Wow. These are three brave comments. In fairness, I expect the title
wording was not Tony's doing. Of course I agree on the getting words
right but also should not be too hard on an informal chat.
I don't think it could mean the first debate about birds, these are many
and varied and older than 2 centuries.
It is not the first debate about the first birds. It is a debate about
the first birds. The role of Archaeopteryx has been debated for decades.
Yes it clearly is an intermediate between dinosaurs and birds. However
the age of the fossil Archaeopteryx simply is not at the right stage in
time to be easy to understand as THE UNIQUE species in that pivotal
position. However for a long time it has been the first found, the only
and then the best evidence of what that pivotal creature would have been
like. I think David Attenborough described the fossil Archaeopteryx as
the most valuable item known on earth or something like that. Maybe one
day we will find another fossil that fits the role better. It is like
any debate about missing links. Most missing links that we have are not
missing once they have been found.
Surely there would have been many intermediate species over millions of
years that were to varying extents close to, slightly or more diverged
from the raw evolutionary path between the two groups and the article
makes it clear that as more specimens are found it get harder to supply
a dividing line. That is a statement of the inevitable and obvious.
Hopefully the evidence is real, the Chinese have some history of
concoction of fossils. Oh well they have given it a distinctly Chinese
name.
Philip
perhaps of a series,
-----Original Message-----
From: David Nicholls
Sent: Friday, 29 July 2011 11:58 AM
To: Geoffrey Dabb
Cc: canberra birds
Subject: Feathers fly in first bird debate -OT!
On 29/07/11 10:53 AM, Geoffrey Dabb wrote:
> A fascinating item, thank you Tony, slightly marred by the inability
> of science writers to use the English language to best effect.
[Off topic]
Good to see the effective use of English being defended, Geoffrey. I
fear it is not just science writers who are guilty of Manglish: the
entire journalistic profession -- or at least, those younger than 50 or
so -- are responsible for a panoply of atrocities. I refer those
interested in this (off) topic to Orwell's essay "Politics and the
English Language", written in 1946 but perhaps even more relevant today.
See http://langs.eserver.org/politics-english-language.txt
Regards
David Nicholls
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