On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 20:56:05 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
> >>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
> >>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
> >>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
> >>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
> >>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> >>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
> >>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> >>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> >>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> >>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
> >>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
> >>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
> >>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
> >>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
> >>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
> >>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
> >>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
> >>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
> >>>>>>>> those things. At least.
> >>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
> >>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
> >>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> >>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> >>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> >>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
> >>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> >>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
> >>>>>>> their noses against trees.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> >>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> >>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> >>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
> >>>>>> birds,
> >>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> >>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
> >>>>>> adapt to
> >>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
> >>>>>> First it
> >>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
> >>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
> >>>>>> eating
> >>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> >>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> >>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> >>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
> >>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
> >>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
> >>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
> >>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
> >>>>> poking a tree bark.
> >>>>>
> >>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
> >>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
> >>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
> >>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
> >>>> beak than bark of trees.
> >>>>
> >>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
> >>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
> >>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
> >>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
> >>>>> connection.
> >>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
> >>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
> >>>>>
> >>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
> >>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
> >>>> not beak yet.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
> >>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
> >>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
> >>
> > From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
> > insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
> > wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.
>
> And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
> the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
> that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
> have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker.

Flying squirrels do not have beaks.

> What
> else would you need beak for? Eating fish? No. Eating meat? No.
> Scavenging? No. Eating seeds? No.

Why you are fixated on eating? You already ignored "tidying and cleaning
feathers" still quoted above.

> I mean, you can eat fish, meat,
> scavenge, eat seeds with beaks too, but you can do all this with teeth
> also. I mean, we even have the elongation of fingers, the Aye-Aye style,
> in birds. So, in the beginning they could use finger, then they
> developed beaks, so then fingers were used just to cling on trees, and
> feathers regrew over the fingers.

You go on and on about eating then suddenly fingers?

> >>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> >>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> >>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> >>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> >>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> >>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> >>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> >>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> >>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> >>> piece.
> >>
> > You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> > themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> > gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> > your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> > your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> > enough of food again.
>>
>
> First, of course, the mutation idea is bogus, mutation is malfunction.
> Species adapt. So, when you need more effort to obtain food, you adapt.
>
Species adapt over hundreds of generations using mutations.

On 17.8.2023. 5:59, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 20:56:05 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>>>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>>>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>>>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>>>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>>>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>>>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>>>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>>>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>>>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>>>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>>>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>>>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>>>>>>>>> those things. At least.
>>>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>>>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>>>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>>>>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>>>>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>>>>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>>>>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>>>>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>>>>>>>>> their noses against trees.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
>>>>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
>>>>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
>>>>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
>>>>>>>> birds,
>>>>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
>>>>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
>>>>>>>> adapt to
>>>>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
>>>>>>>> First it
>>>>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>>>>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
>>>>>>>> eating
>>>>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
>>>>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
>>>>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
>>>>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
>>>>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
>>>>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
>>>>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
>>>>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
>>>>>>> poking a tree bark.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
>>>>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
>>>>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
>>>>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
>>>>>> beak than bark of trees.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
>>>>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
>>>>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
>>>>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
>>>>>>> connection.
>>>>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
>>>>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
>>>>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
>>>>>> not beak yet.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
>>>>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
>>>>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
>>>>
>>> From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
>>> insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
>>> wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.
>>
>> And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
>> the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
>> that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
>> have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker.
>
> Flying squirrels do not have beaks.

Yes, and they don't eat insects. So, this fits. But flying squirrels
climb trees, so they are flying. Now, birds are flying, did they climb
trees? Of course not, because flying squirrels climb trees, and have no
beaks, lol.

>> What
>> else would you need beak for? Eating fish? No. Eating meat? No.
>> Scavenging? No. Eating seeds? No.
>
> Why you are fixated on eating? You already ignored "tidying and cleaning
> feathers" still quoted above.

Because it isn't point in feathers. Remember, dinosaurs have feathers,
yet, they don't have beaks to "tidy and clean" them.
Boy, it cannot be that I am the only one who can add two and two
together. Aren't humans intelligent beings? Of course I know that they
aren't, I know that I am not intelligent, and when I look around...

On Thursday, 17 August 2023 at 07:46:55 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 17.8.2023. 5:59, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 20:56:05 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >>>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
> >>>>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
> >>>>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
> >>>>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
> >>>>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
> >>>>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> >>>>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
> >>>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> >>>>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> >>>>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> >>>>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
> >>>>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
> >>>>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
> >>>>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
> >>>>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
> >>>>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
> >>>>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
> >>>>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
> >>>>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
> >>>>>>>>>> those things. At least.
> >>>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
> >>>>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
> >>>>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> >>>>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> >>>>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> >>>>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
> >>>>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> >>>>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
> >>>>>>>>> their noses against trees.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> >>>>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> >>>>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> >>>>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
> >>>>>>>> birds,
> >>>>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> >>>>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
> >>>>>>>> adapt to
> >>>>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
> >>>>>>>> First it
> >>>>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
> >>>>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
> >>>>>>>> eating
> >>>>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> >>>>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> >>>>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> >>>>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
> >>>>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
> >>>>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
> >>>>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
> >>>>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
> >>>>>>> poking a tree bark.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
> >>>>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
> >>>>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
> >>>>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
> >>>>>> beak than bark of trees.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
> >>>>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
> >>>>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
> >>>>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
> >>>>>>> connection.
> >>>>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
> >>>>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
> >>>>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
> >>>>>> not beak yet.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
> >>>>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
> >>>>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
> >>>>
> >>> From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
> >>> insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
> >>> wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.
> >>
> >> And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
> >> the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
> >> that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
> >> have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker.
> >
> > Flying squirrels do not have beaks.
>
> Yes, and they don't eat insects. So, this fits. But flying squirrels
> climb trees, so they are flying. Now, birds are flying, did they climb
> trees? Of course not, because flying squirrels climb trees, and have no
> beaks, lol.
>
That logic makes no sense, as ancestors of birds did apparently
climb trees.

On 17.8.2023. 7:44, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Thursday, 17 August 2023 at 07:46:55 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 17.8.2023. 5:59, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 20:56:05 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
>>>>>>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
>>>>>>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
>>>>>>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
>>>>>>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
>>>>>>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
>>>>>>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
>>>>>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
>>>>>>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
>>>>>>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
>>>>>>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
>>>>>>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
>>>>>>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
>>>>>>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
>>>>>>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
>>>>>>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
>>>>>>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
>>>>>>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
>>>>>>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
>>>>>>>>>>>> those things. At least.
>>>>>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
>>>>>>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
>>>>>>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
>>>>>>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
>>>>>>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
>>>>>>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero. And
>>>>>>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
>>>>>>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
>>>>>>>>>>> their noses against trees.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
>>>>>>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
>>>>>>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
>>>>>>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
>>>>>>>>>> birds,
>>>>>>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
>>>>>>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
>>>>>>>>>> adapt to
>>>>>>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them.
>>>>>>>>>> First it
>>>>>>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
>>>>>>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
>>>>>>>>>> eating
>>>>>>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
>>>>>>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
>>>>>>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
>>>>>>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
>>>>>>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
>>>>>>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
>>>>>>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
>>>>>>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
>>>>>>>>> poking a tree bark.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
>>>>>>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
>>>>>>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
>>>>>>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
>>>>>>>> beak than bark of trees.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
>>>>>>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
>>>>>>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
>>>>>>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
>>>>>>>>> connection.
>>>>>>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
>>>>>>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
>>>>>>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
>>>>>>>> not beak yet.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
>>>>>>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
>>>>>>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
>>>>>>
>>>>> From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
>>>>> insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
>>>>> wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.
>>>>
>>>> And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
>>>> the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
>>>> that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
>>>> have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker.
>>>
>>> Flying squirrels do not have beaks.
>>
>> Yes, and they don't eat insects. So, this fits. But flying squirrels
>> climb trees, so they are flying. Now, birds are flying, did they climb
>> trees? Of course not, because flying squirrels climb trees, and have no
>> beaks, lol.
>>
> That logic makes no sense, as ancestors of birds did apparently
> climb trees.

