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tech / sci.bio.paleontology / Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

SubjectAuthor
* Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
+* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|`* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
| `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|  `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|   +- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismGlenn
|   `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    +* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |+- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismGlenn
|    |`* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    | `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |  +* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismGlenn
|    |  |`- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |  `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |   `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |    `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |     `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |      `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |       +* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |       |+- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |       |`* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |       | `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |       |  `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |       |   +* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |       |   |`- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |       |   `- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismOxyaena
|    |       `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |        `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |         `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |          `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|    |           +- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |           +* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |           |`* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |           | `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |           |  `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |           |   `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |           |    `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |           |     `- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |           +- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |           `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |            `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |             `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |              `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |               `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |                `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|    |                 +- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    |                 +- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticismerik simpson
|    |                 `- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismDaud Deden
|    `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|     `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|      `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
|       `* Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismPeter Nyikos
|        `- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman
`- Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and SkepticismJohn Harshman

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Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 01:03 UTC

In https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/fIIm-K3SAgAJ,on Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

I am making unmarked snips to emphasize the Dogmatism theme in this first post.
That is why I put the url up there to Harshman's post, to which this is a direct reply.

> > On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 10:05:02 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:

> >> but even you must admit that the
> >> scientific consensus that birds are dinosaurs is and was correct.

> > It certainly was NOT when Harshman's role model Henry Gee, then editor
> > of _Nature_, pontificated, "Birds are dinosaurs. The debate is over."

> > But biologists are slaves of external funding, and the implicit message Henry's editorial
> > came out loud and clear. Any paper that dared to dispute the hypothesis that birds are dinosaurs
> > would be held to astronomically high standards by _Nature_,
> > while any paper that supported the hypothesis would be welcomed with open arms,
> > at least as far as being reviewed by people who firmly believed in the hypothesis.
> > These reviewers would naturally get a very good first impression of the submission.

> That, dare I say it, is paranoid.

Get real. What paleontologist, on seeing the Senior Editor who oversees
paleontology and taxonomy and systematics write an article whose
very title declares that "the debate is over,"
would dare to reopen the debate under Henry Gee's nose?

If anything, I was understating the case. What editor on the board of _Nature_
would send to a reviewer a manuscript which looks like it is going to
try and reopen the debate, without first showing it to the only senior editor
who oversees any of the above three areas? And if he did show it,
what do you suppose Henry Gee's reaction would be?

> > Fast forward to the present, and Harshman has always been long on rhetoric and
> > short on hard data and reasoning. Just yesterday his "evidence" for birds being
> > dinosaurs was a close paraphrase of Henry Gee's *ipse dixit*.

> I don't recall presenting any evidence. Your memory is exceeding
> convenient for you.

The scare quotes are there for a reason: the only thing in your comment
to which I was referring that could be construed as evidence was
the authority on whom you based your close paraphrase,
and who need not be named since he was the first one
who came out unequivocally on the finality of the evidence.

NEXT: the skepticism

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 01:51 UTC

I'm sure there will be plenty of dogmatism besides the bit that I quoted in my OP,
so the emphasis will be on skepticism in this post.

On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 10:05:02 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> >> On 9/10/2021 9:57 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > It certainly was NOT [the consensus] when Harshman's role model Henry Gee, then editor
> > of _Nature_, pontificated, "Birds are dinosaurs. The debate is over."

> It should be unnecessary to say that Henry Gee is not my role model.

For "birds are dinosaurs" he seems to be, as you immediately suggest:

> But in that case he was right.

If so, it was by sheer accident, not by any highly biased "reasoning":

> > He did this on the basis of two new finds in China, one of which was *Sinosauropteryx*,
> > a fligtless coelurosaur covered with hairlike fibers on much of its body; and
> > *Caudipteryx*, a creature with true feathers who many to this day
> > [including quite a number who do believe birds to be dinosaurs]
> > believe to be a secondarily flightless bird.

> No, there are only a very few people who believe that.

That's neither here nor there. Very few people are sufficiently knowledgeable
about this area to render any kind of informed opinion. And I'd say the people who
do believe it are a hefty fraction:

Halszka Osmólska et al. (2004) ran a cladistic analysis that came to a different conclusion. They found that the most birdlike features of oviraptorids actually place the whole clade within Aves itself, meaning that Caudipteryx is both an oviraptorid and a bird. In their analysis, birds evolved from more primitive theropods, and one lineage of birds became flightless, re-evolved some primitive features, and gave rise to the oviraptorids. This analysis was persuasive enough to be included in paleontological textbooks like Benton's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ (2005).[12] The view that Caudipteryx was secondarily flightless is also preferred by Gregory S. Paul,[13] Lü et al.,[14] and Maryańska et al.[15]

Others, such as Stephen Czerkas and Larry Martin have concluded that Caudipteryx is not a theropod dinosaur at all.[16] They believe that Caudipteryx, like all maniraptorans, is a flightless bird, and that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs.[17]

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

Note the absence of Feduccia, who simply keeps saying that the evidence is not
conclusive enough to conclude that birds are dinosaurs, but who agrees largely with
the analyses in the first paragraph that I have quoted.

> > There is at least one fairly
> > thorough cladistic analysis that has it in a clade whose sister taxon is *Confuciusornis*,
> > with *Archaeopteryx* several clades removed.

> Could you cite that one?

I said "at least one," without bothering to check the Wikipedia entry.
And you can see that Maryanska was not alone about placing the
oviraptorids in a clade within birds. I'll have to check Benton's book
to see whether the exact placement is as described above.

> You aren't referring to Maryanska, are you?

Who do you claim to have refuted that particular analysis?
I remember how you once called Mickey Mortimer "a real paleontologist"
even though he is very upfront about being an "amateur paleontologist."
That was back in 2018, when you brought his name to my attention.
IIRC you mentioned him because of the analysis he did, and I saw that
it did come to a different conclusion.

> > In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.

> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.

Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
to support your "Of course..." comment?

I have already dealt in the OP with what you subsequently wrote.

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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 by: John Harshman - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 01:59 UTC

On 9/20/21 6:03 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> In https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/fIIm-K3SAgAJ,on Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> I am making unmarked snips to emphasize the Dogmatism theme in this first post.
> That is why I put the url up there to Harshman's post, to which this is a direct reply.
>
>>> On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 10:05:02 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
>
>>>> but even you must admit that the
>>>> scientific consensus that birds are dinosaurs is and was correct.
>
>>> It certainly was NOT when Harshman's role model Henry Gee, then editor
>>> of _Nature_, pontificated, "Birds are dinosaurs. The debate is over."
>
>>> But biologists are slaves of external funding, and the implicit message Henry's editorial
>>> came out loud and clear. Any paper that dared to dispute the hypothesis that birds are dinosaurs
>>> would be held to astronomically high standards by _Nature_,
>>> while any paper that supported the hypothesis would be welcomed with open arms,
>>> at least as far as being reviewed by people who firmly believed in the hypothesis.
>>> These reviewers would naturally get a very good first impression of the submission.
>
>> That, dare I say it, is paranoid.
>
> Get real. What paleontologist, on seeing the Senior Editor who oversees
> paleontology and taxonomy and systematics write an article whose
> very title declares that "the debate is over,"
> would dare to reopen the debate under Henry Gee's nose?

You grossly overestimate Gee's power, even at Nature. And of course
there are plenty of journals over which he exerts no influence whatsoever.

> If anything, I was understating the case. What editor on the board of _Nature_
> would send to a reviewer a manuscript which looks like it is going to
> try and reopen the debate, without first showing it to the only senior editor
> who oversees any of the above three areas? And if he did show it,
> what do you suppose Henry Gee's reaction would be?

One would hope he would consider the paper on its actual merits. But I
don't know him.

