Everything appeared in the Eocene

[Steviepinhead]

Fakes just seem to happen a lot more to Socrates than they happen to ordinary people.

Or extraordinary scientists.

No surprise, though, when Socrates works so hard at faking himself out.

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Steviepinhead

Fakes just seem to happen a lot more to Socrates than they happen to ordinary people.

Or extraordinary scientists.

No surprise, though, when Socrates works so hard at faking himself out.

Well, in all fairness we should probably wait for him to respond before jumping to conclusions. Maybe he's using a different definition of "Eocene"

[Steviepinhead]

To be eocene and not heard?

I can't define eocene but I know it when I've eocene it?

Eowilscene? Nah, that would be eocentomology...

[Dean W]

Originally Posted by Entropy

Well, in all fairness we should probably wait for him to respond before jumping to conclusions. Maybe he's using a different definition of "Eocene"

The shrieking accusations of a centuries-old international conspiracy of fossil forgers and their supporting army of deceitful collaborators would seem to indicate that the Total Theory may not be as evidence-based as contended.

[Socrates]

Originally Posted by Dean W

The shrieking accusations of a centuries-old international conspiracy of fossil forgers and their supporting army of deceitful collaborators would seem to indicate that the Total Theory may not be as evidence-based as contended.

What a dumb thing to say.

[TestyCalibrate]

he clearly meant Holocene.

[Socrates]

Originally Posted by DaveGodfrey

Except they don't. The earliest fossils that can be identified as belonging to an extant group (monotremes, marsupials or placentals) are from the Jurassic. What is lacking are Cretaceous species from the modern placental groups. But evolution does not stand or fall on whether modern placental mammals diversified before or after the dinosaurs died out. There were placentals- primitive ones certainly- but there were placentals before that. Eomaia for one. There were certainly marsupials, and a variety of extinct oddballs that didn't survive. (Pity really. I'd have liked a pet multituberculate.)

The same is true of birds. The modern groups are not known from the Cretaceous with any certainty. But there are plenty of fossils which everyone - including Feduccia identifies as a bird, regardless of whether it has feathers or not. Just look at Ichthyornis. Are you seriously telling me this isn't a bird? Its not a modern bird, certainly- it still has teeth, there are other skeletal features which mean it falls outside the crown group (the group containing all living birds, their last common ancestor and all its descendants). But it fits pretty much every other characteristic people think of when you say "bird". And there are fossils from before the K/T boundary that are more closely related to modern birds than Ichthyornis was.

Its something I am well aware of. I have absolutely no problem with the modern groups (the traditional orders for example) appearing after the K/T extinction. (I don't think its the least bit likely that the larger clades to which they belong did so- I'd expect primitive Afrotherians to crop up at the end of the Mesozoic at least- but they'll all be looking rather small and shrewy- but I have nothing staked on whether there were Cretaceous members of the proboscidia pottering about.)

Except they don't.

You are not disputing that modern birds and mammals appear for the first time in the Eocene.
What you are saying is that there were some similar types of creatures before that time so that you would not say the appearance of modern birds and mammals in the Eocene was sudden.
Right?

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Socrates

You are not disputing that modern birds and mammals appear for the first time in the Eocene.
What you are saying is that there were some similar types of creatures before that time so that you would not say the appearance of modern birds and mammals in the Eocene was sudden.
Right?

No, we are most certainly disputing that modern birds and mammals first appear in the Eocene. There is no "sudden appearance" of birds and mammals in the way you are trying to imply.

[Socrates]

Originally Posted by DaveGodfrey

Except they don't. The earliest fossils that can be identified as belonging to an extant group (monotremes, marsupials or placentals) are from the Jurassic. What is lacking are Cretaceous species from the modern placental groups. But evolution does not stand or fall on whether modern placental mammals diversified before or after the dinosaurs died out. There were placentals- primitive ones certainly- but there were placentals before that. Eomaia for one. There were certainly marsupials, and a variety of extinct oddballs that didn't survive. (Pity really. I'd have liked a pet multituberculate.)

The same is true of birds. The modern groups are not known from the Cretaceous with any certainty. But there are plenty of fossils which everyone - including Feduccia identifies as a bird, regardless of whether it has feathers or not. Just look at Ichthyornis. Are you seriously telling me this isn't a bird? Its not a modern bird, certainly- it still has teeth, there are other skeletal features which mean it falls outside the crown group (the group containing all living birds, their last common ancestor and all its descendants). But it fits pretty much every other characteristic people think of when you say "bird". And there are fossils from before the K/T boundary that are more closely related to modern birds than Ichthyornis was.

Its something I am well aware of. I have absolutely no problem with the modern groups (the traditional orders for example) appearing after the K/T extinction. (I don't think its the least bit likely that the larger clades to which they belong did so- I'd expect primitive Afrotherians to crop up at the end of the Mesozoic at least- but they'll all be looking rather small and shrewy- but I have nothing staked on whether there were Cretaceous members of the proboscidia pottering about.)

I was looking at the link you gave us:
http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Ichthyornis.html
It says some things I find odd:

O. C. Marsh for examination.

Williston (1898a) related the following story of what had occurred: "An incident related to me by Professor Mudge in connection with this specimen is of interest. He had been sending his vertebrate fossils previously to Professor Cope for determination. Learning through Professor Dana that Professor Marsh, who as a boy had been an acquaintance of Professor Mudge, was interested in these fossils, he changed the address upon the box containing the bird specimen after he had made it ready to send to Professor Cope, and sent it instead to Professor Marsh. Had Professor Cope received the box, he would have been the first to make known to the world the discovery of "Birds with Teeth."