On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 10:44:29 PM UTC-7, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Thursday, 17 August 2023 at 07:46:55 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 17.8.2023. 5:59, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 20:56:05 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >> On 16.8.2023. 17:34, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > >>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >>>>> On 16.8.2023. 9:18, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > >>>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 05:57:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:46, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 4:11, John Harshman wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 5:06 PM, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers
> > >>>>>>>>>>> that do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that
> > >>>>>>>>>>> matters for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special
> > >>>>>>>>>>> anatomical adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod
> > >>>>>>>>>>> skeleton if the comparison were apt.
> > >>>>>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for
> > >>>>>>>>>>> attracting attention. It's called "drumming".
> > >>>>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make
> > >>>>>>>>>> such faulty conclusions?
> > >>>>>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat
> > >>>>>>>>>> various food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions
> > >>>>>>>>>> that birds in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and
> > >>>>>>>>>> had various behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend. Of course
> > >>>>>>>>>> the first bird occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food,
> > >>>>>>>>>> and had only one type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> > >>>>>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical
> > >>>>>>>>>> adaptations, in the beginning they were very similar to other similar
> > >>>>>>>>>> dinosaurs. I mean, bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy
> > >>>>>>>>>> all the niches that today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't
> > >>>>>>>>>> eat honey, or fish, and didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye
> > >>>>>>>>>> looked more like dogs. I mean, you are writing in the paleontology
> > >>>>>>>>>> forum for god's sake, you got to have some basic understandings of
> > >>>>>>>>>> those things. At least.
> > >>>>>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or
> > >>>>>>>>>> are they drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older
> > >>>>>>>>>> you get, the crazier you are.
> > >>>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>>> I believe you are misunderstanding much of what I say. Woodpeckers are
> > >>>>>>>>> very specialized and so are not a good model for the earliest birds. I
> > >>>>>>>>> do suspect that many small theropods at mostly insects, but the chance
> > >>>>>>>>> that they hunted them in a woodpecker-like way is nearly zero.. And
> > >>>>>>>>> that's not what beaks, in general, are for. Early birds and small
> > >>>>>>>>> theropods do not have the skeletal features necessary for beating
> > >>>>>>>>> their noses against trees.
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> I am aware of the specializations that woodpecker have, I just
> > >>>>>>>> don't think that it is necessary to have them early in the game,
> > >>>>>>>> especially while insects are still large. Remember, the idea is that
> > >>>>>>>> those two things, the diminishing of insects and the evolution of
> > >>>>>>>> birds,
> > >>>>>>>> are connected. So, at the very beginning you have large insects, and
> > >>>>>>>> birds still not evolved, only peeking into the niche. So, birds
> > >>>>>>>> adapt to
> > >>>>>>>> insects, insects adapt to new conditions, to birds eating them..
> > >>>>>>>> First it
> > >>>>>>>> goes bird inaugural adaptation, then insect adaptation.
> > >>>>>>>> Beaks could initially be adapted to similar things, like
> > >>>>>>>> eating
> > >>>>>>>> worms from the ground. Ground is softer. So, beaks, here, aren't
> > >>>>>>>> actually crucial for flying. So this doesn't explain lightweight and
> > >>>>>>>> flying, for lightweight and flying you need the second stage, climbing
> > >>>>>>>> trees and moving from tree to tree, exactly like flying squirrels do.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> While we are at that, they don't need necessary to poke into bark,
> > >>>>>>> initially they could just eat insects that are on trees. There are a lot
> > >>>>>>> of insects up there. Who ate them? It has to be somebody who acquired
> > >>>>>>> light bones, and later moved from tree to tree by flying. But animals
> > >>>>>>> that did that had beaks. So what were those beaks for? It fits with
> > >>>>>>> poking a tree bark.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Most of food isn't under tree bark to this day and so only few birds care
> > >>>>>> about breaking it. Feels unlikely that it was case on prehistorc times.
> > >>>>>> Other benefits (like for example better aerodynamics, convenience of
> > >>>>>> tidying and cleaning feathers) may be bigger pressures to evolve
> > >>>>>> beak than bark of trees.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> So, on one hand you have lightweight, flying, on the other hand you
> > >>>>>>> have beaks, on those animals who flew. It can only be for poking tree
> > >>>>>>> bark, this is the connection, those two things are connected. It doesn't
> > >>>>>>> have to be such a radical poking like woodpeckers have, but this is a
> > >>>>>>> connection.
> > >>>>>>> And when they finally learnt to fly, well, this opened a lot of other
> > >>>>>>> possibilities, so those animals spread their niches.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Order of events might be was flight before beak. Earlier fossils
> > >>>>>> of paravians that did most likely fly (or at least glide) have teeth,
> > >>>>>> not beak yet.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Thanks for the info. In general, this is a competition, you
> > >>>>> eat, there is more birds than food, you dig deeper, you are forced to
> > >>>>> dig deeper, and bark is where this additional food is.
> > >>>>
> > >>> From where you take that first birds were only single specie that ate
> > >>> insects that hid under tree bark? Nature never ran out of insects of
> > >>> wide variety and only some species of those live under tree bark.
> > >>
> > >> And only some species can eat those. It isn't point in eating insects,
> > >> the point is that weight is deteriorating for climbing, the point is
> > >> that for eating insects in bark it is good to have beak. I mean, we do
> > >> have examples in today's world, flying squirrels and woodpecker.
> > >
> > > Flying squirrels do not have beaks.
> >
> > Yes, and they don't eat insects. So, this fits. But flying squirrels
> > climb trees, so they are flying. Now, birds are flying, did they climb
> > trees? Of course not, because flying squirrels climb trees, and have no
> > beaks, lol.
> >
> That logic makes no sense, as ancestors of birds did apparently
> climb trees.
> > >> What
> > >> else would you need beak for? Eating fish? No. Eating meat? No.
> > >> Scavenging? No. Eating seeds? No.
> > >
> > > Why you are fixated on eating? You already ignored "tidying and cleaning
> > > feathers" still quoted above.
> >
> > Because it isn't point in feathers. Remember, dinosaurs have feathers,
> > yet, they don't have beaks to "tidy and clean" them.
> >
> The dinosaurs do not fly so do not need the feathers to be precisely
> and frequently maintained. Aircraft also need more frequent overview
> and maintenance than cars.
> > Boy, it cannot be that I am the only one who can add two and two
> > together. Aren't humans intelligent beings? Of course I know that they
> > aren't, I know that I am not intelligent, and when I look around...
> >
> You oversimplify flight as task, maybe because you do not fly, and so
> ignore maintenance of feathers as issue.
> > >> I mean, you can eat fish, meat,
> > >> scavenge, eat seeds with beaks too, but you can do all this with teeth
> > >> also. I mean, we even have the elongation of fingers, the Aye-Aye style,
> > >> in birds. So, in the beginning they could use finger, then they
> > >> developed beaks, so then fingers were used just to cling on trees, and
> > >> feathers regrew over the fingers.
> > >
> > > You go on and on about eating then suddenly fingers?
> > Ah, only when I am eating in the same time, :) .
> > >>>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> > >>>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> > >>>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> > >>>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> > >>>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> > >>>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> > >>>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> > >>>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> > >>>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> > >>>>> piece.
> > >>>>
> > >>> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> > >>> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> > >>> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> > >>> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> > >>> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> > >>> enough of food again.
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> First, of course, the mutation idea is bogus, mutation is malfunction.
> > >> Species adapt. So, when you need more effort to obtain food, you adapt.
> > >>
> > > Species adapt over hundreds of generations using mutations.
> >
> > Hm, you know how they adapt? The change in genes is the product of
> > adaptation, not the cause. I really don't understand how you are
> > imagining that? You imagine random mutations? You would need millions of
> > random mutations in order to have a beneficial one. No, evolution isn't
> > a lottery, and also God doesn't fiddle with genes up from above. Set
> > your story straight.
> >
> The mutations are random and the effect is small, the distribution of that
> randomness is not uniform over genome. One who got slight advantage
> in senses tries to use it and other who got slight advantage in speed
> tries to use that. Yes it takes lot of generations to evolve, there are no
> way to just adapt your genes.
> > >> So, I would use a lot of energy if I would run after my food standing on
> > >> my arms, upside down. But then I would adapt to stand on my feet.
> > > >
> > > That is about individual you? The logic has odd premise, can you even
> > > stand on your arms? Can you run on those? Sounds unlikely.
> > >
> > >> So, the idea that each species has an individual Adam, the origin of
> > >> species, a mutant, is completely wrong. We all can adapt, and the ones
> > >> who cannot, go extinct.
> > >>
> > > Yes there are no individual Adams. Fossil record shows opposite, all
> > > go extinct, very few adapt.
> >
> > Who says so? Everybody will die, for god's sake.
> >
> Again you mix death (individual) and extinction (specie) up. Stop
> conflating those then it is easier to reason.
> > >> I believe that it is you who mixes individuals
> > >> with species.
> > >>
> > > No, see above. You talk about mutations and species, then switch to yourself
> > > running on hands, then about extinction that is again about species.
> > I am not talking about bloody mutations at all.
> > >>>> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
> > >>>> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
> > >>>> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
> > >>>> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
> > >>>>
> > >>> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
> > >>> head first like squirrels.
> > >>
> > >> For this you need to have special adaptation, not just every animal
> > >> can do that, it has to be adapted for that.
> > >>
> > > Most birds do not need to climb around on trees so have dropped
> > > such adaptations.
> >
> > Yes. Because they are birds. But, for gods sake, they weren't birds
> > before they became birds. Ever heard of the turtle and rabbit story?
> > Only after they became birds, they were birds, not before that. The
> > question is, how they became birds, not what they were doing after they
> > became birds.
> Fossil record shows that they did climb trees before flying and did
> fly before having beaks.
There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination. There's also little reason
to try.