>>> Fast forward to the present, and Harshman has always been long on rhetoric and
>>> short on hard data and reasoning. Just yesterday his "evidence" for birds being
>>> dinosaurs was a close paraphrase of Henry Gee's *ipse dixit*.
>
>> I don't recall presenting any evidence. Your memory is exceeding
>> convenient for you.
>
> The scare quotes are there for a reason: the only thing in your comment
> to which I was referring that could be construed as evidence was
> the authority on whom you based your close paraphrase,
> and who need not be named since he was the first one
> who came out unequivocally on the finality of the evidence.

I urge you to calm down lest you have some kind of attack. You probably
should name this authority, since I have no idea who you're talking about.

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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 by: John Harshman - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 02:10 UTC

On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I'm sure there will be plenty of dogmatism besides the bit that I quoted in my OP,
> so the emphasis will be on skepticism in this post.
>
> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 10:05:02 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
>>>> On 9/10/2021 9:57 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>> It certainly was NOT [the consensus] when Harshman's role model Henry Gee, then editor
>>> of _Nature_, pontificated, "Birds are dinosaurs. The debate is over."
>
>> It should be unnecessary to say that Henry Gee is not my role model.
>
> For "birds are dinosaurs" he seems to be, as you immediately suggest:
>
>> But in that case he was right.
>
> If so, it was by sheer accident, not by any highly biased "reasoning":

I have no idea what led to his opinion, but saying he's right in this
case hardly makes him my role model. Calm down. Your rage is influencing
your judgment.

>>> He did this on the basis of two new finds in China, one of which was *Sinosauropteryx*,
>>> a fligtless coelurosaur covered with hairlike fibers on much of its body; and
>>> *Caudipteryx*, a creature with true feathers who many to this day
>>> [including quite a number who do believe birds to be dinosaurs]
>>> believe to be a secondarily flightless bird.
>
>> No, there are only a very few people who believe that.
>
> That's neither here nor there. Very few people are sufficiently knowledgeable
> about this area to render any kind of informed opinion. And I'd say the people who
> do believe it are a hefty fraction:

I say it only to contradict your claim. You don't seem to know much
about the subject or about who is qualified to have an opinion, so what
you would say is not necessarily based on more than your desires.

> Halszka Osmólska et al. (2004) ran a cladistic analysis that came to a different conclusion. They found that the most birdlike features of oviraptorids actually place the whole clade within Aves itself, meaning that Caudipteryx is both an oviraptorid and a bird. In their analysis, birds evolved from more primitive theropods, and one lineage of birds became flightless, re-evolved some primitive features, and gave rise to the oviraptorids. This analysis was persuasive enough to be included in paleontological textbooks like Benton's _Vertebrate Paleontology_ (2005).[12] The view that Caudipteryx was secondarily flightless is also preferred by Gregory S. Paul,[13] Lü et al.,[14] and Maryańska et al.[15]

Note that Paul doesn't contest the standard phylogeny. He just thinks
that flight evolved earlier on the tree than most would suppose.

> Others, such as Stephen Czerkas and Larry Martin have concluded that Caudipteryx is not a theropod dinosaur at all.[16] They believe that Caudipteryx, like all maniraptorans, is a flightless bird, and that birds evolved from non-dinosaurian archosaurs.[17]

True indeed. But these are fringe figures, every one.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudipteryx
>
> Note the absence of Feduccia, who simply keeps saying that the evidence is not
> conclusive enough to conclude that birds are dinosaurs, but who agrees largely with
> the analyses in the first paragraph that I have quoted.

>>> There is at least one fairly
>>> thorough cladistic analysis that has it in a clade whose sister taxon is *Confuciusornis*,
>>> with *Archaeopteryx* several clades removed.
>
>> Could you cite that one?
>
> I said "at least one," without bothering to check the Wikipedia entry.
> And you can see that Maryanska was not alone about placing the
> oviraptorids in a clade within birds. I'll have to check Benton's book
> to see whether the exact placement is as described above.

Again, I ask what you were referring to.

>> You aren't referring to Maryanska, are you?
>
> Who do you claim to have refuted that particular analysis?
> I remember how you once called Mickey Mortimer "a real paleontologist"
> even though he is very upfront about being an "amateur paleontologist."
> That was back in 2018, when you brought his name to my attention.
> IIRC you mentioned him because of the analysis he did, and I saw that
> it did come to a different conclusion.

Most published analyses of theropods show oviraptorosaurs far from
Confuciusornis and Aves. Here, for example, is one:

http://paleoitalia.org/media/u/archives/01_Cau_2018_BSPI_571.pdf

All you really need to do is sample papers on theropod phylogeny and see
how many agree with Maryanska and how many do not.

>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
>
>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
>
> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> to support your "Of course..." comment?

Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.

> I have already dealt in the OP with what you subsequently wrote.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 19:04 UTC

I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:

On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> >>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> >>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> >
> >> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> >> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> >> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> >
> > Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > to support your "Of course..." comment?

> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.

You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.

Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.

This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.

Peter Nyikos

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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 by: John Harshman - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 19:31 UTC

On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
>
> On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
>>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
>>>
>>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
>>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
>>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
>>>
>>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
>>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
>>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
>>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
>
>> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
>
> You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
>
> Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.

What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.

> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.

We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
by looking at the article in question. Or you could check out a more
recent Auk article in which he shows to his satisfaction that
Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
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 by: Glenn - Tue, 21 Sep 2021 20:10 UTC

On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 12:31:45 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> >
> > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> >
> >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> >
> > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> >
> > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> by looking at the article in question. Or you could check out a more
> recent Auk article in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.

Thanks.

"As Clark noted years ago, “similarity lies in the eyes of the beholder, and…the particular hypothesis being advocated strongly colors perceptions of morphological resemblance”.

https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/130/1/1/5148815

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 01:44 UTC

On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> >
> > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> >
> >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> >
> > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> >
> > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.

Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM

> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.

Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
only a small subclade of Maniraptora.

> > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.

> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> by looking at the article in question.

I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.

Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:

Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids

> Or you could check out a more
> recent Auk article

.... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.

>in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.

Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
(or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.

You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.

Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?

I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: eastside...@gmail.com (erik simpson)
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 by: erik simpson - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 02:11 UTC

On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> > >
> > > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >
> > >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> > >>>
> > >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> > >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> > >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> > >>>
> > >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> > >
> > >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> > >
> > > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> > >
> > > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
> > What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> > Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> > were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> > dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> > feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> > > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
>
> > We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> > by looking at the article in question.
> I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
>
> Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
>
> Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> > Or you could check out a more
> > recent Auk article
> ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
> >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> > Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> > Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.
>
> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
>
>
> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
>
> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

Haven't we seen this movie before?

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

<1ac4235b-a519-4716-a530-88566baf7407n@googlegroups.com>

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: GlennShe...@msn.com (Glenn)
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 by: Glenn - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 02:29 UTC

On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:11:18 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> > > >
> > > > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > > >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> > > >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> > > >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > > >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > > >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > > >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> > > >
> > > >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> > > >
> > > > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > > > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> > > >
> > > > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > > > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> > Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
> >
> > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> > Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> > Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
> > > What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> > > Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> > > were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> > > dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> > > feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> > Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> > modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> > now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> > only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> > > > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > > > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> >
> > > We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> > > by looking at the article in question.
> > I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> > It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> > you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> > immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
> >
> > Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> >
> > Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> > > Or you could check out a more
> > > recent Auk article
> > ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> > claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> > before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
> > >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> > > Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> > > Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> > Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> > (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.
> >
> > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> >
> >
> > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> >
> > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> Haven't we seen this movie before?

Probably.

