

An artist's rendition of Haplocheirus sollers  (Source: Portia Sloan)









The new work was reported in the journal Science.


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By SublimeSimplicity on 2/1/2010 10:28:32 AM , Rating: 2
I know that evolution is proven scientifically and I'm not questioning that. From a microcosm level I can't get my head around the evolution of flight.

Say there's an animal that has usable arms, for balance, climbing, whatever. It's off-spring takes an ever so slight mutation towards flight. Maybe lighter / thinner bones in the arm or the beginning of webbing for wings. Without actual flight (or even slightly greater escape ability), how does this mutation make it base generation 1 to progress? The first step towards flight doesn't seem like a positive mutation for existence.

By Rugar on 2/1/2010 10:42:47 AM , Rating: 5
Hmmm... maybe you are thinking a bit too linearly, but it's a reasonable question. What if the first character to appear were skin folds allowing gliding (As in the flying squirrel). After you assume this, then following characters allowing true flight are adaptive.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed



Critics rating 10/100



wrong! and stupid.


wrong! and stupid again.


I can reply with moronic banter too.

It may, in fact, be what you do best.





















The significant problem with Intelligent Design, Mitch

It all comes down to Faith.









If you care to see someone else discount it...























Oh...and still waiting for that geneticist

The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution (Henry Morris PHD)












Oh...and STILL waiting for that geneticist.

Ebert on "Inconvenient Truth"

Ebert on Creationism


No offense StrayCat.

I understand your point.

But you quote of Ebert clear states







I think you mean unintelligent design...







You're asking philosophical, not scientific, questions.



So yep, very philosophical indeed.


Correction: Why "should" humans get 360° vision?




By bug77 on 2/1/2010 10:50:18 AM , Rating: 2
Look at going from sea to land. It started with short incursions and went from there. Like the other guy said, it probably started with gliding,

By UNCjigga on 2/1/2010 11:16:43 AM , Rating: 2
I think it's a bit more complicated than that--which is precisely why a find like this is so big. It doesn't make sense for these mutations to develop in series as an all-or-nothing approach; it would make a lot more sense for slight mutations to develop in parallel while the "ancestral" subspecies is still living. So, dinos and birds could have developed in parallel with similar characteristics, but perhaps the cold-blooded/reptilian line didn't adapt as well as the warm-blooded/avian line. Rather than have the entire tree die off, various branches could survive and thrive while others did not. Going back to the example of flightless birds, perhaps those that couldn't fly needed to grow larger to run faster/avoid predators, and as a result no longer needed a flight capability, while the smaller ones needed flight to survive. They could have developed in parallel.



By amanojaku on 2/1/2010 11:04:15 AM , Rating: 2
Why limit this to flight? Whales know to hold their breath when underwater; maybe the first ones drowned? It seems like evolution is a trial and error process, and not something planned. Each creature on Earth is like a general purpose CPU; each one has basic capabilities (physiology) that can be enhanced with software (behavior, which is the combination of intelligence and experience). But unlike CPUs biology isn't precise; children from the same genetic source are built differently from each other, for unknown reasons.

A bird might have have wings, but it doesn't know it can fly. It has to be taught (behavior), which is what the parents do. But the body has to be capable (physiology), otherwise it could lead to death of the individual, and eventually the species. Since each generation consists of various types of bodies and each parent has varied experience and teaching ability it leads to offspring with various capacities. Those who CAN survive, those who CAN'T die. The ones who survive likely have the required mutations, e.g. stronger wings, light weight body, feathers, etc...

My personal feeling is that mutations occurred first and creatures learned to exploit them. As more creatures developed similar mutations they eventually became characteristics of new species. Just a theory, anyway.

By MozeeToby on 2/1/2010 11:46:14 AM , Rating: 2
Don't forget instincts as a source of behavior; they evolve just like body shape and can take a long time to change, even after the behaviors they program no longer work for the current body shape. I can't remember the name, but I remember reading about a flightless bird that would still climb trees and jump off when confronted with an unexpected predator. Predators are extremely rare on the island they live on, so it was never selected against. Sad and hilarious at the same time.