Upon seeing the unusual specimen, Marsh quickly realized that he was looking at the skeleton of a small bird that was very different from his newly discovered Hesperornis. The skull, however, was apparently missing and Marsh recognized what he thought were the lower jaws of a small reptile in the same block of chalk.

Williston (1898a) noted that Marsh wrote to Mudge again on September 25, acknowledging the receipt of a box of fossils, and stating that the "hollow bones are part of a bird, and the two jaws belong to a small saurian. The latter is peculiar, and I wish I had some of the vertebræ for comparison with other Kansas species." Having no additional remains available at the time (or at least not recognizing them), Marsh concluded that Mudge's specimen actually represented the co-mingled remains of two new species. Later that year, he briefly described and named Ichthyornis dispar in the American Journal of Science, (1872b, p. 334). The name Ichthyornis means "fish bird," reflecting the bi-concave, "fish-like" vertebrae found in the remains.

I am not arguing this point but it looks like he had a box with different creatures in it.
Am I reading that right?

And it also says:

Perhaps it may not be amiss to add that birds with teeth have been found only in the United States, and one genus, the Ichthyornis [sic], only in Kansas.

Now all this may be very early findings supported by later findings but this material is confusing.

[Steviepinhead]

S.O.C.R.A.T.E.S.

this material is confusing

To you, little wonder.

[Socrates]

I was doing some research on Hesperornis and I found this odd info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis

The first Hesperornis specimen was discovered in 1871 by Othniel Charles Marsh. Marsh was undertaking his second western expedition, accompanied by ten students.[2] The team headed to Kansas where Marsh had dug before. Aside from finding more bones belonging to the flying reptile Pteranodon, Marsh discovered the skeleton of a "large fossil bird, at least five feet in height". The specimen was large, wingless, and had strong legs—Marsh considered it a diving species. Unfortunately, the specimen lacked a head.[3] Marsh named the find Hesperornis regalis, or "great ruling bird".[4]

Marsh headed back west with a smaller party the following year, where he discovered another Hesperornis skeleton. This specimen had enough of its head intact that Marsh could see that the creature's bill had been lined with teeth.

This creature had teeth and was wingless.
And yet he calls it a "large fossil bird".

[Socrates]

And also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis

Like many other Mesozoic birds such as Ichthyornis, Hesperornis had teeth in its beak which were used to hold prey (most likely fish). In the hesperornithiform lineage they were of a different arrangement than in any other known bird (or in non-avian theropod dinosaurs), with the teeth sitting in a longitudinal groove rather than in individual sockets, in a notable case of convergent evolution with mosasaurs.

Another oddity.

[Socrates]

The other early "bird" (prior to the Eocene) often mentioned is Enantiornithes.

Enantiornithes is an extinct group of primitive birds. They were the most abundant and diverse avialans of the Mesozoic. Almost all retained teeth and clawed hands, like other primitive birds. Enantiornithines are thought to have left no living descendants.

I found some odd things about them as well but that is all irrelevant since they are considered to have gone extinct and are not ancestors of modern birds.

[Socrates]

A couple of weeks ago I had been looking into Ichthyornis, Hesperornis and Enantiornithes and thought that they might be prototypes of modern birds.
But now I am beginning to think that they are just mislabeled and are not primitive birds at all.
So this leads me back to the idea that it was not just modern birds that appeared for the first time in the Eocene but birds period.
They again seem to have appeared suddenly without prior ancestors.
Which again is consistent with what Gould says, that new species appear abruptly and fully formed.
This is not exactly what I was expecting so I will have to think about this. I thought that Ichthyornis, Hesperornis and Enantiornithes played a part in this but now I doubt that.

[Steviepinhead]

Hey, mods!

How about anytime that Socrates maunders on, talking to himself for three or four posts in a row like this ^ ^, that the offending posts be canned straight to TCH...?

Just a thought...

Or, if three or four people respond with facts, critique, links, and the like to a post of his, and he posts again without even acknowledging the intermediate posts, the non-responsive post suffers the same fate.

I'm not proposing that we "censor" the guy. But maybe it's time for a little tough love until he learns all those things the rest of us did in kindergarten.

At the moment, he seems to be using E&O for nothing more than his personal iPad...

[Jet Black]

split from here

http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=22321

[eversbane]

Originally Posted by Socrates

As part of the Eocene explosion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene#Fauna

This really is not that hard.*

* That's what she said.

[Monad]

Originally Posted by Socrates

You sound like you don't have any idea about what your talking about.

Eocene. Banana. Fruit. Penguin

[Monad]

Originally Posted by Socrates

By the way "birds did come first". (Certainly before dinosaurs).They radiated out from basal amniotes along with reptiles and mammals.

Time warp

[Monad]

Originally Posted by Socrates

Which again is consistent with what Gould says, that new species appear abruptly and fully formed.

Misrepresentation

[Monad]

Originally Posted by Monad

Jeez what a blatant liar! - the first post on this you responded to. Do you think we would forget? Out-fucking-rageous!

http://www.talkrational.org/showthre...603#post785603

I don't want this to get lost

[Jet Black]

Originally Posted by Monad

Misrepresentation

who here will be honest enough to admit this is the truth?

[Jet Black]

Originally Posted by Monad

I don't want this to get lost

you have come down with Socrates Syndrome.

[Jet Black]

Originally Posted by Socrates

I was doing some research on Hesperornis and I found this odd info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis

This creature had teeth and was wingless.
And yet he calls it a "large fossil bird".

birds have genes for teeth and kiwis are virtually wingless too.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1138908.ece

[Monad]

Originally Posted by Socrates

I was doing some research on Hesperornis

What's wrong with this statement?