A 200 million year old chicken:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Protoavis&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5h-KphZTzAhVB6J4KHZC2D8oQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1440&bih=814&dpr=1

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 02:33 UTC

On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> > > >
> > > > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > > >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> > > >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> > > >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> > > >>>
> > > >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > > >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > > >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > > >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> > > >
> > > >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> > > >
> > > > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > > > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> > > >
> > > > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > > > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> > Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
> >
> > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> > Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> > Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
> > > What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> > > Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> > > were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> > > dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> > > feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> > Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> > modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> > now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> > only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> > > > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > > > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> >
> > > We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> > > by looking at the article in question.
> > I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> > It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> > you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> > immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
> >
> > Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> >
> > Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> > > Or you could check out a more
> > > recent Auk article
> > ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> > claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> > before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
> > >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> > > Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> > > Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> > Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> > (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.
> >
> > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> >
> >
> > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> >
> > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)

> Haven't we seen this movie before?

Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?

Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus

You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.

To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.

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

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

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

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

And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
other thread, was:

"If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."

If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

<C-qdnTcxvqOSntH8nZ2dnUU7-T_NnZ2d@giganews.com>

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 by: John Harshman - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 04:31 UTC

On 9/22/21 6:44 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
>>>
>>> On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
>>>>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
>>>>>
>>>>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
>>>>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
>>>>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
>>>>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
>>>>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
>>>>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
>>>
>>>> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
>>>
>>> You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
>>> that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
>>>
>>> Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
>>> much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
>
> Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM

That just goes to the OP in another thread. What does that have to do
with anything?

>> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
>> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
>> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
>> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
>> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
>
> Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> only a small subclade of Maniraptora.

Yes, that was a mistake. But the point is that he claimed birds can't be
dinosaurs based on that a lack of relationship to Deinonychus and in the
same paper claimed that Deinonychus wasn't a dinosaur either, so even if
it's related to Archaeopteryx, birds still aren't dinosaurs. This is not
a mere self-contradiction.

>>> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
>>> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
>
>> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
>> by looking at the article in question.
>
> I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.

Feduccia A. 2002. Birds are dinosaurs: Simple answer to a complex
problem. Auk 119:1187–1201. Try google.

> Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
>
> Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids

I will admit that in that article Feduccia failed to make clear just
where on the theropod tree he wanted to detach a clade. Somewhere
including all feathered theropods, but the rest is unstated. He's not
into phylogenetic trees.

>> Or you could check out a more
>> recent Auk article
>
> ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.

That's a consistent misspelling, so I should correct you: deinonychids.

> >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
>> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
>> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
>
> Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.

Try it yourself. Read the article and get back to me. Feel free to read
the other article too.

> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.

I would be indignant because I don't do that sort of thing, while
Feduccia did. And hey, you're the one who brought up Feduccia. I'm just
following you down your own rabbit hole.

> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
>
> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

<d4f14fdf-1582-4a0a-91b2-89987af1eaaen@googlegroups.com>

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: eastside...@gmail.com (erik simpson)
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 by: erik simpson - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 05:19 UTC

On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> > > > >
> > > > > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > > > >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> > > > >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> > > > >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > > > >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > > > >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > > > >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> > > > >
> > > > >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> > > > >
> > > > > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > > > > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> > > > >
> > > > > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > > > > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> > > Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
> > >
> > > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> > > Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> > > Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
> > > > What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> > > > Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> > > > were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> > > > dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> > > > feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> > > Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> > > modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> > > now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> > > only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> > > > > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > > > > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> > >
> > > > We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> > > > by looking at the article in question.
> > > I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> > > It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> > > you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> > > immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
> > >
> > > Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> > >
> > > Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> > > > Or you could check out a more
> > > > recent Auk article
> > > ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> > > claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> > > before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
> > > >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> > > > Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> > > > Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> > > Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> > > (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.
> > >
> > > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > >
> > >
> > > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > >
> > > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > Haven't we seen this movie before?
> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
>
> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
>
> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
>
> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptora
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
>
> And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
> other thread, was:
>
> "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
>
> If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

I confessI haven't been following this exchange closely. I have a general interest in avian phylogeny,
althoug it isn't at the top of my list. But this isn't about avain phylogeny. What Feduccia thought about it,
what, a decade ago?, wasn't very relevant then and is much less so now. If that isn't the topic,
and you're more concerned with Harshman's account of Feduccia's thought, that has nothing to do
with avian phylogeny, and I have zero interest. THe "movie" I spoke of referred to
your presentation as Feducccia's bulldog. No interest there, either. I apologize if I distracted you
from your purpose. Carry on.

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

<8370e73f-c263-4426-84ea-53fe85f2a5a2n@googlegroups.com>

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https://www.novabbs.com/tech/article-flat.php?id=3537&group=sci.bio.paleontology#3537

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: GlennShe...@msn.com (Glenn)
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 by: Glenn - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 06:22 UTC

On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:19:50 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > > I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > >> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > >>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > > >>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > >>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> > > > > >>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> > > > > >>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> > > > > >>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> > > > > >>>
> > > > > >>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> > > > > >>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> > > > > >>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> > > > > >>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> > > > > >
> > > > > >> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> > > > > > that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> > > > > > much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> > > > Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
> > > >
> > > > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> > > > Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> > > > Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
> > > > > What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> > > > > Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> > > > > were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> > > > > dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> > > > > feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> > > > Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> > > > modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> > > > now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> > > > only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> > > > > > This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> > > > > > So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> > > >
> > > > > We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> > > > > by looking at the article in question.
> > > > I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> > > > It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> > > > you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> > > > immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
> > > >
> > > > Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> > > >
> > > > Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> > > > > Or you could check out a more
> > > > > recent Auk article
> > > > ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> > > > claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> > > > before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
> > > > >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> > > > > Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> > > > > Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> > > > Sorry, I'm not going to pursue this red herring. I'm holding you to your latest allegation
> > > > (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) about that earlier Auk article.
> > > >
> > > > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > > >
> > > > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > > > Peter Nyikos
> > > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> > > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > > Haven't we seen this movie before?
> > Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> >
> > Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> >
> > You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> >
> > To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptora
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
> >
> > And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
> > other thread, was:
> >
> > "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
> >
> > If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> > Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> I confessI haven't been following this exchange closely. I have a general interest in avian phylogeny,
> althoug it isn't at the top of my list. But this isn't about avain phylogeny. What Feduccia thought about it,
> what, a decade ago?, wasn't very relevant then and is much less so now. If that isn't the topic,
> and you're more concerned with Harshman's account of Feduccia's thought, that has nothing to do
> with avian phylogeny, and I have zero interest. THe "movie" I spoke of referred to
> your presentation as Feducccia's bulldog. No interest there, either. I apologize if I distracted you
> from your purpose. Carry on.


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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 12:50 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 12:31:16 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/22/21 6:44 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
> >>>>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
> >>>>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
> >>>>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
> >>>>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
> >>>>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
> >>>>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
> >>>
> >>>> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
> >>>
> >>> You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
> >>> that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
> >>>
> >>> Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
> >>> much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
> >
> > Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:

It looks like Giganews, or whatever, is letting you down, John, about the following url:

> > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
> > Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
> > Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM

> That just goes to the OP in another thread.

That OP was made well before Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM.

When I clicked the above url just now, it took me straight to the post I was telling you about.
Your last paragraph there stated:

"If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."

As I told Erik almost two hours before you did this post of yours,

"If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-( "

> What does that have to do with anything?

If you had read the attribution line of the OP of THIS thread, you would have seen an url of a post
of yours to which I was replying. Don't urls show up in blue in Giganews?

> >> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> >> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> >> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> >> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> >> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> >
> > Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course...." and
> > modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> > now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> > only a small subclade of Maniraptora.

Evidently that small subclade is the genus Deinonychus; is "deinonychids"
simply a synonym for that genus?