On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination. There's also little reason
> to try.

It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many solid
arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the other
theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves, that is
possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to be tidy,
which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but you don't
change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some hard point,
you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not change your
mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I know why).
So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are plausible
(I heard that there is some English expression about that, but I
couldn't find it, :) ).

On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
>> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
>> There's also little reason
>> to try.
>
>         It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
> solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
> other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
> that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
> be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
> you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
> hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
> change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
> know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
> plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
> I couldn't find it, :) ).

Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.

On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 08:32:44 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
> >> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
> >> There's also little reason
> >> to try.
> >
> > It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
> > solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
> > other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
> > that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
> > be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
> > you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
> > hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
> > change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
> > know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
> > plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
> > I couldn't find it, :) ).
>
> Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
> even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
> eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
> actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
> theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
> of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
> On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
> real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.
>
I nowhere claimed that grooming is sole improvement of rostrum compared
to nostrum. Beak has evolved on lot of animals (not only birds). These
animals do not preen nor deal with tree bark using it, but it is efficient for
several other things too.
However vast majority of birds have preen gland. It is probably possible but
quite inconvenient to oil feathers with teeth, so I said that on case of birds it
is one of more likely pressures compared to need of breaking tree bark.
Just try to read bit more what was actually written, not only here but from
books too, ask when you do not understand relevance, imagine bit
less ... and it'll be fine.

On 18.8.2023. 8:49, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 08:32:44 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
>>>> There's also little reason
>>>> to try.
>>>
>>> It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
>>> solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
>>> other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
>>> that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
>>> be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
>>> you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
>>> hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
>>> change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
>>> know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
>>> plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
>>> I couldn't find it, :) ).
>>
>> Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
>> even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
>> eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
>> actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
>> theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
>> of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
>> On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
>> real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.
>>
> I nowhere claimed that grooming is sole improvement of rostrum compared
> to nostrum. Beak has evolved on lot of animals (not only birds). These
> animals do not preen nor deal with tree bark using it, but it is efficient for
> several other things too.
> However vast majority of birds have preen gland. It is probably possible but
> quite inconvenient to oil feathers with teeth, so I said that on case of birds it
> is one of more likely pressures compared to need of breaking tree bark.
> Just try to read bit more what was actually written, not only here but from
> books too, ask when you do not understand relevance, imagine bit
> less ... and it'll be fine.

How about understanding things, as opposed to copy/paste from books?
People try to prove that books are right, by citing books. No, you have
a problem, use your brain, not books. Of course, knowledge is very
important. But, it somehow shows that you cannot have both, knowledge
and working brain, if brain memorizes knowledge, it doesn't work. Or, at
least, it works in a biased manner, it is biased towards the knowledge
it has, and this can be deteriorating in a situations when knowledge has
nothing to do with the solution.
What's wrong with tongue? Lizards have long tongue, tongue is just
perfect for those kind of operations. Much better than rigid beak. Yes I
am ignorant, but don't animals lick their young for the same purpose?

