen was mistaken for a species of the decidedly non-dinosaurian *Pterodactylus*.
>>>
>>> Fortunately, John Ostrom had enough prestige to get the rule "type specimen describer
>>> gets to name the species" overturned in this case.
>>>
>>>
>>> There is much more I could say about the article, but I have an awful lot on
>>> my plate, so I'll save it for another day (maybe week).
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter Nyikos
>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>> University of South Carolina
>>> https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
>> If you would do as much as read the first page of the article, you might understand the "anti-evolutionist" reference.
>
> There is no anti-evolutionist treatise mentioned on the first page.

I believe he was referring to the first page of the text, not the first
page of the document, which is a table of contents.

But here, from the first page:

"A biologically skilled creationist who has tackled bird evolution for
decades is Rein- hard JUNKER, former managing director of the German
evangelical organization WORT-UND-WISSEN. In his writings, he presents
numerous empirical findings, declar- ing them “anomalies for evolution
and indications for creation” (JUNKER 2019, p. 66). Most of his
arguments are typical of anti-evolutionist reasoning and are prevalent
among US creationists as well.
In this paper, we elucidate some main lines of this kind of
anti-evolutionist reasoning.1 We show that it draws its credibility from
outdated or even clearly false ideas about evolution."

Is everything clear now?

> On the second page, Junker (2022) gets mentioned, but there is nothing
> anti-evolutionst in the quote from him, unless you want to libel Feduccia as "anti-evolutionist".
> What he says used to be settled science about pterosaurs: those hairlike growths are not hair;
> nor are they feathers. It was only when their morphology was closely studied that
> "they are feathers" became the new orthodoxy.
>
> It is only on p.7 that we get an inkling of why John used the word "treatise".
> Did you happen to read that far, by the way?

You need to read better, not necessarily further.