> Yes, that was a mistake. But the point is that he claimed birds can't be
> dinosaurs based on that a lack of relationship to Deinonychus and in the
> same paper claimed that Deinonychus wasn't a dinosaur either, so even if
> it's related to Archaeopteryx, birds still aren't dinosaurs. This is not
> a mere self-contradiction.

You are piling one thing on top of another here, yet you still haven't done
what you are telling ME to do: google an article that you have FINALLY,
belatedly, given me a reference to, but no url for it even now.

And I'm wondering whether you misread something Feduccia wrote
there, like you did about microraptors below. Keep reading.

> >>> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> >>> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> >
> >> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> >> by looking at the article in question.
> >
> > I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> > It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> > you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> > immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.

> Feduccia A. 2002. Birds are dinosaurs: Simple answer to a complex
> problem. Auk 119:1187–1201. Try google.

Google it yourself, and tell us where in it you read these two things.
Who knows, you might be in for a nasty surprise if you finally do what you should
have done on September 15.

> > Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> >
> > Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
> I will admit that in that article Feduccia failed to make clear just
> where on the theropod tree he wanted to detach a clade. Somewhere
> including all feathered theropods, but the rest is unstated. He's not
> into phylogenetic trees.

Nor into cladistic classification? Did he still rely on Linnean taxa back in 2002?

> >> Or you could check out a more
> >> recent Auk article
> >
> > ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
> > claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
> > before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.

> That's a consistent misspelling, so I should correct you: deinonychids.

> > >in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> >> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> >> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.

Glenn was more helpful than you: he provided an url for the article:

https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/130/1/1/5148815

And in all the 16 "microraptor" hits, he never claims that Microraptor is not a
theropod. The closest he comes is the fifth in a series of things he attributes
to your kind of "orthodoxy," beginning with:

"(5) The so-called four-winged gliding microraptors and the feathered Jurassic forms with non-theropod features are all considered dinosaurs.

He is only talking about features not typical of theropods, especially what orthodoxy calls "the frame shift" of the phalanges ("avian hand bones," see the end of the next sentence):

"Yet the microraptors have advanced avian wings with a precise arrangement of primary and secondary pennaceous feathers, and innumerable other avian features, including an avian skull and teeth, avian feet, and precise arrangement of avian hand bones. These advanced characters argue that microraptors represent derivatives of, rather than being ancestral to, the early avian radiation, with dromaeosaurids at all stages of flight and flightlessness. They are literally bristling with uncoded avian characters, but these are swamped in cladistic analyses by the background noise of co-correlated characters associated with bipedalism and a mesotarsal foot joint. Interestingly, the microraptor *Sinornithosaurus*, typically reconstructed as an earthbound cursor, had elongate hindlimb flight feathers, which would have impeded ground locomotion, and exhibits a well-developed posterolateral bony flange and a strongly bowed outer metacarpal, making its hand better suited for support of primary feathers than that of *Archaeopteryx* (Paul 2002). As Paul notes (p. 407), “The combination of a well-developed posterolateral flange and a strongly bowed metacarpal III [outer metacarpal] made the hand of flightless Sinornithosaurus better suited for supporting primary feathers than was the hand of flying Archaeopteryx.”

<snip for focus>

> > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.


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From: jharsh...@pacbell.net (John Harshman)
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 by: John Harshman - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 14:09 UTC

On 9/23/21 5:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 12:31:16 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/22/21 6:44 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 9/21/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> I've got a lot of grading of quizzes to do, so I can only spare time for a side issue:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Monday, September 20, 2021 at 10:10:29 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/20/21 6:51 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 5:07:25 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 9/15/21 12:16 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> In short, neither of the two creatures that made Henry Gee so sure
>>>>>>>>> were of much use as evidence for birds being dinosaurs.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That evidence was at least good enough for Feduccia to change his mind about whether
>>>>>>>> birds were coelurosaurs. Of course he settled that by then going on to
>>>>>>>> claim that coelurosaurs weren't dinosaurs.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Did he now? I don't recall anyone claiming he went that far before, not even you.
>>>>>>> The biggest clade I recall you claiming before was Maniraptora,
>>>>>>> a far cry from all of coelurosauria. Can you give me a direct quote
>>>>>>> to support your "Of course..." comment?
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I probably should have said "maniraptorans", as in MANIAC.
>>>>>
>>>>> You are merely replacing one undocumented claim about Feduccia with a slightly earlier one
>>>>> that you made this week or last week, with maniraptorans in place of coelurosaurs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then as now, your claim was unequivocal, and I suspected that you were editorializing
>>>>> much more nuanced statements by Feduccia, which is all I recall seeing from him.
>>>
>>> Your "presumably discussing" in the next paragraph is centered on the following post of mine:
>
> It looks like Giganews, or whatever, is letting you down, John, about the following url:
It would be Safari that's letting me down in that case. Oddly, Chrome
takes me to a different post that seems subsequent to the one you're
trying to point me at.
>>> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/UY2Hcee5Ez8/m/qHXXpRbgAgAJ
>>> Re: A new shark-toothed theropod from Uzbekistan
>>> Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM
>
>> That just goes to the OP in another thread.
>
> That OP was made well before Sep 15, 2021, 9:13:09 PM.
>
> When I clicked the above url just now, it took me straight to the post I was telling you about.
> Your last paragraph there stated:
>
> "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
>
> As I told Erik almost two hours before you did this post of yours,
>
> "If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-("
So impressed by your cleverness that you are forced to repeat it? Have
you bothered to look yet?
>> What does that have to do with anything?
>
> If you had read the attribution line of the OP of THIS thread, you would have seen an url of a post
> of yours to which I was replying. Don't urls show up in blue in Giganews?
>>>> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
>>>> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
>>>> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
>>>> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
>>>> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
>>>
>>> Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
>>> modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
>>> now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
>>> only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
>
> Evidently that small subclade is the genus Deinonychus; is "deinonychids"
> simply a synonym for that genus?
The name seems to have fallen out of favor. But it includes more than
Deinonychus. At a minimum, it also includes Utahraptor. But this is a
trivial detail not relevant to my point. If Deinonychus is not a
dinosaur, then dromaeosaurs are not dinosaurs, unless you want to
dismember Dromaeosauridae.
>> Yes, that was a mistake. But the point is that he claimed birds can't be
>> dinosaurs based on that a lack of relationship to Deinonychus and in the
>> same paper claimed that Deinonychus wasn't a dinosaur either, so even if
>> it's related to Archaeopteryx, birds still aren't dinosaurs. This is not
>> a mere self-contradiction.
>
> You are piling one thing on top of another here, yet you still haven't done
> what you are telling ME to do: google an article that you have FINALLY,
> belatedly, given me a reference to, but no url for it even now.
I assure you that if you just google the title you will easily find a
copy. Why not try?
> And I'm wondering whether you misread something Feduccia wrote
> there, like you did about microraptors below. Keep reading.
Wonder no more. Just read.
>>>>> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
>>>>> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
>>>
>>>> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
>>>> by looking at the article in question.
>>>
>>> I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
>>> It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
>>> you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
>>> immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
>
>> Feduccia A. 2002. Birds are dinosaurs: Simple answer to a complex
>> problem. Auk 119:1187–1201. Try google.
>
> Google it yourself, and tell us where in it you read these two things.
> Who knows, you might be in for a nasty surprise if you finally do what you should
> have done on September 15.
Your resistance to looking things up, even when you've been provided an
easy reference, is odd.
>>> Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
>>>
>>> Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
>> I will admit that in that article Feduccia failed to make clear just
>> where on the theropod tree he wanted to detach a clade. Somewhere
>> including all feathered theropods, but the rest is unstated. He's not
>> into phylogenetic trees.
>
> Nor into cladistic classification? Did he still rely on Linnean taxa back in 2002?
I don't think that entered into the discussion. No, what he's not into
is as I said: phylogenetic trees. Also cladistic methodology in
constructing trees. Not one word on classification.
>>>> Or you could check out a more
>>>> recent Auk article
>>>
>>> ... about which you don't even claim an inconsistency, like you originally
>>> claimed Feduccia made about Maniraptora, which you ambitiously changed to coelurosaurs
>>> before backpedaling to Maniraptora and now to deionychids.
>
>> That's a consistent misspelling, so I should correct you: deinonychids.
>
>>>> in which he shows to his satisfaction that
>>>> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
>>>> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
>
> Glenn was more helpful than you: he provided an url for the article:
>
> https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/130/1/1/5148815
>
> And in all the 16 "microraptor" hits, he never claims that Microraptor is not a
> theropod.
Agreed, he never said those words. It's necessary to read for
comprehension, not sound bites.
> The closest he comes is the fifth in a series of things he attributes
> to your kind of "orthodoxy," beginning with:
>
> "(5) The so-called four-winged gliding microraptors and the feathered Jurassic forms with non-theropod features are all considered dinosaurs.
>
> He is only talking about features not typical of theropods, especially what orthodoxy calls "the frame shift" of the phalanges ("avian hand bones," see the end of the next sentence):
>
> "Yet the microraptors have advanced avian wings with a precise arrangement of primary and secondary pennaceous feathers, and innumerable other avian features, including an avian skull and teeth, avian feet, and precise arrangement of avian hand bones. These advanced characters argue that microraptors represent derivatives of, rather than being ancestral to, the early avian radiation, with dromaeosaurids at all stages of flight and flightlessness. They are literally bristling with uncoded avian characters, but these are swamped in cladistic analyses by the background noise of co-correlated characters associated with bipedalism and a mesotarsal foot joint. Interestingly, the microraptor *Sinornithosaurus*, typically reconstructed as an earthbound cursor, had elongate hindlimb flight feathers, which would have impeded ground locomotion, and exhibits a well-developed posterolateral bony flange and a strongly bowed outer metacarpal, making its hand better suited for support of primary feathers than that of *Archaeopteryx* (Paul 2002). As Paul notes (p. 407), “The combination of a well-developed posterolateral flange and a strongly bowed metacarpal III [outer metacarpal] made the hand of flightless Sinornithosaurus better suited for supporting primary feathers than was the hand of flying Archaeopteryx.”
>

