Steve Jones said:
"There is a couple of slight problems with this that the ordinary
reader would not be aware, but every palaeontologist would know:
Firstly, Ornithomimid is a member of the order Saurischia
(lizard-hipped) as opposed to the order Ornithischia (bird-hipped):
It is the *Ornithischia* from which birds are thought to have
descended from, *not the Saurischia*"
Actually, my Jan. 1993 _National_Geographic_ (p. 18) says:
"Ironically, birds descended from lizard-hipped dinosaurs, only later
developing deflected pelvic bones."
Let's not assume the intent of every scientist is complete pro-evolutionary
propaganda! Steve Jones error probably comes from his misinterpretation of a
quote that says birds are "cousins" of ornithischians. Indeed they are, but
distant ones. They are much closer cousins of the fossil under discussion. In
light of this, I think Jones needs to rewrite about half of his post -
we have a dinosaur that (through evidence of kinship, like lizard hips) is
thought to be related to birds, and this dinosaur is also displaying
bird-like traits. It seems to me that this is a fair point in favor of the
theory of bird evolution - not "propaganda".
That said, I agreed with much of the rest of what Jones said: the story about
the creature's death seems far fetched, and convergent evolution is a problem
(though not an unsolvable one, as the current example shows).
Thanks for listening. Comments welcome.
Nick