On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 11:21:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 18.8.2023. 8:49, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 08:32:44 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>> On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
> >>>> There's also little reason
> >>>> to try.
> >>>
> >>> It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
> >>> solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
> >>> other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
> >>> that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
> >>> be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
> >>> you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
> >>> hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
> >>> change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
> >>> know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
> >>> plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
> >>> I couldn't find it, :) ).
> >>
> >> Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
> >> even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
> >> eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
> >> actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
> >> theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
> >> of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
> >> On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
> >> real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.
> >>
> > I nowhere claimed that grooming is sole improvement of rostrum compared
> > to nostrum. Beak has evolved on lot of animals (not only birds). These
> > animals do not preen nor deal with tree bark using it, but it is efficient for
> > several other things too.
> > However vast majority of birds have preen gland. It is probably possible but
> > quite inconvenient to oil feathers with teeth, so I said that on case of birds it
> > is one of more likely pressures compared to need of breaking tree bark.
> > Just try to read bit more what was actually written, not only here but from
> > books too, ask when you do not understand relevance, imagine bit
> > less ... and it'll be fine.
>
> How about understanding things, as opposed to copy/paste from books?
> People try to prove that books are right, by citing books. No, you have
> a problem, use your brain, not books.
>
Use both. If you use only one you are doomed to fail. It is not new idea.
Confucius lived circa 2500 years ago: "He who learns but does not think,
is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger."

> Of course, knowledge is very
> important. But, it somehow shows that you cannot have both, knowledge
> and working brain, if brain memorizes knowledge, it doesn't work. Or, at
> least, it works in a biased manner, it is biased towards the knowledge
> it has, and this can be deteriorating in a situations when knowledge has
> nothing to do with the solution.
>
There are no such dichotomy. From where you took it? On the contrary.
The bigger your knowledge the easier it is to reason as logic works by
same rules everywhere.
Birds being winners is fact as their population is massive compared to
bats or flying squirrels. That study says between 200 to 400 billions:
<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018341530497>

> What's wrong with tongue? Lizards have long tongue, tongue is just
> perfect for those kind of operations. Much better than rigid beak. Yes I
> am ignorant, but don't animals lick their young for the same purpose?
>
Are you claiming that birds do not have tongue? Animals help youth with
basic hygiene. Animal youth is incompetent to deal with it yet. But they do
not fly around potentially in rain using their fur. Birds spend great deal of
time maintaining their feathers. It is not just basic hygiene. Read up on
preening, what is done and why, then show how it is better to do with tip
of nose, teeth or even with tongue alone.

On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

>>>>It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.

>>>So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???

> > Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> > do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> > for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> > adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> > comparison were apt.
> >
> > And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> > attention. It's called "drumming".

> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
> faulty conclusions?

It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.

> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.

Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.

Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
you talk about birds.

> Of course the first bird
> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
> crazier you are.

If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
Just think of how you could have been even more critical
of what he actually did write!

Peter Nyikos

On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:

> > > Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> > > idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> > > shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> > > go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> > > trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> > > and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> > > eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> > > And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> > > but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> > > piece.

Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
But he did give the basic underlying principle well.

> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> enough of food again.

You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.

> > Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
> > go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
> > tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
> > So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
> >
> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
> head first like squirrels.

It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
around as well as squirrels can.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On 18.8.2023. 11:11, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 11:21:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 18.8.2023. 8:49, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>> On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 08:32:44 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
>>>>>> There's also little reason
>>>>>> to try.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
>>>>> solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
>>>>> other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
>>>>> that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
>>>>> be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
>>>>> you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
>>>>> hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
>>>>> change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
>>>>> know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
>>>>> plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
>>>>> I couldn't find it, :) ).
>>>>
>>>> Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
>>>> even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
>>>> eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
>>>> actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
>>>> theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
>>>> of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
>>>> On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
>>>> real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.
>>>>
>>> I nowhere claimed that grooming is sole improvement of rostrum compared
>>> to nostrum. Beak has evolved on lot of animals (not only birds). These
>>> animals do not preen nor deal with tree bark using it, but it is efficient for
>>> several other things too.
>>> However vast majority of birds have preen gland. It is probably possible but
>>> quite inconvenient to oil feathers with teeth, so I said that on case of birds it
>>> is one of more likely pressures compared to need of breaking tree bark.
>>> Just try to read bit more what was actually written, not only here but from
>>> books too, ask when you do not understand relevance, imagine bit
>>> less ... and it'll be fine.
>>
>> How about understanding things, as opposed to copy/paste from books?
>> People try to prove that books are right, by citing books. No, you have
>> a problem, use your brain, not books.
>>
> Use both. If you use only one you are doomed to fail. It is not new idea.
> Confucius lived circa 2500 years ago: "He who learns but does not think,
> is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger."

I have so many objections on what you wrote here, that I will not
bother to write them down, starting with Confucius himself, then the
time of that saying, the system he was living in, the type of knowledge,
and so on, and so on.

>> Of course, knowledge is very
>> important. But, it somehow shows that you cannot have both, knowledge
>> and working brain, if brain memorizes knowledge, it doesn't work. Or, at
>> least, it works in a biased manner, it is biased towards the knowledge
>> it has, and this can be deteriorating in a situations when knowledge has
>> nothing to do with the solution.
>>
> There are no such dichotomy. From where you took it? On the contrary.
> The bigger your knowledge the easier it is to reason as logic works by
> same rules everywhere.
> Birds being winners is fact as their population is massive compared to
> bats or flying squirrels. That study says between 200 to 400 billions:
> <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018341530497>

See, "where from did I took it?". From my own brain, this is where
from I took it. My brain and my experience. Where from do you take your
things?

>> What's wrong with tongue? Lizards have long tongue, tongue is just
>> perfect for those kind of operations. Much better than rigid beak. Yes I
>> am ignorant, but don't animals lick their young for the same purpose?
>>
> Are you claiming that birds do not have tongue? Animals help youth with
> basic hygiene. Animal youth is incompetent to deal with it yet. But they do
> not fly around potentially in rain using their fur. Birds spend great deal of
> time maintaining their feathers. It is not just basic hygiene. Read up on
> preening, what is done and why, then show how it is better to do with tip
> of nose, teeth or even with tongue alone.

Ok, lets rank it. The worst is tip of your nose, but you don't change
chewing apparatus for that. Then I would put beak (but for this you have
to change chewing apparatus). Then it would be teeth, which was,
actually, the original condition. And the best would be tongue, which is
usually used by all the other animals, for the reason that it is the
best for the purpose.

On 18.8.2023. 22:40, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>
>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>
>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>>> comparison were apt.
>>>
>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>
>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
>> faulty conclusions?
>
> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.

Yes, I absolutely agree. My condolences, I really feel your pain. This
Harhman guy is here only for the destruction, he doesn't comprehend the
tiniest bit to anything good.

>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
>
> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
>
> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
> you talk about birds.

Sorry. Pterosaur discussion for sure will be interesting one, but I
don't know anything about it, and I have nothing to contribute, I would
need to know much more than I know to be able to participate. Plus, all
this actually isn't my subject, I just dropped in because I had this
idea about birds, though birds also aren't my subject. Frankly, since
the beginning of that war I spend whole day following what's going on, I
am interested in politics, and right now we have major developments. You
know that my topic is human evolution. Lately I am not much into this
also, although, for some reason I manage to grasp some really great
ideas about it, lately.

> > Of course the first bird
>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
>> crazier you are.
>
> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
> of what he actually did write!

My belief is that I defended my idea well. Hershman knows how stupid
he was.