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 18:57 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 10:09:22 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/23/21 5:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 12:31:16 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/22/21 6:44 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> >>>> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
> >>>> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
> >>>> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
> >>>> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
> >>>> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
> >>> modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
> >>> now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
> >>> only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
> >
> > Evidently that small subclade is the genus Deinonychus; is "deinonychids"
> > simply a synonym for that genus?
> The name seems to have fallen out of favor. But it includes more than
> Deinonychus. At a minimum, it also includes Utahraptor.

This claim is contradicted by two separate analyses documented here:

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

Can you point me to an analysis that supersedes the two analyses on this Wiki page?

> But this is a
> trivial detail not relevant to my point.

But it is relevant to paleontology, which Erik Simpson claims to want me [no mention of you] to focus on.

> If Deinonychus is not a
> dinosaur, then dromaeosaurs are not dinosaurs, unless you want to
> dismember Dromaeosauridae.

You are relying on an undocumented recollection for this "point" of yours.

> >> Yes, that was a mistake. But the point is that he claimed birds can't be
> >> dinosaurs based on that a lack of relationship to Deinonychus and in the
> >> same paper claimed that Deinonychus wasn't a dinosaur either, so even if
> >> it's related to Archaeopteryx, birds still aren't dinosaurs. This is not
> >> a mere self-contradiction.
> >
> > You are piling one thing on top of another here, yet you still haven't done
> > what you are telling ME to do: google an article that you have FINALLY,
> > belatedly, given me a reference to, but no url for it even now.

> I assure you that if you just google the title you will easily find a
> copy. Why not try?

Because I doubt that I'd locate two things that you have kept changing your
story about.

> > And I'm wondering whether you misread something Feduccia wrote
> > there, like you did about microraptors below. Keep reading.

> Wonder no more. Just read.

I don't go looking for possibly unidentifiable needles in haystacks.

> >>>>> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
> >>>>> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
> >>>
> >>>> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
> >>>> by looking at the article in question.
> >>>
> >>> I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
> >>> It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
> >>> you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
> >>> immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
> >
> >> Feduccia A. 2002. Birds are dinosaurs: Simple answer to a complex
> >> problem. Auk 119:1187–1201. Try google.
> >
> > Google it yourself, and tell us where in it you read these two things.

You keep resisting this simple course of action, so unlike my actions wrt the "microraptor" issue below,
and so the following stands unaddressed:

> > Who knows, you might be in for a nasty surprise if you finally do what you should
> > have done on September 15.

<snip of disparaging personal remark whose content is addressed above with "needles...haystack">

> >>> Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
> >>>
> >>> Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids

Actually "Coelurosaurs" was a titanic broadening of the claim after the initial "Dromaesaurs,"
a hefty clade intermediate between Maniraptorans and Deinonychids.

> >> I will admit that in that article Feduccia failed to make clear just
> >> where on the theropod tree he wanted to detach a clade. Somewhere
> >> including all feathered theropods, but the rest is unstated. He's not
> >> into phylogenetic trees.
> >
> > Nor into cladistic classification? Did he still rely on Linnean taxa back in 2002?

> I don't think that entered into the discussion.

I've entered it now. It is totally relevant to your claim "failed to make clear."

> No, what he's not into
> is as I said: phylogenetic trees. Also cladistic methodology in
> constructing trees. Not one word on classification.

He could have made it clear by naming some taxon, be it cladistic or Linnean. Hence this
red herring of yours is completely unsupportive of "failed to make clear".

> >>>> Or you could check out a more
> >>>> recent Auk article

<snip irrelevant later added text>

> >>>> in which he shows to his satisfaction that
> >>>> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
> >>>> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
> >
> > Glenn was more helpful than you: he provided an url for the article:
> >
> > https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/130/1/1/5148815

Did you bother to look at it? It sure doesn't look that way from what you wrote below.

> > And in all the 16 "microraptor" hits, he never claims that Microraptor is not a
> > theropod.

> Agreed, he never said those words. It's necessary to read for
> comprehension, not sound bites.

You are relying on a single sound bite below, a sentence that talks
about "features" (characters) and not about taxonomic placement.

> > The closest he comes is the fifth in a series of things he attributes
> > to your kind of "orthodoxy," beginning with:
> >
> > "(5) The so-called four-winged gliding microraptors and the feathered Jurassic forms with non-theropod features are all considered dinosaurs.
> >
> > He is only talking about features not typical of theropods, especially what orthodoxy calls "the frame shift" of the
> > phalanges ("avian hand bones," see the end of the next sentence):
> >
> > "Yet the microraptors have advanced avian wings with a precise arrangement of primary and secondary pennaceous feathers, and innumerable other avian features, including an avian skull and teeth, avian feet, and precise arrangement of avian hand bones. These advanced characters argue that microraptors represent derivatives of, rather than being ancestral to, the early avian radiation, with dromaeosaurids at all stages of flight and flightlessness. They are literally bristling with uncoded avian characters, but these are swamped in cladistic analyses by the background noise of co-correlated characters associated with bipedalism and a mesotarsal foot joint. Interestingly, the microraptor *Sinornithosaurus*, typically reconstructed as an earthbound cursor, had elongate hindlimb flight feathers, which would have impeded ground locomotion, and exhibits a well-developed posterolateral bony flange and a strongly bowed outer metacarpal, making its hand better suited for support of primary feathers than that of *Archaeopteryx* (Paul 2002). As Paul notes (p. 407), “The combination of a well-developed posterolateral flange and a strongly bowed metacarpal III [outer metacarpal] made the hand of flightless Sinornithosaurus better suited for supporting primary feathers than was the hand of flying Archaeopteryx.”
> >

> How can you possibly interpret this as failing to claim that Microraptor
> isn't a theropod?

