Apparently there are still paleontologists that deny...

[Kai]

...birds are dinosaurs.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2012/01/dinosaurs-of-a-feather/

And while their simple answer seems to be "anything with feathers is not a dinosaur" (which is a near-idiotic just so story), the article reveals the real problem.

Ultimately, though, many of Feduccia's objections boil down to a rejection of a methodology known as cladistics. This method of determining relationships among organisms is based on the analysis of shared derived characteristics—specialized features found in two organisms or lineages and their most recent common ancestor. Researchers look for numerous traits, record whether the traits in question are present or absent, and then insert that mass of data into a computer program that produces a hypothesis about the relationships among the various organisms included in the study. The point is not to find direct ancestors and descendants, but to figure out who is most closely related to whom. The method is not perfect—which organisms are included, the choice of traits for comparison and the way those traits are scored all affect the outcome. Still, this process has the benefit of requiring researchers to show their work. Each evolutionary tree resulting from such methods is a hypothesis that will be tested according to new evidence and analyses. If someone disagrees with a particular result, they can sift through the collected data to see if an inappropriate trait was included, an essential organism was left out, or if there was some other problem. Cladistics is useful not because it results in a perfect reflection of nature each time, but because it allows researchers to effectively examine, test and improve ideas about relationships.

They're using phenetics, something I thought was long dead in studies of morphology (though not in DNA sequences). Of course, the biggest problem with their methods is just that; Phenetics was never meant to find the evolutionary relationships of organisms. Sokal and Sneeth, who came up with the method, outright rejected that anyone should try to find evolutionary relationships because they were almost always too obscured to confidently reconstruct. Most systematists, such as myself, reject this idea, because it strikes us as solipsism. We know there are evolutionary relationships, and so we use specially shared characters (characters shared between species that are shared by no other species) to infer the relationships. As we find more characters, more information, we refine those relationships. Characters that are more widely shared, more general, are not useful because they don't tell us about common ancestry.

So, these birds-as-dinosaurs denialists ignore all evidence that doesn't support their claim that there is some unknown ancestor of birds that was not a dinosaur, and use methods to devise actual relationships that were never meant to find actual relationships. Pseudoscience is alive and well in systematics, as it is in some small amount in every field of science.

[navkat]

All I know is that birds creep me out more than any other species on the planet. Their eyes ae fucking cold and even the domesticated ones behave at times as though they would kill a motherfucker if they ever grew large enough to bite off their captors' heads.

Cold, diabolical, robotically calculating and smart as fuck. They're like clockwork monsters in prety colours.

When the "birds are descendant of dinosaurs" theory became mainstream in '94, I felt validated in my life-long fear and hatred of the little fuckers.

[Telarus]

I think birds have a very very high probability of being descended from raptor-like dinosaurs.

I like the 'evolution of flapping' mention in this article: http://www.livescience.com/17485-velociraptors-killer-claws.html

[Kai]

I think birds have a very very high probability of being descended from raptor-like dinosaurs.

I like the 'evolution of flapping' mention in this article: http://www.livescience.com/17485-velociraptors-killer-claws.html

I mean, it's very hard to say at this point which group of theropods birds descended from, but in terms of specially shared characters, the best group for "most closely related" is the Dromeosaurs. This includes Velociraptor, but also Utahraptor, Deinonychus, and others. Every fossil with skin impressions so far has had feathers. Many clearly show primary wing feathers. The forearms even fold backwards like a bird. And then there's that article you posted.

Here's Ed Yong's take on that story: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/12/14/deinonychus-and-velociraptor-used-their-killing-claws-to-pin-prey-like-eagles-and-hawks/ I mean, the evidence is so strong that at least the Dromaeosauridae and Aves share a closest common ancestor, if birds are not actually a diversification of dromaeosaruids. But, there are denialists in every field.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That's a good example of  the (relatively rare) case of scientists treating science as a religion. "I refuse to accept new evidence, dammit! Git off mah lawn!"

It's an abandonment of science, actually, in favor of belief.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Anyone who doesn't believe birds are dinosaurs needs to go see an ostrich in person. First time I saw one I was struck by the inside of the wing, where you can clearly tell it's just an arm with some feathers glued on. Really, though, the T-Rex feet on pigeons should suffice.

[Kai]

Some of the coolest work on these "para-aves" or Dromaeosauridae fossils is figuring out what color they are.

And now, we know with some confidence that Archaeopteryx had at least some black pigmentation on it's wings.

[Luna]

Some of the coolest work on these "para-aves" or Dromaeosauridae fossils is figuring out what color they are.

And now, we know with some confidence that Archaeopteryx had at least some black pigmentation on it's wings.

That is cool, thanks! 

[Kai]

I think one of the big reasons that some people refuse to allow birds to be dinosaurs, is because it will very much screw with the taxonomy when it comes time to change the /ranks/.

For example, Aves is currently considered an Order level rank (under the Linnean classification system. Dromaeosauridae is, of course, a family (you know by the -idae ending).

If we figure out that Aves lies within the Dromaeosauridae, it will screw with ALL the ranks. it will be 50 times worse than the Drosophila/Sophophora incident. Aves has long established suborders, and families, and subfamilies, and tribes and so on. So do theropods. So, now you've got to fit what has been up to now considered an entire order into a family.

You could raise the family to order, and make Aves a super-infra-order or something like that. But then you would have to also raise Therapoda to super-order or something, and all ranks within Therapoda would have to be raised. Or you could drop Aves to a subfamily.....HAH! Like the ornithologists would ever allow that to happen.

The Linnean ranking system is great for teaching and sharing information, but sometimes, when you have these long established "separate domains" of life, and one actually falls within the other, the ranking system makes changing things difficult.