On 8/18/23 2:00 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
>>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
>>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
>>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
>>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
>>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
>>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
>>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
>>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
>>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
>>>> piece.
>
> Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
> But he did give the basic underlying principle well.
>
>
>> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
>> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
>> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
>> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
>> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
>> enough of food again.
>
> You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
> As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
> advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.
>
>>> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
>>> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
>>> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
>>> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
>>>
>> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
>> head first like squirrels.
>
> It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
> cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
> around as well as squirrels can.

Most cats. Margays can. And if there's anything special about nuthatch
feet, it isn't apparent.

On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>
>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>
>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>>> comparison were apt.
>>>
>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>
>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
>> faulty conclusions?
>
> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
>
>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
>
> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
>
> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
> you talk about birds.
>
>
> > Of course the first bird
>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
>> crazier you are.
>
> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
> of what he actually did write!

I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
manage to explain just what's stupid about it. I'm not even sure what
comment you're talking about.

On 18.8.2023. 23:00, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
>>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
>>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
>>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
>>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
>>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
>>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
>>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
>>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
>>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
>>>> piece.
>
> Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
> But he did give the basic underlying principle well.

Yes, the basic underlying principle, exactly, :) .

>> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
>> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
>> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
>> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
>> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
>> enough of food again.
>
> You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
> As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
> advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.

No, I don't agree at all. With genes things are very simple, you don't
know which one comes first, egg or chicken. In fact, they change in
unison. The idea that genes change species by the way of mutations comes
from this Catholic priest liar. As I explained, science insists on it
because it doesn't know better, it is the only thing it can grasp.
Lets ask Wikipedia:
"Mutations result from errors..."
"Mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, providing
the raw material on which evolutionary forces such as natural selection
can act."
See "...can act." Do you know of any other way to change genes?
Science doesn't know of any other way, mutations are the only mechanism
that science knows of. This doesn't mean that there are no other ways.
Evolution by mutations doesn't work, for sure. There have to be other
ways, only science doesn't know about them. Those other ways developed
during 3.5 billion years. Long enough time to develop complex ways to
change genes, not just by stupid errors.

>>> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
>>> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
>>> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
>>> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
>>>
>> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
>> head first like squirrels.
>
> It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
> cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
> around as well as squirrels can.

Yes, exactly. Squirrels developed their hind legs, birds developed
their front legs. This is the name of the game.

On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >
> >>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
> >
> >>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
> >
> >>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> >>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> >>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> >>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> >>> comparison were apt.
> >>>
> >>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> >>> attention. It's called "drumming".
> >
> >> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
> >> faulty conclusions?
> >
> > It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
> > a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
> > Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
> > said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
> > was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
> >
> >> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
> >> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
> >> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
> >> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
> >
> > Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
> > you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
> >
> > Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
> > half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
> > more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
> > so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
> > you talk about birds.
> >
> >
> > > Of course the first bird
> >> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
> >> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
> >> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
> >> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
> >> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
> >> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
> >> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
> >> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
> >> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
> >> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
> >> crazier you are.
> >
> > If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
> > have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
> > Just think of how you could have been even more critical
> > of what he actually did write!

> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.

You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.

> I'm not even sure what
> comment you're talking about.

As if it weren't obvious:

"It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark. "

So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
now that you have eliminated their beaks?

Peter Nyikos

On 8/18/23 5:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>>>
>>>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>>>
>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>>>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>>>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>>>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>>>>> comparison were apt.
>>>>>
>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>>>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>
>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
>>>> faulty conclusions?
>>>
>>> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
>>> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
>>> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
>>> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
>>> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
>>>
>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
>>>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
>>>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
>>>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
>>>
>>> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
>>> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
>>>
>>> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
>>> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
>>> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
>>> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
>>> you talk about birds.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Of course the first bird
>>>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
>>>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
>>>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
>>>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
>>>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
>>>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
>>>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
>>>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
>>>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
>>>> crazier you are.
>>>
>>> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
>>> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
>>> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
>>> of what he actually did write!
>
>> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
>> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.
>
> You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.

Am I? But you don't say how. Again, you say I've done something bad
without managing to explain what's bad about it.

>> I'm not even sure what
>> comment you're talking about.
>
>
> As if it weren't obvious:
>
> "It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark."
>
> So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
> now that you have eliminated their beaks?

You misunderstand the comment, though perhaps I wasn't sufficiently
clear. (And why the gratuitous "turkey"?) As I said, all birds have
beaks but only woodpeckers hammer trees with them. Therefore, having
beaks is not sufficient for hammering trees, and we can't claim that
early birds did so just because they had beaks. Further, since early
birds lacked the skeletal adaptations that enable woodpeckers to hammer
trees, the evidence suggests that they did not. And beaks therefore did
not evolve for the purpose of hammering trees.

(It occurs to me, however, that advanced alvarezsaurs like Mononykus
might conceivably have done some tree-hammering, though not with their
noses.)

So how much of that was stupid, and if so, why?

On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:53:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 18.8.2023. 23:00, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >
> >>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> >>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> >>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> >>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> >>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> >>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> >>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> >>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> >>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> >>>> piece.
> >
> > Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
> > But he did give the basic underlying principle well.
> Yes, the basic underlying principle, exactly, :) .
> >> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> >> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> >> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> >> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> >> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> >> enough of food again.
> >
> > You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
> > As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
> > advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.

> No, I don't agree at all. With genes things are very simple, you don't
> know which one comes first, egg or chicken.

If there is only one gene involved, then the answer is easy: the egg
already had the necessary genetic material of the chicken.

> In fact, they change in
> unison. The idea that genes change species by the way of mutations comes
> from this Catholic priest liar.

If you are thinking of Mendel, you are wrong. He worked with existing genes
("traits"). A recessive homozygote is not a mutation, even though it may
look like a mutation when the carriers of a recessive gene are extremely rare, like the ones
for hooves on the two side toe remnants of horses. Julius Caesar had a horse like that.

De Vries is sometimes credited with the idea of mutations, while Goldschmidt
is associated with saltations ("hopeful monsters").

> As I explained, science insists on it
> because it doesn't know better, it is the only thing it can grasp.
> Lets ask Wikipedia:
> "Mutations result from errors..."

Unnecessarily pejorative term.

> "Mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, providing
> the raw material on which evolutionary forces such as natural selection
> can act."
> See "...can act." Do you know of any other way to change genes?

Mutation is just another word for change. If that is not what is confusing you, try this:

The action of natural selection is not ON genes;
what it does is favor the carriers of some genes over others.

Radiation, for instance, changes genes themselves, converting one allele into a different one.

When you use Wikipedia, you have not only to be careful to read
what is there correctly, you may also be seeing false or misleadingly worded statements
that have since been corrected elsewhere. I've even seen purely scientific entries
on the same subject contradict each other. Sometimes that is because both
are taking the result of two different very recent research papers as the last word on the subject.
Just taking the word of one is hazardous enough.

Short version: Wikipedia entries mutate, not always beneficially.

> Science doesn't know of any other way, mutations are the only mechanism
> that science knows of. This doesn't mean that there are no other ways.

> Evolution by mutations doesn't work, for sure.

Are you forgetting about natural selection? There are other ways,
because natural selection only selects *within* populations.
Then there is species selection, which pits one species against another
within the same genus. For some reason, biologists don't like to think about
competition between such widely separated animals as birds and pterosaurs,
but a good look at the fossil evidence says that there was intense competition between them.

If you like that kind of large-scale competition, I will try to include some for you
in the thread I start next week.

> There have to be other
> ways, only science doesn't know about them. Those other ways developed
> during 3.5 billion years. Long enough time to develop complex ways to
> change genes, not just by stupid errors.

Like I said, "errors" is needlessly pejorative. It should be reserved for
deleterious or neutral mutations. Beneficial mutations are rare, but
there have been something like 10^15 (ten to the fifteenth power) birds
over the eons -- plenty of material for an immense number of beneficial mutations.

> >>> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
> >>> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
> >>> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
> >>> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
> >>>
> >> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
> >> head first like squirrels.
> >
> > It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
> > cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
> > around as well as squirrels can.

> Yes, exactly. Squirrels developed their hind legs, birds developed
> their front legs.

Don't get in the way of a kick by an ostrich or cassowary. You may
not live to talk about it.

> This is the name of the game.

On the whole, though, you are right.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Saturday, 19 August 2023 at 01:05:45 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> On 18.8.2023. 11:11, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 11:21:46 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >> On 18.8.2023. 8:49, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> >>> On Friday, 18 August 2023 at 08:32:44 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>> On 17.8.2023. 20:16, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>>> On 17.8.2023. 17:27, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>> There is no way you can keep up with Mario's mercurial imagination.
> >>>>>> There's also little reason
> >>>>>> to try.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It is called 'argumentation', not '"imagination". See how many
> >>>>> solid arguments, based in reality, I have. If you compare this to the
> >>>>> other theory, that beaks evolved so that birds can groom themselves,
> >>>>> that is possible, but it is based on the imaginary need for feathers to
> >>>>> be tidy, which can only be accomplished by grooming. It is alright, but
> >>>>> you don't change your chewing apparatus for that. If you needed some
> >>>>> hard point, you would develop it on the top of your nose, you will not
> >>>>> change your mouth. For example, humans developed cartilage (of course I
> >>>>> know why). So, a lot of things are possible, but not a lot of things are
> >>>>> plausible (I heard that there is some English expression about that, but
> >>>>> I couldn't find it, :) ).
> >>>>
> >>>> Actually, I see animals groom with their teeth. And actually, I could
> >>>> even say that teeth would be better for grooming than beak. It is like
> >>>> eating with fork, versus using Japanese sticks. So this whole theory is
> >>>> actually hanging in the air, there is nothing solid behind it. This
> >>>> theory is postulated out of desperation, because author couldn't think
> >>>> of anything better, so he started to postulate his own imaginary things.
> >>>> On the other hand, my their is solidly anchored in reality, it relies on
> >>>> real things, not imaginary, things that exist already in nature.
> >>>>
> >>> I nowhere claimed that grooming is sole improvement of rostrum compared
> >>> to nostrum. Beak has evolved on lot of animals (not only birds). These
> >>> animals do not preen nor deal with tree bark using it, but it is efficient for
> >>> several other things too.
> >>> However vast majority of birds have preen gland. It is probably possible but
> >>> quite inconvenient to oil feathers with teeth, so I said that on case of birds it
> >>> is one of more likely pressures compared to need of breaking tree bark.
> >>> Just try to read bit more what was actually written, not only here but from
> >>> books too, ask when you do not understand relevance, imagine bit
> >>> less ... and it'll be fine.
> >>
> >> How about understanding things, as opposed to copy/paste from books?
> >> People try to prove that books are right, by citing books. No, you have
> >> a problem, use your brain, not books.
> >>
> > Use both. If you use only one you are doomed to fail. It is not new idea.
> > Confucius lived circa 2500 years ago: "He who learns but does not think,
> > is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger."
>
> I have so many objections on what you wrote here, that I will not
> bother to write them down, starting with Confucius himself, then the
> time of that saying, the system he was living in, the type of knowledge,
> and so on, and so on.
>
Logic has not changed. Human has evolved very little with 100 generations
since he said it. Nation that followed his philosophy during most of those
generations is biggest on that planet. I have lived in very diverse set of
political situations during last half of century: communism, perestroika, coup,
anarchy, relatively ruthless capitalism and currently EU. I can only say that
methods of gathering wisdom were always same. Gather facts, read how
others reason about those and reason yourself. Otherwise you fail.

> >> Of course, knowledge is very
> >> important. But, it somehow shows that you cannot have both, knowledge
> >> and working brain, if brain memorizes knowledge, it doesn't work. Or, at
> >> least, it works in a biased manner, it is biased towards the knowledge
> >> it has, and this can be deteriorating in a situations when knowledge has
> >> nothing to do with the solution.
> >>
> > There are no such dichotomy. From where you took it? On the contrary.
> > The bigger your knowledge the easier it is to reason as logic works by
> > same rules everywhere.
> > Birds being winners is fact as their population is massive compared to
> > bats or flying squirrels. That study says between 200 to 400 billions:
> > <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1018341530497>
>
> See, "where from did I took it?". From my own brain, this is where
> from I took it. My brain and my experience. Where from do you take your
> things?
>
I have observed that both of those who trust their imagination too much
or trust what some book says too much will fail and be unhappy about it.
Usually they blame others in their misfortune. So Confucius was right.

> >> What's wrong with tongue? Lizards have long tongue, tongue is just
> >> perfect for those kind of operations. Much better than rigid beak. Yes I
> >> am ignorant, but don't animals lick their young for the same purpose?
> >>
> > Are you claiming that birds do not have tongue? Animals help youth with
> > basic hygiene. Animal youth is incompetent to deal with it yet. But they do
> > not fly around potentially in rain using their fur. Birds spend great deal of
> > time maintaining their feathers. It is not just basic hygiene. Read up on
> > preening, what is done and why, then show how it is better to do with tip
> > of nose, teeth or even with tongue alone.
>
> Ok, lets rank it. The worst is tip of your nose, but you don't change
> chewing apparatus for that. Then I would put beak (but for this you have
> to change chewing apparatus). Then it would be teeth, which was,
> actually, the original condition. And the best would be tongue, which is
> usually used by all the other animals, for the reason that it is the
> best for the purpose.
>
That does not match with facts as birds have tongue but do not use
it to lick their feathers. Test with reality failed. Reality can not be
mistaken about itself so error has to be somewhere in your reasoning.

Harshman, you are getting to be as flagrant at trolling as JTEM.

Mario, take note: you were right about Harshman, and if you've needed
any more proof for warning others about him, you have it below.

On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 8:53:49 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 8/18/23 5:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> >>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
> >>>
> >>>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
> >>>
> >>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
> >>>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
> >>>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
> >>>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
> >>>>> comparison were apt.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
> >>>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
> >>>
> >>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
> >>>> faulty conclusions?
> >>>
> >>> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
> >>> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
> >>> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
> >>> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
> >>> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
> >>>
> >>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
> >>>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
> >>>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
> >>>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
> >>>
> >>> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
> >>> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
> >>> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
> >>> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
> >>> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
> >>> you talk about birds.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> Of course the first bird
> >>>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
> >>>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
> >>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
> >>>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
> >>>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
> >>>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
> >>>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
> >>>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
> >>>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
> >>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
> >>>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
> >>>> crazier you are.
> >>>
> >>> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
> >>> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
> >>> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
> >>> of what he actually did write!
> >
> >> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
> >> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.