Why are you asking this loaded question here, after a listing of features that you
do not deny to be avian?

Nor do you argue that *any* of them are found in theropods besides the ones that people you
disparagingly dismiss as "fringe" decided (close to a decade *earlier*) to be nested within what
was then called "Aves," WITHOUT moving them out of Theropoda.

When I say "earlier" I mean: before this 2013 article which you brought up but were too lazy
to find an url for, unlike Glenn.


Click here to read the complete article
Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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From: jharsh...@pacbell.net (John Harshman)
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 by: John Harshman - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 19:35 UTC

On 9/23/21 11:57 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 10:09:22 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/23/21 5:50 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 12:31:16 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 9/22/21 6:44 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 3:31:45 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>
>>>>>> What I recall from the article we were presumably discussing is that
>>>>>> Feduccia spends the first part of it showing that Deinonychus carpals
>>>>>> were not homologous to Archaeopteryx carpals and thus the former is a
>>>>>> dinosaur while the latter is not, and then pivoting to a claim that
>>>>>> feathers on deinonychids show that they are birds, not dinosaurs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sorry, that won't do. You have made a blunder beginning with "Of course..." and
>>>>> modified your claim. Now you have further modified your claim and are
>>>>> now accusing Feduccia of a self-contradiction on a single detail involving
>>>>> only a small subclade of Maniraptora.
>>>
>>> Evidently that small subclade is the genus Deinonychus; is "deinonychids"
>>> simply a synonym for that genus?
>> The name seems to have fallen out of favor. But it includes more than
>> Deinonychus. At a minimum, it also includes Utahraptor.
>
> This claim is contradicted by two separate analyses documented here:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>
> Can you point me to an analysis that supersedes the two analyses on this Wiki page?
As I said, the name seems to have fallen out of favor.
>> But this is a
>> trivial detail not relevant to my point.
>
> But it is relevant to paleontology, which Erik Simpson claims to want me [no mention of you] to focus on.
It's hardly relevant to paleontology. It's a trivial point of nomenclature.
> > If Deinonychus is not a
>> dinosaur, then dromaeosaurs are not dinosaurs, unless you want to
>> dismember Dromaeosauridae.
>
> You are relying on an undocumented recollection for this "point" of yours.
You are free to look it up.
>>>> Yes, that was a mistake. But the point is that he claimed birds can't be
>>>> dinosaurs based on that a lack of relationship to Deinonychus and in the
>>>> same paper claimed that Deinonychus wasn't a dinosaur either, so even if
>>>> it's related to Archaeopteryx, birds still aren't dinosaurs. This is not
>>>> a mere self-contradiction.
>>>
>>> You are piling one thing on top of another here, yet you still haven't done
>>> what you are telling ME to do: google an article that you have FINALLY,
>>> belatedly, given me a reference to, but no url for it even now.
>
>> I assure you that if you just google the title you will easily find a
>> copy. Why not try?
>
> Because I doubt that I'd locate two things that you have kept changing your
> story about.
Why not look? Think of your moment of triumph when you don't find it!
>>> And I'm wondering whether you misread something Feduccia wrote
>>> there, like you did about microraptors below. Keep reading.
>
>> Wonder no more. Just read.
>
> I don't go looking for possibly unidentifiable needles in haystacks.
>
>
>>>>>>> This earlier one had to do with him having made the change of mind in _Auk_.
>>>>>>> So you should have no trouble digging up an exact quote.
>>>>>
>>>>>> We have discussed this at length before. You might refresh your memory
>>>>>> by looking at the article in question.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have no memory of that article at all, and have no idea where to look for it.
>>>>> It is YOU, obviously, who needs to refresh your memory of the article about which
>>>>> you "held court" in talk.origins to a rapt audience + one notorious species
>>>>> immutabilist for 50 posts before I came on the scene.
>>>
>>>> Feduccia A. 2002. Birds are dinosaurs: Simple answer to a complex
>>>> problem. Auk 119:1187–1201. Try google.
>>>
>>> Google it yourself, and tell us where in it you read these two things.
>
> You keep resisting this simple course of action, so unlike my actions wrt the "microraptor" issue below,
> and so the following stands unaddressed:
>
>>> Who knows, you might be in for a nasty surprise if you finally do what you should
>>> have done on September 15.
>
> <snip of disparaging personal remark whose content is addressed above with "needles...haystack">
>
>
>>>>> Your recollection of those heady days now has had you narrowing a claim thus:
>>>>>
>>>>> Coelurosaurs -----> Maniraptorans ------> Deionychids
>
> Actually "Coelurosaurs" was a titanic broadening of the claim after the initial "Dromaesaurs,"
> a hefty clade intermediate between Maniraptorans and Deinonychids.
>>>> I will admit that in that article Feduccia failed to make clear just
>>>> where on the theropod tree he wanted to detach a clade. Somewhere
>>>> including all feathered theropods, but the rest is unstated. He's not
>>>> into phylogenetic trees.
>>>
>>> Nor into cladistic classification? Did he still rely on Linnean taxa back in 2002?
>
>> I don't think that entered into the discussion.
>
> I've entered it now. It is totally relevant to your claim "failed to make clear."
If you're talking about paraphyly, I don't think Feduccia ever expressed
an opinion on that.
>> No, what he's not into
>> is as I said: phylogenetic trees. Also cladistic methodology in
>> constructing trees. Not one word on classification.
>
> He could have made it clear by naming some taxon, be it cladistic or Linnean. Hence this
> red herring of yours is completely unsupportive of "failed to make clear".
Yes, he could have. He didn't. And that's why I said he "failed to make
clear". How is that not clear?
>>>>>> Or you could check out a more
>>>>>> recent Auk article
>
> <snip irrelevant later added text>
>
>>>>>> in which he shows to his satisfaction that
>>>>>> Microraptor (and by extension other dromaeosaurs) is not a theropod:
>>>>>> Feduccia A. 2013. Bird origins anew. Auk 130:1-12.
>>>
>>> Glenn was more helpful than you: he provided an url for the article:
>>>
>>> https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/130/1/1/5148815
>
> Did you bother to look at it? It sure doesn't look that way from what you wrote below.
Yes, I looked. I actually read what he said rather than looking for
particular words.
>>> And in all the 16 "microraptor" hits, he never claims that Microraptor is not a
>>> theropod.
>
>> Agreed, he never said those words. It's necessary to read for
>> comprehension, not sound bites.
>
> You are relying on a single sound bite below, a sentence that talks
> about "features" (characters) and not about taxonomic placement.
In context it's perfectly clear what he's saying.
>>> The closest he comes is the fifth in a series of things he attributes
>>> to your kind of "orthodoxy," beginning with:
>>>
>>> "(5) The so-called four-winged gliding microraptors and the feathered Jurassic forms with non-theropod features are all considered dinosaurs.
>>>
>>> He is only talking about features not typical of theropods, especially what orthodoxy calls "the frame shift" of the
>>> phalanges ("avian hand bones," see the end of the next sentence):
>>>
>>> "Yet the microraptors have advanced avian wings with a precise arrangement of primary and secondary pennaceous feathers, and innumerable other avian features, including an avian skull and teeth, avian feet, and precise arrangement of avian hand bones. These advanced characters argue that microraptors represent derivatives of, rather than being ancestral to, the early avian radiation, with dromaeosaurids at all stages of flight and flightlessness. They are literally bristling with uncoded avian characters, but these are swamped in cladistic analyses by the background noise of co-correlated characters associated with bipedalism and a mesotarsal foot joint. Interestingly, the microraptor *Sinornithosaurus*, typically reconstructed as an earthbound cursor, had elongate hindlimb flight feathers, which would have impeded ground locomotion, and exhibits a well-developed posterolateral bony flange and a strongly bowed outer metacarpal, making its hand better suited for support of primary feathers than that of *Archaeopteryx* (Paul 2002). As Paul notes (p. 407), “The combination of a well-developed posterolateral flange and a strongly bowed metacarpal III [outer metacarpal] made the hand of flightless Sinornithosaurus better suited for supporting primary feathers than was the hand of flying Archaeopteryx.”
>>>
>
>> How can you possibly interpret this as failing to claim that Microraptor
>> isn't a theropod?
>
> Why are you asking this loaded question here, after a listing of features that you
> do not deny to be avian?
>
> Nor do you argue that *any* of them are found in theropods besides the ones that people you
> disparagingly dismiss as "fringe" decided (close to a decade *earlier*) to be nested within what
> was then called "Aves," WITHOUT moving them out of Theropoda.
>
> When I say "earlier" I mean: before this 2013 article which you brought up but were too lazy
> to find an url for, unlike Glenn.
>
> And you are totally ignoring the issue of "They are literally bristling with uncoded avian characters..."
> Do you claim that they are NOT "uncoded"? I know of some that are NOT coded: feathers and dinofuzz,
> which orthodoxy labels as "protofeathers," and everything thought by orthodoxy to be in between.

