Bird fossils such as Archaeopteryx are presented as proof of evolution because the bones have some characteristics reminiscent of reptiles. Yet this whole idea of dinosaurs turning into birds is based more on faith than scientific fact.
Well, let's take a look...
1. Birds have a totally different respiratory system than reptiles. For a reptilian respiratory system to change into an avian respiratory system would be analogous to a steam engine changing into an electric motor by randomly removing or modifying one component at a time, without disrupting the motor operation.
You've been misled about that. All terrestrial vertebrates have a form of the flow-through ventilation found in birds. It is called "collateral ventilation" and it procedes via the Pores of Kohn when there is pulmonary obstruction. The lung of a bird in analogous to a single alveolus, and could easily have been evolved as such.
It is simply an impossibility.
It's "impossible" only if you don't know much about vertebrate anatomy.
Found in dinosaurs, including those most closely related to birds:
Inflatable dinosaurs — a pool toy from Walmart, right? It turns out that there's more than a grain of scientific truth in a T. rex floatie. T. rex's bones contained large airspaces connected to air sacs within its body cavity. In fact, more than 10% of T. rex's body volume may have been made up of "inflatable" air space. In scientific jargon, this is called pneumaticity. Biologists have long known that theropods (the dinosaur clade containing T. rex, Velociraptor, and birds — shown below) had pneumatic bones. But UCMP's Matt Wedel is pioneering studies of pneumaticity in sauropods — the clade containing the "biggest of the big": Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and the 50 ton Sauroposeidon.
Matt got interested in pneumaticity as an undergrad in Oklahoma, where he spent his Saturdays running dinosaur bones through the CT scanner at his local hospital. There, he discovered that one of Sauroposeidon's four and a half foot vertebrae would have been surprisingly light and could reach 90% air by volume!
Turns out that the globins in T-rex are most like that of modern birds:
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/12/6291.full
Turns out predatory dinosaurs (from which birds evolved) had binocular vision, used by sharp-eyed predators.
neurological commands, instincts,
We do know that dinosaurs protected eggs, exhibited flocking behavior, and apparently were migratory.
So Archaeopteryx is a bird after all? BTW, there are a lot of feathered true dinosaurs. One of them, Proarchaeopteryx, is very much like Archy, but has symmetrical feathers, not usable for flight.
In particular a bird's lungs and feathers display brilliant design. Either would be totally useless to perform their designed function unless complete.
See above. You have a version of the bird's respiratory system yourself, and it works well enough to help you survive should you have pulmonary obstruction. And feathers appeared long before flight feathers. Turns out the can work for insulation and display. Oh, and you can still make scutes (scales found on birds and dinosaurs) become feathers with a fairly simple bit of genetic work:
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/scutes.htm
A step by step transformation from scale to feather makes a nice story but "the devil is in the details". And the details simply do not add up to a workable intermediate creature.
Surprise.
The building blocks of scales and feathers aren't even the same-they are made from different types of protein!
But what of the second type of avian scale, the scute? Crocodiles, a sister group of dinosaurs, have scutes, and they show a similar, though not exact, chemical composition with bird scutes.
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/scutes.htm
Surprise, again.
Many recent dinosaur to bird "links" are "dated" between 120-140 million years. Yet archaeopteryx (which exhibits all the characteristics of a fully formed bird) is "dated" at 150 million years.
So your guy is now arguing that if you're alive, your uncle has to be dead. Doesn't sound very convincing to me. Archie is a holdover, much like the Hoatzin is today.
Alan Feduccia, a world authority on birds (and evolutionist) states, "Paleontologist have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of 'paleobabble' is going to change that
"Paleobabble" doesn't sound like Feduccia. I have his book on the origin and evolution of birds. I highly recommend it, BTW. Feduccia thinks birds and dinosaurs evolved from a common ancestor, which doesn't change very much. Sisters, instead of mother and daughter.
If they'll lie to you about all that, John, why put your trust in anything they say?