You will get them all the time if you continue to say abysmally
stupid things and then lie about what you said, like you do below.

> > You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.

> Am I? But you don't say how. Again, you say I've done something bad
> without managing to explain what's bad about it.

You are just adding to your frivolous lawsuit equivalent. Read on.

> >> I'm not even sure what
> >> comment you're talking about.
> >
> >
> > As if it weren't obvious:
> >
> > "It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark."
> >
> > So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
> > now that you have eliminated their beaks?

> You misunderstand the comment, though perhaps I wasn't sufficiently
> clear.

There is no other way to read the comment, liar.

(And why the gratuitous "turkey"?)

Poor baby. You once gaslighted me with an accusation of megalomania,
a clinical form of insanity, when I was only a wee bit melodramatic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

[I wrote "Poor baby" instead of "Hypocrite" because you are used to having
that word go like water off a duck's back.]

> As I said,

You are just filibustering below and making no attempt to clarify the abysmally stupid thing you wrote.

> all birds have
> beaks but only woodpeckers hammer trees with them. Therefore, having
> beaks is not sufficient for hammering trees, and we can't claim that
> early birds did so just because they had beaks. Further, since early
> birds lacked the skeletal adaptations that enable woodpeckers to hammer
> trees, the evidence suggests that they did not. And beaks therefore did
> not evolve for the purpose of hammering trees.
>
> (It occurs to me, however, that advanced alvarezsaurs like Mononykus
> might conceivably have done some tree-hammering, though not with their
> noses.)

>
> So how much of that was stupid, and if so, why?

Writing a bunch of interesting facts does not cancel out the fact that
you said something abysmally stupid, then lied when confronted by what you had done.

Peter Nyikos

On 8/18/23 6:09 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:53:52 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>> On 18.8.2023. 23:00, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
>>>>>> idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
>>>>>> shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
>>>>>> go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
>>>>>> trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
>>>>>> and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
>>>>>> eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
>>>>>> And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
>>>>>> but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
>>>>>> piece.
>>>
>>> Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
>>> But he did give the basic underlying principle well.
>> Yes, the basic underlying principle, exactly, :) .
>>>> You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
>>>> themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
>>>> gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
>>>> your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
>>>> your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
>>>> enough of food again.
>>>
>>> You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
>>> As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
>>> advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.
>
>> No, I don't agree at all. With genes things are very simple, you don't
>> know which one comes first, egg or chicken.
>
> If there is only one gene involved, then the answer is easy: the egg
> already had the necessary genetic material of the chicken.
>
> > In fact, they change in
>> unison. The idea that genes change species by the way of mutations comes
>> from this Catholic priest liar.
>
> If you are thinking of Mendel, you are wrong. He worked with existing genes
> ("traits"). A recessive homozygote is not a mutation, even though it may
> look like a mutation when the carriers of a recessive gene are extremely rare, like the ones
> for hooves on the two side toe remnants of horses. Julius Caesar had a horse like that.
>
> De Vries is sometimes credited with the idea of mutations, while Goldschmidt
> is associated with saltations ("hopeful monsters").
>
>
>> As I explained, science insists on it
>> because it doesn't know better, it is the only thing it can grasp.
>> Lets ask Wikipedia:
>> "Mutations result from errors..."
>
> Unnecessarily pejorative term.
>
>> "Mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, providing
>> the raw material on which evolutionary forces such as natural selection
>> can act."
>> See "...can act." Do you know of any other way to change genes?
>
> Mutation is just another word for change. If that is not what is confusing you, try this:
>
> The action of natural selection is not ON genes;
> what it does is favor the carriers of some genes over others.
>
> Radiation, for instance, changes genes themselves, converting one allele into a different one.
>
> When you use Wikipedia, you have not only to be careful to read
> what is there correctly, you may also be seeing false or misleadingly worded statements
> that have since been corrected elsewhere. I've even seen purely scientific entries
> on the same subject contradict each other. Sometimes that is because both
> are taking the result of two different very recent research papers as the last word on the subject.
> Just taking the word of one is hazardous enough.
>
> Short version: Wikipedia entries mutate, not always beneficially.
>
>
>> Science doesn't know of any other way, mutations are the only mechanism
>> that science knows of. This doesn't mean that there are no other ways.
>
>> Evolution by mutations doesn't work, for sure.
>
> Are you forgetting about natural selection? There are other ways,
> because natural selection only selects *within* populations.
> Then there is species selection, which pits one species against another
> within the same genus. For some reason, biologists don't like to think about
> competition between such widely separated animals as birds and pterosaurs,
> but a good look at the fossil evidence says that there was intense competition between them.

You seem confused about what species selection is. It may involve
competition between species, though most proponents wouldn't say so
(though I would), and if it does the competition need not be within a
genus. Species selection is actually defined as differential speciation
and/or extinction due to differences in species-level characters. The
trouble is in defining what "species-level characters" means.

It's quite an old book, but I recommend Steven Stanley's book
Macroevolution.

> If you like that kind of large-scale competition, I will try to include some for you
> in the thread I start next week.
>
>
>> There have to be other
>> ways, only science doesn't know about them. Those other ways developed
>> during 3.5 billion years. Long enough time to develop complex ways to
>> change genes, not just by stupid errors.
>
> Like I said, "errors" is needlessly pejorative. It should be reserved for
> deleterious or neutral mutations. Beneficial mutations are rare, but
> there have been something like 10^15 (ten to the fifteenth power) birds
> over the eons -- plenty of material for an immense number of beneficial mutations.

You might try asking Mario what these "other ways" are. I'd be
interested in knowing. Perhaps he's thinking of "natural genetic
engineering" or "morphic resonance", but I'm willing to bet it's some
kind of woo.

>>>>> Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
>>>>> go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
>>>>> tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
>>>>> So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
>>>>>
>>>> Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
>>>> head first like squirrels.
>>>
>>> It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
>>> cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
>>> around as well as squirrels can.
>
>> Yes, exactly. Squirrels developed their hind legs, birds developed
>> their front legs.
>
> Don't get in the way of a kick by an ostrich or cassowary. You may
> not live to talk about it.
>
>> This is the name of the game.
>
> On the whole, though, you are right.

Is he? What is he right about, exactly?

On 8/18/23 6:50 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Harshman, you are getting to be as flagrant at trolling as JTEM.

Your characterization of everything here is grossly erroneous. But I see
there's no point in talking to you.

