Category Archives: dinosaur evolution

Ornithoscelida. Note to Matt Baron on Baron et al.

Posted on April 4, 2017 by sciencepolice2010

Hi Matt Baron, Nice to see your work, because it shows what happens in a divergence investigation when you exclude types that lived too long afterwards, which had accumulated numerous interfering irrelevant characters. This is something I’d advocated on forums … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brussatte’s Pseudoscience in Science 2017

Posted on February 25, 2017 by sciencepolice2010

Brussatte continues to occupy a position supposed to be used by a scientist, and has been allowed to write yet another piece of rubbish in Science. He’s commented further on it in Phys.org. What a mess. To understand the evolution … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, Philosophy of science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Dinosaur Wore Bubblewrap – Duane Nash’s brilliant SIGIL idea

Posted on January 29, 2016 by sciencepolice2010

The most frightening dinosaur fossil I ever saw was the South American sauropod hatchling with its hairless skin. All it had was nodules … but because its ancestors were obligate bipeds, they must have been warm-blooded… and therefore presumably the … Continue reading →

Posted in dinosaur evolution | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

On Mickey Mortimer’s Chilesaurus “Hmmm”

Posted on June 25, 2015 by sciencepolice2010

Dinosaurs that make you go “Hmmm”… MM has found the extreme instability of cladistic placements for something called Chilesaurus, intriguing. He seems to be thinking: if its place in the tree is so all over the place, how can you … Continue reading →

Posted in dinosaur evolution, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Yi qi Solved. Gee and Padian Judged.

Posted on June 15, 2015 by sciencepolice2010

What happens if you can’t deal with scientific novelty, but you’re paid to pretend you can… and then a big lump drops on you? At the end we’ll see what Henry Gee and Kevin Padian managed to do, without their making … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, Philosophy of science, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Heers’ inclined plane work on evolution of birds and their flight, and further comments

Posted on February 10, 2015 by sciencepolice2010

Audobon posted on Heers’ work rationalising the Inclined Plane theory of the evolution of bird flight – a version of the “Ground up” theory, which is physically impossible and not surprisingly shows no signs of being recapitulated to any extent … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, Philosophy of science, The Secret Dinobird Story, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Comments on Carl Zimmer’s reporting of feather evolution

Posted on December 22, 2014 by sciencepolice2010

I posted Feather Genes Surprisingly Early – But Misinterpreted before reading Zimmer’s write-up of the same paper. I’ll add a minor comment on his contribution here, just as I posted a more major comment on his feather commentary of 2011. … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, Philosophy of science, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Feather Genes Surprisingly Early – But Misinterpreted

Posted on December 17, 2014 by sciencepolice2010

An interesting paper… Feather development genes and associated regulatory innovation predate the origin of Dinosauria by Craig B. Lowe, Julia A. Clarke, Allan J. Baker, David Haussler, Scott V. Edwards. MBE Advance Access published November 18, 2014 Society for Molecular … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, Philosophy of science, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bird Tree 2014 e.g. Jarvis et al. – Xmas? It Certainly Is!

Posted on December 16, 2014 by sciencepolice2010

On the latest revelations on modern bird relationship, using genetic data, published via here and here… After the landmark bird family tree analysis in 2008 by Hackett et al., two main questions seemed particularly prominent to me, and were treated … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why are bird bones hollow? Why is palaeontology hollow?

Posted on September 22, 2014 by sciencepolice2010

“CP” recently posted on why bird skeletons are light, and if so why (they’re not, and she gave references). She then moved on to the question of why birds have air-filled, i.e. pneumatic, bones. As usual, she follows the habit … Continue reading →

Posted in Bird evolution, dinosaur evolution, The Secret Dinobird Story | Tagged , , | Leave a comment