Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong by Jonathan Wells & Jody F. Sjogren
Author:Jonathan Wells & Jody F. Sjogren [Wells, Jonathan & Sjogren, Jody F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science, General
ISBN: 9780895262004
Google: SjceLTQxfocC
Amazon: B00C01VZBK
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2001-12-31T23:00:00+00:00
Archaeopteryx: The Missing Link • 129
FIGURE 6-4 Feathered Bambiraptor.
Recomstructed animal displayed at the April 2000 Florida Symposium
on Dinosaur Bird Evolution showing "conceptual integumentary
structures."
130 • ICONS OF EVOLUTION
There were several outspoken critics of the dino-bird theory at
the Florida symposium. One was University of North Carolina
ornithologist Alan Feduccia, who has predicted that the dino-
bird theory will turn out to be «the greatest embarrassment of
paleontology of the 20th century.» Another was Larry Martin,
who has said that if he had to defend the dino-bird theory, «I'd
be embarrassed every time I had to get up and talk about it.»
And Storrs Olson ruffled some dino-feathers by passing out
buttons that proclaimed «Birds are NOT dinosaurs.»
But the dino-bird enthusiasts at the symposium outnumbered
their critics, and they were undeterred from dressing up
Bambiraptor in imaginary feathers. Not being a cladist myself,
I found this rather funny. As a molecular biologist, however, I
found something else even funnier.
Turkey DNA from Triceratops?
On the second day of the symposium, William Garstka reported
that he and a team of molecular biologists from Alabama had
extracted DNA from the fossil bones of a 65-million-year-old
dinosaur. Although evidence from other studies suggests that
DNA older than about a million years cannot yield any useful
sequence information, Garstka and his colleagues amplified and
sequenced the DNA, compared it with known DNA from other
animals, and found that it was most similar to bird DNA. They
concluded that they had found «the first direct genetic evidence
to indicate that birds represent the closest living relatives of the
dinosaurs.» Their conclusion was reported the following week
by Constance Holden in Science.
The details of the discovery, however, are revealing.
First, the dinosaur from which Garstka and his colleagues
allegedly recovered the DNA was a Triceratops. According to
paleontologists,
Archaeopteryx: The Missing Link • 131
there are two main branches in the dinosaur family tree. One
branch included the three-horned rhinoceros-like Triceratops
which millions of people have seen in museum exhibits and
movies. But birds are thought to have evolved from the other
branch. So according to evolutionary biologists, Triceratops
and modern birds are not closely related, their ancestors having
gone their separate ways almost 250 million years ago.
Even more revealing, however, was that the DNA Garstka
and his colleagues found was 100 percent identical to the
DNA of living turkeys. Not 99 percent, not 99.9 percent, but
100 percent. Not even DNA obtained from other birds is 100
percent identical to turkey DNA (the next closest match in their
study was 94.5 percent, with another species of bird). In other
words, the DNA that had supposedly been extracted from the
Triceratops bone was not just similar to turkey DNA—it was
turkey DNA. Garstka said he and his colleagues considered
the possibility that someone had been eating a turkey sandwich
nearby, but they were unable to confirm that.
At first, when Garstka presented his findings I thought it was
an April Fools joke—but it was already April 8. Then I looked
around to see whether anyone was laughing—but no one was,
at least not openly. When I returned home the next day and
told my wife the story, she said it reminded her of a child who
botches an attempt to stay home from school. When the child's
mother puts a thermometer
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