> Mario, take note: you were right about Harshman, and if you've needed
> any more proof for warning others about him, you have it below.
>
> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 8:53:49 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 8/18/23 5:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Friday, August 18, 2023 at 6:50:34 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 8/18/23 1:40 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 8:06:40 PM UTC-4, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>>>>>> On 16.8.2023. 0:56, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 8/15/23 2:08 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 15, 2023 at 2:55:14 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark.
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So all that hammering on trees is just for attracting attention???
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Notice that while all birds have beaks, it's only the woodpeckers that
>>>>>>> do the hammering. So it can't be the possession of a beak that matters
>>>>>>> for this adaptation. Woodpeckers have a number of special anatomical
>>>>>>> adaptations that should be detectable in a theropod skeleton if the
>>>>>>> comparison were apt.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And in fact a high proportion of that hammering *is* just for attracting
>>>>>>> attention. It's called "drumming".
>>>>>
>>>>>> I really have hard time to understand how somebody can make such
>>>>>> faulty conclusions?
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be a lot harder, if not impossible, if you had not deleted
>>>>> a really stupid comment by Harshman, which I have restored.
>>>>> Notice how he completely changed the subject and then
>>>>> said something that indirectly revealed that what he had claimed earlier
>>>>> was indeed an abysmally stupid comment.
>>>>>
>>>>>> All birds have beaks, and all birds do various niches, eat various
>>>>>> food, and have various behavior. How you came to conclusions that birds
>>>>>> in the beginning did various niches, ate various food, and had various
>>>>>> behavior, is behind my ability to comprehend.
>>>>>
>>>>> Instead of nailing Harshman on his stupidity and his attempt to wiggle out of it,
>>>>> you say something that doesn't fit anything he had said earlier.
>>>>>
>>>>> Maybe you wouldn't make such mistakes if you slowed down to about
>>>>> half as many posts per day as you do now, and spread out over
>>>>> more than one thread. Next week I'll be starting a thread on pterosaurs,
>>>>> so if you are interested in them, you can talk about them on the same days
>>>>> you talk about birds.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course the first bird
>>>>>> occupied only one niche, ate only one kind of food, and had only one
>>>>>> type of behavior. Now, the question is, which one?
>>>>>> Woodpeckers evolved over time special anatomical adaptations, in the
>>>>>> beginning they were very similar to other similar dinosaurs. I mean,
>>>>>> bears emerged from bear-dogs, and didn't occupy all the niches that
>>>>>> today's bears occupy, and probably even didn't eat honey, or fish, and
>>>>>> didn't have today's bear adaptations, thye looked more like dogs. I
>>>>>> mean, you are writing in the paleontology forum for god's sake, you got
>>>>>> to have some basic understandings of those things. At least.
>>>>>> So, woodpeckers are that way because they are drumming. Or are they
>>>>>> drumming because they are that way? Jesus Christ, the older you get, the
>>>>>> crazier you are.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you had not hurried so much through this paragraph, you might
>>>>> have realized that you aren't referring to anything Harshman explicitly wrote.
>>>>> Just think of how you could have been even more critical
>>>>> of what he actually did write!
>>>
>>>> I get tired of posts where you say I'm saying something stupid but don't
>>>> manage to explain just what's stupid about it.
>
> You will get them all the time if you continue to say abysmally
> stupid things and then lie about what you said, like you do below.
>
>>> You are indulging in the moral equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit.
>
>> Am I? But you don't say how. Again, you say I've done something bad
>> without managing to explain what's bad about it.
>
> You are just adding to your frivolous lawsuit equivalent. Read on.
>
>
>>>> I'm not even sure what
>>>> comment you're talking about.
>>>
>>>
>>> As if it weren't obvious:
>>>
>>> "It's not the beak that lets woodpeckers dig into bark."
>>>
>>> So tell me, turkey, what DOES let them dig into bark,
>>> now that you have eliminated their beaks?
>
>> You misunderstand the comment, though perhaps I wasn't sufficiently
>> clear.
>
> There is no other way to read the comment, liar.
>
> (And why the gratuitous "turkey"?)
>
> Poor baby. You once gaslighted me with an accusation of megalomania,
> a clinical form of insanity, when I was only a wee bit melodramatic.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
>
> [I wrote "Poor baby" instead of "Hypocrite" because you are used to having
> that word go like water off a duck's back.]
>
>
>> As I said,
>
> You are just filibustering below and making no attempt to clarify the abysmally stupid thing you wrote.
>
>> all birds have
>> beaks but only woodpeckers hammer trees with them. Therefore, having
>> beaks is not sufficient for hammering trees, and we can't claim that
>> early birds did so just because they had beaks. Further, since early
>> birds lacked the skeletal adaptations that enable woodpeckers to hammer
>> trees, the evidence suggests that they did not. And beaks therefore did
>> not evolve for the purpose of hammering trees.
>>
>> (It occurs to me, however, that advanced alvarezsaurs like Mononykus
>> might conceivably have done some tree-hammering, though not with their
>> noses.)
>
>>
>> So how much of that was stupid, and if so, why?
>
> Writing a bunch of interesting facts does not cancel out the fact that
> you said something abysmally stupid, then lied when confronted by what you had done.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos

On Saturday, 19 August 2023 at 00:00:02 UTC+3, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 11:34:08 AM UTC-4, oot...@hot.ee wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 16 August 2023 at 15:31:52 UTC+3, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
> > > On 16.8.2023. 13:40, Mario Petrinovic wrote:
>
> > > > Compare this situation to my explanation of human kiss. Per my
> > > > idea, we ate sea shellfish. You dive for shellfish, but near surface
> > > > shellfish are first to be eaten. Then you have to dive deeper. You can
> > > > go even deeper if your partner (whom you have to trust with your life,
> > > > trust is important thing in human relationships) meet you half way up
> > > > and gives you additional air. So, basically, the principle is, first you
> > > > eat all the easily acquired food, but then you are forced to dig deeper.
> > > > And also, initially there could be much more food in shallow waters,
> > > > but, hey, you eat this out, you have to adapt for this small additional
> > > > piece.
>
> Here, Mario was mixing evolution of social behavior with biological evolution.
> But he did give the basic underlying principle well.
> > You mix up individuals with species. Individuals can't mutate beaks to
> > themselves because of being low on food. Instead when hunting or
> > gathering food takes more energy than you get from eating it then
> > your population shrinks because of hunger. That lets population of
> > your food to regrow back so few survivors of your population have
> > enough of food again.
>
> You are mixing year-to-year population dynamics with long-term evolution.
> As beaks start to develop through mutations, they give an added
> advantage to the birds that have bigger ones.
>
The point was that Mario was fixated on food. Like birds ran out of
insects, small reptiles and mammals to eat and had to dig tree bark.
Our knowledge does not indicate that. Issues of why one can not
survive and procreate are numerous. Majority are not food-related
like predators, diseases, parasites, bad thermal insulation, bad water
protection, bad aerodynamics, losing in sexual selection, failure to
protect and incubate eggs, inconvenience of feeding offspring and
so on.

> > > Ha, ha, there is one interesting thing, squirrels have adaptation to
> > > go up and down the tree. I wouldn't say that birds could go down the
> > > tree that easy, easier would be just to fly off, :) .
> > > So, the difficult part actually is to go down, :) .
> > >
> > Gravity is not for free anymore? The nuthatches seem to go down tree
> > head first like squirrels.
>
> It takes special anatomy, and not all birds have it. Similarly, as you probably know,
> cats cannot go down trees headfirst because they cannot turn their hind legs
> around as well as squirrels can.
>
These are small adaptations that species can gain or drop, arboreal cats are
better at climbing, cats who hunt rodents and ground nesting birds in
canebrake or bushes are worse. If you don't need to go head first then go
bottom first. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg9sCvmuNSs>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wTscScLvLU> Does not matter to
survival if you have to do it rarely.