Birds and a dumb question about flying

a reply to: Lysergic

How else did the Aztec priests know of "feathered serpents"?

Birds developed proto-wings to run, not to fly. As they ran, air under the "wings" provided lift - they could jump up a tree to avoid an enemy, run faster.

Here's an article about the evolution of bird flight.

Origin of Bird Flight Explained
Scientific American

Early birds may have used their wings not for flying, but for running. By flapping their front appendages, the animals gained more traction as they were running up steep inclines. So argues Kenneth Dial of the University of Montana in a paper published today in the journal Science. Dial outlined his so-called wing-assisted incline running (WAIR) hypothesis in a presentation given to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in October 2001.

The pressure variation for flight was explained by Bernoulli:



where: P = pressure (force exerted divided by area exerted on)
rho = density of the fluid
V = velocity of the moving object or fluid

Another great example of evolution at work in nature.



www.scientificamerican.com...

originally posted by: Purpapengus
Preamble: my car is in the shop and I have hours to kill. Never tried posting on my phone, diehard desktop fan. Full disclosure this is partly serious and partly trolly for my entertainment.

The actual thing: birds did not "start" as flying creatures, yes? Then what conditions allow a creature to go from ground dwelling to air dwelling?

I can understand that a feathered creature uses those feathers for a "speed boost" and further success leads to "improvements" on the idea but is their a specie specific starting point for it?

Can humans gain the gift do flight through multi-generational selective breeding or is it not possible for ma ape to turn bird? Are certain strains of animals locked into certain evolutionary trees?

If humans evolved to fly, I think the "bat" concept i.e. wingsuit design would be the infancy. If human developed large webbing between our legs and between our torso and arms.

a reply to: Phantom423
That goes back to a previous comment about bats. The bat can be traced back fifty-five million years or so due to limited fossilization but they still resemble modern bats.

Birds had proto-wings. They were destined to fly at some point. An ape has no proto-wing so is it destined to never fly regardless the stressors put on it?

If a specie is predestined to do a thing, can it be destined to become extinct and our obsession with preservation is actually hurting the natural order more than helping?

a reply to: panoz77

Correct me if i am wrong but aren't bats rodents? The only mammal capable of sustained flight is a rodent. Then you have animals capable of gliding of which, how many are rodents?
The point being that rodents are predestined to gain flight. Unlike apes.

originally posted by: Purpapengus
a reply to: Lysergic

How else did the Aztec priests know of "feathered serpents"?

There still a dinosaur in the congo.

originally posted by: Purpapengus
a reply to: Phantom423
That goes back to a previous comment about bats. The bat can be traced back fifty-five million years or so due to limited fossilization but they still resemble modern bats.

Birds had proto-wings. They were destined to fly at some point. An ape has no proto-wing so is it destined to never fly regardless the stressors put on it?

If a specie is predestined to do a thing, can it be destined to become extinct and our obsession with preservation is actually hurting the natural order more than helping?

Not sure what you mean by "destined". It suggests that flying birds were inevitable. I think that flying birds evolved because it was the most energy efficient way to avoid a predator. They already had the body structure. Evolution took the path of least resistance and used the physics of their biology to enable flight.

Could nature have done something different? Sure. But nature gravitates toward efficient energy systems. Take the hummingbird:

The Hummingbird

Almost appropriate that the Hummingbird is about as efficient as a Hummer.

Constantly knackered, the hummingbird consumes between 3.14 and 7.6 calories a day. That may not seem like much, but if humans (who may eat 3,500 calories a day) had the metabolism of a hummingbird, they would have to consume approximately 155,000 calories a day. That's about 77 times as much as most humans eat! Or 437 burgers. Constantly. Knackered.

Interestingly, the most energy efficient animal on the planet is a jellyfish!

a reply to: Phantom423

Interestingly, the most energy efficient animal on the planet is a jellyfish!

I'm sometimes asked about the difference between hang gliding and paragliding.
Answer, every time; "Would you rather be a dolphin, or a jellyfish?"

