Canadian scientist aims to turn chickens into dinosaurs
physorg.com
physorg.com
Guy 1: It looks like we're out of a job.
Guy 2: Don't you mean extinct.
Larsson says chickens are direct descendents of dinosaurs. He is a paleontologist. My brother says they are dinosaurs. He is merely an aspiring paleontologist. Perhaps both are the case? Can anyone clear this up?
You, and all other primates are descendent from the first proto-primates that appeared millions of years ago. A lot changes in 65 million years, so to say they are exactly the same is not any more accurate than calling you a lemur.
That said, it is likely that you do have a hell of a lot in common with ancient lemurs, at least DNA wise.
From the tone of your answer, you sound pretty confident that chickens are not dinosaurs-- perhaps you have some authoritative information on this? If so, can you direct me to it? My google-fu deserts me.
If you are hung up on the fact that lemurs still exist, use the word prosimians instead.
you sound pretty confident that chickens are not dinosaurs
That's because I'm pretty confident that this:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/chicken.jpg
is not this:
http://domz60.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/dinosaur.jpg
If you really need something to prove that, I think we are dealing with bigger problems than can ever be resolved within this discussion.
They are certainly related however, and even a layman can see this even without looking at the evolutionary hip structure. That said they are far enough apart that calling a bird a dinosaur is the same as calling you a lemur.
If you ask me, all dinosaurs were birds and some survive until today, makes more sense then some dinosaurs were birds and it's just those that survive.
But I'm not a paleontologists.
And what bugs me is that we have all manner of lizards, even huge turtles and crocodiles and warm blooded birds, but not a single small dino.
There being no huge dinos makes sense, but if we have Nile crocodiles and ostriches, why not one chicken sized dino?
Um, no. Birds are members of the larger dinosaur family the same way you are a member of the primate family. They are dinosaurs in the way that you are a primate, but they aren't dinosaurs in the way that you aren't a lemur.
There was a time when a whole host of other animals were a part of this family, but they have died off. The entire group of animals is collectively known as dinosaurs, but since birds evolved and were proven distinct prior to the extinction, it is correct to say that birds are a subset of dinosaurs, not that all dinosaurs were birds.
People who speculate that such a split is incorrectly classified, and that birds are simply evolved dinosaurs have a pretty big uphill climb in my opinion. The presence of fossils that show that what we would classify as birds living before the extinction is a pretty major hurdle.
*a small theropod, most probably an ancestor of birds
The problem is that that not even all Avialans are "birds", let alone all dinosaurs.
So, yeah birds "descended" from dinosaurs, so did a lot of other stuff. I don't think anyone disputes this.
a) the last common ancestor of all birds, and b) the last common ancestor of all birds and reptiles
As such, whether they're classified as reptiles, birds, or in their own category is really just a matter of taste.
I'm not sure about useful, but both of your examples would definitely be very interesting, which would be good enough for me if someone managed to pull one of them off.
The same curiosity as in watching crime scenes when it comes to "science" like this.
Edit: Perhaps you could inform me of exactly why you don't like this? Preferably in some way more precise than by putting the word "science" in scare quotes, if that's possible. ;)
What's my problem with the kind of bizarre "science" this article writes about? It's ethics. Not everything that's possible in science should be done. Creating monsters (and I don't just mean dinosaurs but creatures like fluorescent bunnies and mice with human ears) is not one of the things to do.