By Flunk on 2/1/2010 12:11:43 PM , Rating: 2
That's a flightless parrot from New Zealand, the Kakapo.

By wrekd on 2/2/2010 9:28:44 AM , Rating: 1
I like you're idea, but don't forget to take into account bacteria, viruses, and parasites. They are known for transferring genetic material between species. We're not even the same genetic creature throughout our own lives.

By MozeeToby on 2/1/2010 11:04:57 AM , Rating: 5
This is known among creationists as 'irreducible complexity'; since evolution is a gradual process and some structures require all their components to be present in order to work that must mean there is something wrong with evolution. "What use is half an eye?" is a question that is frequently asked.

The answer is that the current system does something that the individual components didn't when they first evolved. With the eye, it's clear to see that a light sensitive patch of skin could be a clear advantage over no light sensitivity at all. Then it's easy to see how a simple transparent dome could at least determine direction, even if it couldn't focus properly. And so on.

Assuming the first flying birds were tree climbers, any mutation that increases the survival chances of a fall could be selected for, including mutations that increase surface area (glide surfaces, wings, feathers) or reduce weight (thinner bones, smaller size). Once falling has become safe enough to use as an escape mechanism, it's easy to see how gliding can be selected for. And, depending on how the glide surface evolved its easy to see how gliding becomes flying.

By SublimeSimplicity on 2/1/2010 11:28:37 AM , Rating: 2

Thanks. This fills in the voids a bit more that I can see a path through random mutations / determinate selection for flight.





By PresidentThomasJefferson on 2/2/2010 2:51:05 AM , Rating: 2
yep, great post. it's how gliding squirrels with their huge gliding 'wings' evolved too

By Chernobyl68 on 2/1/2010 1:58:08 PM , Rating: 2
I suppose that's why birds still have weight-bearing legs, and use arms/wings to fly.



Level of support for evolution:



Probably not exactly what your thinking but:






And that is just one example.

By MattCoz on 2/1/2010 3:15:12 PM , Rating: 2
The existence of a creator and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

By Fritzr on 2/2/2010 4:14:17 AM , Rating: 2
Using the theory of irreducible complexity. A creator capable of designing and building the universe is far more complex than our universe. Such a creature probably did not arise by spontaneous creation. However an alternative theory about how the current universe came to be relies only on beating the odds when scrambling chemicals.

Given a choice between (1) A creator who is to complex to arise spontaneously and (2) a creation that is full of flaws, extraneous features and exhibits change over time in it's creatures.

I think the Creationist argument about irreducible complexity favors evolution. Darwinian evolution does NOT require that a creator create itself. All evolution requires is that failed designs do not survive.

It is possible that a creator designed a universe, set it loose and sat back to watch. There is nothing to prevent God playing billiards. It is just that the method used to fashion creatures appears to be what we call Darwinian evolution.

I have researched both evolution and creation...





next step is jumping further / flying.



By banthracis on 2/1/2010 2:47:14 PM , Rating: 2
Mutation to have lighter bones. Allows offspring to jump further, run faster and results in a higher life expectancy and greater ability to reproduce.

Offspring down the road continue to grow lighter, add in a mutation that allows webbing to grow between limbs.

Offspring now have rudimentary gliding abilities, further allowing them to escape predators.

Advantages of flight are selected for as it increases by ability to escape predators and raise young in area's inaccessible to those without flight.

Follow this line and you get flight.


By Slyne on 2/1/2010 3:30:34 PM , Rating: 2
Most evolutions have no direct effects, that is they don't help an individual thrive nor do they make its life more difficult. However many descendants continue that lineage. Each individual at birth then inherits myriads of features that make it unique. At some point a feature or a combination of features suddenly make an individual more likely to feed, breed, adapt to the environment, etc... Even then it may not pay off, because say a predator ate the particular individual in the nest, or some other inherited feature made the individual less likely to thrive, or another individual concurrently came with an even better feature, etc

But if that individual manages to breed, and its uniqueness gives it a 1% chance to better survive than other individuals of its species, then it becomes a number game until its kind takes over the species, at least locally. For instance, 1,000 generations later that individual will have more than 20,000 times as many descendants than any 'regular' member of its species; and since most species breed every year, 1,000 generations may not take that long in perspective.