My layman's mind tells me that if our early little primate ancestors (or maybe the little shrews and weasels that eventually became our primate ancestors) began to mutate with slightly feathered hands or arms, and that gave them an evolutionary advantage by being able to use bursts of speed to get away from predators, then maybe those weasels or primates would have further evolved to have increased-feathered upper limbs.

Perhaps eventually they would have evolved lighter bones and the ability to glide, then fly -- however, by them they would no longer be primates, and they would no longer have evolved into us.

So, no -- if that were the case, then "we" would not have evolved with the ability to fly; they would not be us.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

So you are in the camp of locked in paths for evolution? Which I would argue implies, again, that some species are meant to go extinct. If a none flying animal can't switch over to a flying animal and instead has to continue down the specific evolutionary tree it's on, then it stands to reason there are "bad" trees. Flight might indicate a lack of sentience. Of all the aliens we may find, none of them will have gossamer wings.

a reply to: Phage

I've seen enough anime to know anything with numerous tentacles/appendages is the thing to be.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Phantom423

Interestingly, the most energy efficient animal on the planet is a jellyfish!

I'm sometimes asked about the difference between hang gliding and paragliding.
Answer, every time; "Would you rather be a dolphin, or a jellyfish?"

Good one! I had to look up the difference to understand what you meant. I live in the mountains but never had the inclination to jump off one!

a reply to: Purpapengus

This is obvious if your out the box.

Plants were here first, plants want to emigrate they will to emigrate and spread their seed.
Mother nature answers, by evolving flight for transportation of seeds.

originally posted by: Phantom423

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Phantom423

Interestingly, the most energy efficient animal on the planet is a jellyfish!

I'm sometimes asked about the difference between hang gliding and paragliding.
Answer, every time; "Would you rather be a dolphin, or a jellyfish?"

Good one! I had to look up the difference to understand what you meant. I live in the mountains but never had the inclination to jump off one!

An opportunity for another witicism.
"Frogs jump. We fly."

Humans could fly Just like a Bird No evolution needed .
First step Build a moon base second step so there make REAL wings and watch as HUMANS fly like a Bird .
PS Build a dome a Mile high plant something like a red wood and watch that tree grow 2000 feet tall .

moons gravity is only 16% of earths a 100 pound woman would weigh 16 POUNDS . ( hows that for weight lose ladys ? lol
a 200 pound guy 32 pounds .Some day soon humans will sore like a eagle .

a reply to: midnightstar

You are a Robert Heinlein fan. Or should be.

I folded my wings and went into the lock. While it was cycling I opened my left wing and thumbed the alula control—I had noticed a tendency to sideslip the last time I was airborne. But the alula opened properly and I decided I must have been overcontrolling, easy to do with StorerGulls; they’re extremely maneuverable. Then the door showed green and I folded the wing and hurried out, while glancing at the barometer. Seventeen pounds—two more than Earth sea-level and nearly twice what we use in the city; even an ostrich could fly in that. I perked up and felt sorry for all groundhogs,tied down by six times proper weight, who never, never, never could fly.

The Menace From Earth. 1957.
metallicman.com...

I can soar, btw. But not quite as well as an eagle. I can't flap my wings.

originally posted by: Purpapengus
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

So you are in the camp of locked in paths for evolution? Which I would argue implies, again, that some species are meant to go extinct. If a none flying animal can't switch over to a flying animal and instead has to continue down the specific evolutionary tree it's on, then it stands to reason there are "bad" trees. Flight might indicate a lack of sentience. Of all the aliens we may find, none of them will have gossamer wings.

First of all, sentience or high intelligence might be able to come out of a path that includes the ability to fly, as far as I know. I was only saying that if the path taken by all of the earlier primates also lead to flight, then those primates would no longer be what turned into us, and we would not exist. However, that does not mean that whatever path those primates took did not also lead to intelligence as well as flight.

They might be intelligent, sentient, flying things, but they would not be us. That it, they wouldn't be flying humans.


Secondly, a path that does not lead to intelligence is not necessarily a "bad path." Intelligence is not the end goal of evolution. There are other ways besides sentience/intelligence for organisms to be highly successful through evolution.

The most successful (biologically speaking) species on Earth today have proliferated for millions of years without intelligence. The path those species took was a highly successful path, even if that path did not include the devolpment of what we would call sentience/intelligence.

