Originally Posted by RAZD
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How many gliding birds can you name that have broad, short wings; as opposed to longer, narrower wings? (I won't even mention aircraft, lest some poor reader be caught sipping a beverage.)
When the question he should have asked is how many gliding animals have broad short wings as opposed to longer narrower wings.

Here are two:

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]
I note that two isn't a very large number. Still, it's quite the confession for RAZD, who previously claimed there couldn't be two of anything. Maybe there's hope he'll learn to count to even bigger numbers like 3 or 5.

Originally Posted by RAZD
Curiously they also have their wings between their front legs and their back legs.

Birds of course have evolved for flight, not gliding, and they evolved wings from single arms, not from skin between front and back legs (there is one that has feathers on both front and back legs), so using birds is a false analogy to bats, just as substituting an interest rate formula for a decay formula misrepresents decay.

Enjoy.
I note that you claim birds didn't "evolve for" gliding. Sounds like heresy to me. This is in direct conflict with one of LindaLou's sources.
http://www.tuxxie.org/evolution/reptiles-to-birds.html
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So, what changed that made dinosaurs fly? Good question (if you asked it). The development of a wing-to-body weight ratio that favored flight is the reason. To be a reductionist, precursors to birds slowly evolved wings, or coverings of their upper limbs, that enabled them to elevate their bodies off the ground. When this was originally postulated, two theories were offered to explain how birds gained the ability to fly. They were the ground up theory and the tree down theory. The prior stated that dinosaurs began as runners that were successful in leaping large distances and gliding/coasting to a safe landing. This enabled them to evade predators/find food faster, etc. and the trait propagated. The latter theory posits that tree climbing dinosaurs evolved mechanisms to glide from trees or other elevations to some distance away from that spot, landing on the ground. While the latter is more attractive than the prior on the surface level, the prior theory is most likely the correct theory. I don't know if it is codified, however, and it may still be subject to intense debate.
I added bold so folks can clearly see that both stories involve gliding. (Hopefully this explanation of bold letters will suffice.)

I don't think the analogy is false, but it's your fairytale. Weave your myth this way and that as suits your fancy. The sillier it gets, the less I expect it to sell.

I suppose you might as well claim sugargliders evolved into bats. Makes as much sense as anything else, although flying fish would make for a more entertaining story IMO.

Now if you'd offer something on-topic, you might point me to a missing link between bats and whatever you think they evolved from. 20 to 25 per cent of all mammalian species - that's a pretty big chunk to just hang out to dry, so to speak. Particularly after you stressed the importance of finding the fossils.
Originally Posted by RAZD
Notice that Darwin said "intermediate varieties" rather than the commonly used "transitionals" term. In other words there should be fossils intermediate in time and form between those that came before and those that came after the "transitional" fossil. Transitions can and do span many generations, with many intermediates in between.

According to a proper definition of evolution, the process of change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation, evolution is constantly occurring, and this means that every fossil is part of the transition from one life form to another, and every fossil thus is a "transitional" fossil. Every fossil lineage shows such change over time occurring, with intermediate age fossils being intermediate in form from previous ages and forms to later ages and forms. This is what the theory of evolution predicts we should find in the fossil record: intermediate forms at intermediated ages in the lineages. This is what we do find.
So where are the critters that are intermediate between bats and their ancestors? Do you find them?

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