As for your example, if lighter bones were not detrimental to the survival of the individuals who had them, and if webbed fingers were not detrimental either then eventually came an individual with both, endowed with primitive flight (or glide as was suggested by another poster), and that gave it a heck of an advantage over the other members of the species.

By foolsgambit11 on 2/1/2010 5:17:03 PM , Rating: 2
Darwin talked about this in the Origin of Species. He used several mammals with varying adaptations to show that there was an evolutionary advantage to a wide range of gliding/flight adaptations. For instance, take "flying" squirrels, who can glide between trees thanks to the extra skin between their arms and legs, which could gradually have grown to its present size, each enlargement giving the squirrel a greater and greater advantage. I think he had 3 or 4 animals in his list of gliders/flyers, ending with bats, which can fly in the fullest sense of the word. All of which combines to demonstrate that there is an evolutionary advantage for every step on the path to flight, since these animals currently survive and thrive in their individual habitats. For birds, I think he briefly mentions the possibility that the wings could originally have been a swimming adaptation, but I think he was probably off from a historical standpoint. Theoretically, it makes sense - start with a penguin, then go to something that "hops" along the surface of the water, barely getting airborne for a few seconds, to full flight. But I think historically, penguins lost the ability to fly, rather than being a precursor to it.

The most interesting thing about reading the Origin of Species is that all of the arguments used against speciation when he published are the same arguments used today. He addresses concerns about special capabilities like flight, the development of complex organs like the eye, the lack of modern intermediate forms between species, the lack of evidence in the fossil record, the development of instinct simultaneous with changes in form, &c, &c. While he didn't get everything right (we believe now), and much of his analysis was through analogy more than direct evidence, the principle he (and others) developed has continued to be our best scientific explanation for the origin of modern species for 150 years. And the principle is so simple - life always varies, and the most fit variations survive - while the results are so complex.





For real world examples look at humans and bears among others.

By porkpie on 2/1/2010 11:23:22 PM , Rating: 2

I would imagine it went from gliding to flying. Small creatures developed the escape trait of jumping from trees or rock formations. Eventually their ancestors began to glide (aka modern flying squirrels) and from thence to actual flight.

It's just like the old "how did the eye develop" question that creationists keep trying to throw out to disprove evolution. A fully functioning, focusing eye isn't necessary to provide some benefit. It began as a few light-sensitive cells, which eventually evolved to something that could detect patterns and movement, and then to fully formed eyes.

By AbsShek on 2/2/2010 8:14:26 AM , Rating: 2
It seems that what you are thinking about is the evolution of wings made from loose skin. Do bear in mind that the birds in question here use their feathers for flight, not the skin on their wings.

Feathers could have well been evolved from spine like hairs (similar to porcupine quills) which slowly and later sprouted fur like structures that provided the required air resistance. Also, the evolution of flight itself would have evolved from using these "wings", and flapping them wildly to gain a forward thrust to get away from the predators. The perfect current world example is the chicken, as you will notice they don't really fly too far, and mostly flap wildly when running.

Now we come to the Darwinian statement "survival of the fittest". The "bird ancestor" that managed to get away from the predators using this "flapping" (flapping could also scare them away because of the noise), got to live long enough to mate with multiple mates and spread the desired "wing gene". (Don't use the "spreading genes" as a pick-up line, it doesn't work)

The wings may not always have served the purpose of flight, but may have been re-purposed and then refined in later generations. All in all, it got to where it is now because it kept them alive somehow, not because flight was planned.

Disclaimer: I know I'm stressing on evolution over intelligent design. I just want to say that I am not trying to disprove anyone, just providing an my opinion and explanation to the valid and good question raised above.