I bet Homo sapiens go extinct through natural processes long before some very old species of lamprey eels, sharks, coelocanths, and sturgeons do.

a reply to: Purpapengus

What about magneto?

If humans were to be able to fly, they would only need bigger brains

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

But does the path to sentience mean the loss of certain traits? Being able to fly removes a good number of stresses that non-flying creatures face. Flying, in a way, makes a species "lazy". If it can eat, reproduce, and avoid predation all because of a pair of wings, why would it need sentience?

originally posted by: Lysergic

originally posted by: Purpapengus
Preamble: my car is in the shop and I have hours to kill. Never tried posting on my phone, diehard desktop fan. Full disclosure this is partly serious and partly trolly for my entertainment.

The actual thing: birds did not "start" as flying creatures, yes? Then what conditions allow a creature to go from ground dwelling to air dwelling?

I can understand that a feathered creature uses those feathers for a "speed boost" and further success leads to "improvements" on the idea but is their a specie specific starting point for it?

Can humans gain the gift do flight through multi-generational selective breeding or is it not possible for ma ape to turn bird? Are certain strains of animals locked into certain evolutionary trees?

its what dinosaurs turned into.

and now they think most dinosaurs were feathered.

They make that claim or promote that misleading impression because “Feathers are a little too perfect​—that’s the problem,”* as Yale University’s Manual of Ornithology—​Avian Structure and Function puts it. (*: for the evolutionary storyline if an appeal is made to the fossil record in an attempt to make it sound more plausible)

Feathers—A Marvel of Design (Awake!—2007)

...

Feathers Have Many Functions

...

“A Little Too Perfect”

Safe airplanes are the product of painstaking design, engineering, and craftsmanship. What about birds and feathers? In the absence of fossil evidence, controversy rages among evolutionists over how feathers originated. “Fundamentalist fervor,” “vitriolic name-calling,” and “paleontological passion” pervade the debate, states the magazine Science News. One evolutionary biologist, who organized a symposium on feather evolution, confessed: “I never dreamed that any scientific matter could possibly generate such bad personal behavior and such bitterness.” If feathers clearly evolved, why should discussions of the process become so vitriolic?

“Feathers are a little too perfect​—that’s the problem,” notes Yale University’s Manual of Ornithology—​Avian Structure and Function. Feathers give no indication that they ever needed improvement. In fact, the “earliest known fossil feather is so modern-looking as to be indistinguishable from the feathers of birds flying today.”* Yet, evolutionary theory teaches that feathers must be the result of gradual, cumulative change in earlier skin outgrowths. Moreover, “feathers could not have evolved without some plausible adaptive value in all of the intermediate steps,” says the Manual.

To put it simply, even in theory, evolution could not produce a feather unless each step in a long series of random, inheritable changes in feather structure significantly improved the animal’s chances for survival. Even many evolutionists find it a stretch of the imagination that something as complex and functionally perfect as a feather could arise in such a way.

Further, if feathers developed progressively over a long period of time, the fossil record should contain intermediate forms. But none have ever been found, only traces of fully formed feathers. “Unfortunately for evolutionary theory, feathers are very complicated,” states the Manual.

Avian Flight Demands More Than Feathers

...

[Footnote]

The fossil feather is from archaeopteryx, an extinct creature sometimes presented as a “missing link” in the line of descent to modern birds. Most paleontologists, however, no longer consider it an ancestor of modern birds.

FORGED “EVIDENCE”

Some fossil “evidence” that was once loudly hailed as proof that birds evolved from other creatures has since been shown to have been forged. In 1999, for instance, National Geographic magazine featured an article about a fossil of a feathered creature with a tail like a dinosaur’s. The magazine declared the creature to be “a true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds.” The fossil, however, turned out to be a forgery, a composite of the fossils of two different animals. In fact, no such “missing link” has ever been found.

...

But the tale continues to be popular in spite of this lack of evdence from the fossil record. “For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with the wholesome* [Or “healthful; beneficial.”] teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled.* [Or “to tell them what they want to hear.”] They will turn away from listening to the truth and give ttention to false stories.” (2 Timothy 4:3,4)