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Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:14 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > > >
> > > > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.

> > Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)

> > > Haven't we seen this movie before?

> > Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> >
> > Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> >
> > You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> >
> > To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.

Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*, but the two phylogenetic
trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:

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

About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
and moved the goalposts.

> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptora
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
>
> > And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
> > other thread, was:
> >
> > "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
> >
> > If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(

> I confess I haven't been following this exchange closely.

Yes, that is apparent from the way you want ME to change the subject. Well, I have, but Harshman
hasn't: see above about him ducking a question about phylogeny.

> I have a general interest in avian phylogeny,
> althoug it isn't at the top of my list.

Could you ask Harshman whether those two phylogenetic trees of Dromaesauridae have been superseded?
I'm sure he would give you, his most loyal ally in both talk.origins and here, a straight answer.

> But this isn't about avain phylogeny. What Feduccia thought about it,
> what, a decade ago?, wasn't very relevant then and is much less so now. If that isn't the topic,

Harshman insists on it being the topic. I've also made him aware of a host of purely paleontological
topics in a quote from a paper by Feduccia. Harshman has declined my first offer to go into it.
And now, in the same post where he ducked the question about phylogeny,
he breezed past it as if it weren't there.

> and you're more concerned with Harshman's account of Feduccia's thought,

It's all Harshman is showing interest in, see above.

> that has nothing to do
> with avian phylogeny, and I have zero interest. THe "movie" I spoke of referred to
> your presentation as Feducccia's bulldog.

Like hell I am. All I've ever done on this thread is to keep asking Harshman for a pair of
quotes that would show that his derogatory allegation of the moment is correct, about something
he is alleging about Feduccia. [See above about how that has kept changing.] He may have finally
settled on a derogatory claim that he won't change, but he keeps refusing to document it.

Are you happy with that?

> No interest there, either. I apologize if I distracted you
> from your purpose. Carry on.

If my comments above have distracted you from YOUR purpose, I'm sure Harshman will be
glad if you carry on.

Peter Nyikos

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:34 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 2:22:31 AM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:19:50 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> > > > > You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > > > if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > > > also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > > > absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > > > the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > > > copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > > > >
> > > > > I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > > > in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > > > that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > > > thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > > > > Peter Nyikos
> > > > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > > > > Univ. of South Carolina in Columbia
> > > > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > > Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > > > Haven't we seen this movie before?
> > > Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > > was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> > >
> > > Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> > >
> > > You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> > >
> > > To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > > for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.

> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria
> >>
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptora
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
> > > And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
> > > other thread, was:
> > >
> > > "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
> > >
> > > If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> > > Univ. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

> > I confessI haven't been following this exchange closely. I have a general interest in avian phylogeny,
> > althoug it isn't at the top of my list. But this isn't about avain phylogeny.

It is now, as I said in reply to erik a few minutes ago, and also about lots of details about paleontology of Mesozoic
birds and related animals. At least, I'm trying to make it that way, but as I told erik, Harshman keeps
refusing invitations to follow suit. And I suspect Erik will ape his role model in this.

> > What Feduccia thought about it,
> > what, a decade ago?, wasn't very relevant then and is much less so now. If that isn't the topic,
> > and you're more concerned with Harshman's account of Feduccia's thought, that has nothing to do
> > with avian phylogeny, and I have zero interest. THe "movie" I spoke of referred to
> > your presentation as Feducccia's bulldog.
> > No interest there, either. I apologize if I distracted you
> > from your purpose. Carry on.

I've thoroughly addressed this in my reply to Erik. I think you will enjoy reading my reply
AND reading any replies either Erik or John makes to it.

> https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/68/5/840/5315532?login=true

This is the 2013 article that Harshman gave a reference for, but he was
too lazy (or afraid?) to provide an url. Thanks for doing it yourself.

> https://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOOENIJ-11-27

A very telling review of a book that Harshman probably loves, assuming
he's bothered to read it.

> https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=lt78DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=feduccia+avian+fossils&ots=UDFTWI7r8g&sig=3YSHoe721uinrS5mhoO48U4lOLQ#v=onepage&q=feduccia%20avian%20fossils&f=false

A book designed to be readable by a general audience, but marred by Feduccia's repeatedly
bringing up the controversies in which he is embroiled. _Riddle of the Feathered Dragons_,
which is much more deeply scientific and full of highly detailed information,
is actually less heavy handed about it.

In fairness to Feduccia, he is very much getting along in years and this may be his last
chance to make a wider audience aware that "birds are dinosaurs" is built on a less
secure foundation that anti-Feduccia zealots would have the general public believe.

Peter Nyikos

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

<9s-dnewJQOIOdNH8nZ2dnUU7-bnNnZ2d@giganews.com>

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
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From: jharsh...@pacbell.net (John Harshman)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2021 13:54:41 -0700
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 by: John Harshman - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 20:54 UTC

On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
>
>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
>
>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
>
>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
>>>
>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
>>>
>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
>>>
>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
>
> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*, but the two phylogenetic
> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:

Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
puzzled how you think they contradict anything.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>
> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> and moved the goalposts.

I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
false assumption. Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
Deinonychus and some of its close relatives. It's not used much these
days, and perhaps it's a junior synonym of names that are more commonly
used.

>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coelurosauria
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maniraptora
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
>>
>>> And, to save y'all even more trouble, what Harshman wrote a week ago, on that
>>> other thread, was:
>>>
>>> "If you want specifics, the one I remember best is that in the middle of the article he went from claiming that dromaeosaurs couldn't possibly be related to birds to claiming that they couldn't possibly be dinosaurs."
>>>
>>> If that's what Harshman remembers best, I'd hate to think what he remembers worst. :-) :-(
>
>> I confess I haven't been following this exchange closely.
>
> Yes, that is apparent from the way you want ME to change the subject. Well, I have, but Harshman
> hasn't: see above about him ducking a question about phylogeny.

You are confused. It's a question about nomenclature, not phylogeny.

>> I have a general interest in avian phylogeny,
>> althoug it isn't at the top of my list.
>
> Could you ask Harshman whether those two phylogenetic trees of Dromaesauridae have been superseded?
> I'm sure he would give you, his most loyal ally in both talk.origins and here, a straight answer.

You constantly speak in terms of loyalties, cliques, alliances, and role
models, all of which are imaginary.

>> But this isn't about avain phylogeny. What Feduccia thought about it,
>> what, a decade ago?, wasn't very relevant then and is much less so now. If that isn't the topic,
>
> Harshman insists on it being the topic. I've also made him aware of a host of purely paleontological
> topics in a quote from a paper by Feduccia. Harshman has declined my first offer to go into it.
> And now, in the same post where he ducked the question about phylogeny,
> he breezed past it as if it weren't there.

Not sure what point you're trying to make with those topics. It seems
very confused.

>> and you're more concerned with Harshman's account of Feduccia's thought,
>
> It's all Harshman is showing interest in, see above.
>
>
>> that has nothing to do
>> with avian phylogeny, and I have zero interest. THe "movie" I spoke of referred to
>> your presentation as Feducccia's bulldog.
>
> Like hell I am. All I've ever done on this thread is to keep asking Harshman for a pair of
> quotes that would show that his derogatory allegation of the moment is correct, about something
> he is alleging about Feduccia. [See above about how that has kept changing.] He may have finally
> settled on a derogatory claim that he won't change, but he keeps refusing to document it.

Feel free to read Feduccia 2002. Why won't you?

> Are you happy with that?
>
>
>> No interest there, either. I apologize if I distracted you
>> from your purpose. Carry on.
>
> If my comments above have distracted you from YOUR purpose, I'm sure Harshman will be
> glad if you carry on.

Can't you see why other people consider all this talk of conspiracies
paranoid?

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Thu, 23 Sep 2021 21:49 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >
> >>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> >>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> >>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> >>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> >>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> >>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> >>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> >>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> >>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> >
> >>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> >
> >>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
> >
> >>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> >>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> >>>
> >>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> >>>
> >>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> >>>
> >>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> >>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.

This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
> > Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*, but the two phylogenetic
> > trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:

> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.

Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.

> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae

Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?

> > About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> > have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> > and moved the goalposts.

> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
> false assumption.

Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
for your next comment. My questions below should help you.

> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.

Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?

Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?

If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?

Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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From: jharsh...@pacbell.net (John Harshman)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2021 17:44:27 -0700
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 by: John Harshman - Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:44 UTC

On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
>>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
>>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
>>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
>>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
>>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
>>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
>>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
>>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
>>>
>>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
>>>
>>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
>>>
>>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
>>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
>>>>>
>>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
>>>>>
>>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
>>>>>
>>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
>>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
>
>
> This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
>
>>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*, but the two phylogenetic
>>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
>
>> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
>> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.
>
> Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
> place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.

Not sure what your point is here. Unless you have a definition for
Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
it or not.

>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>
> Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?

You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
about the issue.

>>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
>>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
>>> and moved the goalposts.
>
>> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
>> false assumption.
>
> Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
> for your next comment. My questions below should help you.

Sure, though I'm not optimistic.

>> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
>> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
>
> Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
>
> Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
>
> If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?

I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
Utahraptor was another proposed member. And of course the name may have
assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.

> Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.

This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny. I think
you're just trying very hard to show that I'm wrong about something
without regard to anything else, just because you want me to be wrong
about something, a moment of triumph for you.

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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Subject: Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism
From: peter2ny...@gmail.com (Peter Nyikos)
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 by: Peter Nyikos - Fri, 24 Sep 2021 19:04 UTC

On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> >>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> >>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> >>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> >>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> >>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> >>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> >>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> >>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> >>>
> >>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> >>>
> >>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
> >>>
> >>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> >>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> >>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
> >
> >
> > This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
> >
> >>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*,

What I had earlier wanted to know whether "deinonychids" [see above]
was a synonym for *Deinonychus*. Note the lack of the -idae ending which would have
made such a question sound naive.

> >>> but the two phylogenetic
> >>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
> >
> >> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
> >> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.

> > Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
> > place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.

> Not sure what your point is here.

The point was further down in this same post. Once you saw it, it should
have become obvious that the following comment completely missed the point:

> Unless you have a definition for
> Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
> it or not.

You always seem to be in a hurry, preventing you from scrolling up and deleting inappropriate comments.
Why? do you have a job that is more consuming than mine as a full-time Professor?

> >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> >
> > Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?

> You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
> about the issue.

There was no confusion, as you should have seen if you had
bothered to read to the end before typing this.
My comment was a tad premature, that's all.

> >>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> >>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> >>> and moved the goalposts.
> >
> >> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
> >> false assumption.
> >
> > Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
> > for your next comment. My questions below should help you.

> Sure, though I'm not optimistic.

> >> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> >> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
> >
> > Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
> >
> > Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
> >
> > If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> > and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?

> I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
> Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
> Utahraptor was another proposed member.

"quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
What is it?

>And of course the name may have
> assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.

Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
can't be bothered to find out more?

Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?

And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.

> > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.

> This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.

That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.

It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
are not secondarily flightless birds.

<snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>

If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.

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

Re: Bird Origins: Dogmatism and Skepticism

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From: jharsh...@pacbell.net (John Harshman)
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 by: John Harshman - Fri, 24 Sep 2021 20:25 UTC

On 9/24/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
>>>>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
>>>>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
>>>>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
>>>>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
>>>>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
>>>>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
>>>>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
>>>>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
>>>>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
>>>>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
>>>
>>>
>>> This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
>>>
>>>>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*,
>
> What I had earlier wanted to know whether "deinonychids" [see above]
> was a synonym for *Deinonychus*. Note the lack of the -idae ending which would have
> made such a question sound naive.

>>>>> but the two phylogenetic
>>>>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
>>>
>>>> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
>>>> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.
>
>>> Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
>>> place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.
>
>> Not sure what your point is here.
>
> The point was further down in this same post. Once you saw it, it should
> have become obvious that the following comment completely missed the point:
>
>> Unless you have a definition for
>> Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
>> it or not.
>
> You always seem to be in a hurry, preventing you from scrolling up and deleting inappropriate comments.
> Why? do you have a job that is more consuming than mine as a full-time Professor?

Simple explanation: the comments weren't inappropriate.

>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>>>
>>> Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?
>
>> You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
>> about the issue.
>
> There was no confusion, as you should have seen if you had
> bothered to read to the end before typing this.
> My comment was a tad premature, that's all.
>
>
>>>>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
>>>>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
>>>>> and moved the goalposts.
>>>
>>>> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
>>>> false assumption.
>>>
>>> Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
>>> for your next comment. My questions below should help you.
>
>> Sure, though I'm not optimistic.
>
>>>> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
>>>> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
>>>
>>> Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
>>>
>>> Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
>>>
>>> If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
>>> and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?
>
>> I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
>> Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
>> Utahraptor was another proposed member.
>
> "quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
> What is it?

Another question based on a false assumption. No point in answering.

>> And of course the name may have
>> assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.
>
> Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
> can't be bothered to find out more?

The latter.

> Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
>
> And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.

>>> Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
>
>> This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
>
> That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.

You really have to start actually saying what you mean rather than
dropping little hints, assuming you want anyone to understand you.

> It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> are not secondarily flightless birds.

I had no idea you were interested in the differences between the trees.
You never said so until just now. So far, this has all been about
whether Deinonychidae should include Utahraptor. Now, if you have any
questions about the phylogenies, I suggest you consult the papers from
which the trees were taken, look at their data matrices, and try to
determine what caused the differences.

> <snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>

You accuse me of being insincere? On what basis?

> If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.

What charges? I can't claim innocence unless I see some actual charges.
I certainly have no interest in your thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.


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