Monday, June 28, 2010

Time and Cladograms (2)

Continuing the discussion on time and cladograms.
In the cladogram in the previous post, there are three kinds of creatures.
  • There are the dinosaurs on the left that extend up to and including Tyrannosaurs.
  • There are the flightless birds including Ornithomimosauria, Therizinosaur, and Alvarezsauridae.
  • And there are the flying birds, the Eumaniraptora.
The incorrect interpretation is that the dinosaurs developed into the flightless birds (incorrectly called feathered "dinosaurs") and that the flightless birds then developed into the flying birds).
But the cladistic analysis that the cladogram is based on, does not provide this time (sequence) conclusion. Cladistic analysis does not and cannot provide sequence info. It is an error to think that cladistic analysis tells us that dinosaurs developed into birds.

Here is a supporting reference:
http://www.dinosaur-museum.org/featheredinosaurs/Are_Birds_Really_Dinosaurs.pdf
"Regardless of how non-objective cladistics supposedly is, the real problem stems from how the data is interpreted."

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