Darwinism and pop culture: Birds are really dinosaurs! now doubted

According to Science Daily,

Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009) — Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight – and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.

The conclusions add to other evolving evidence that may finally force many paleontologists to reconsider their long-held belief that modern birds are the direct descendants of ancient, meat-eating dinosaurs, OSU researchers say.

"It's really kind of amazing that after centuries of studying birds and flight we still didn't understand a basic aspect of bird biology," said John Ruben, an OSU professor of zoology. "This discovery probably means that birds evolved on a parallel path alongside dinosaurs, starting that process before most dinosaur species even existed."

I'm kind of disappointed, because I had always hoped that birds were descended from dinosaurs. It would mean that they never really died out. But they did. And it has become permissible to say so.

The fun part is that - if this finding holds up - all the dinobird nonsense fronted by pop science mags as The Latest Truth is fishwrap. And Feduccia, long a sort of "denialist" in the fishwraps for doubting the popular legend, is vindicated.

I always say that - outside of mathematics - a proposition that can't be denied can't be believed either.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: