From: rennie@MBnet.MB.CA (Murray Rennie)
Subject: Feral Flying Chicken
Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 19:17:46 -0400

Hello...

I'm responding to your call for words for the "Ted Page".  The following
is a little something for the "Flying Feral Chicken" section.  It's mainly
a rehash of Ted's chicken example, and my old posts.  Whether its 
acceptable for the Ted page is something else... :).  If you have time,
I wouldn't mind creative critisism, as its been a while since I wrote
anything even remotely scholarly, and I'm rusty.

Feral Chickens and All That

Note: In the following, where you see a paragraph start with "TH>", this is from Ted Holden's web page on the "proto_bird".

First thing that must be said is that the proto-bird referred to here is NOT the proto-bird that evolutionists postulate. It is the Tedolutional proto-bird, which is interpreted by Ted in a Tedolutional context. As such, there is quite a difference between it and reality. The scientific minded people on T.O. have done an very good job in pointing out the errors in Ted's proto-bird example. Quite a few laymen and laywomen have also pointed out errors in Ted'd example. Ted, however, ignored these critizisms for the most part, as this page from his web site is a rehash of his argument. So I, as a layman, will attempt to point out the errors in this example as I see them.

TH> The Proto Bird is actually some sort of a velociraptor which early on embarked upon an evolutionary journey towards birdhood.

This is the first problem. Ted says the ancestor of the birds was a velociraptor of some sort. Now, raptors were a Cretaceous dinosaur. The first bird-like dinosaur that science recognised as a possible bird ancestor was the Archeopteryx. The Archeopteryx was a Jurrasic animal. Since it had already well defined bird features, its family started it "journey" to birdhood before the raptors ever came on the sceen.

There is even debate that the partial fossil PROTO-AVIS is an earlier ancestor of the birds. Proto-avis was a late Triassic animal and, if found to be ancestral to the birds, existed LONG before the velociraptors.

In case you get Eoraptor mixed up with the velociraptors; eoraptor was an early Trassic dinosaur postulated to be one of the ancestors of all the dinosaurs, or at least the theropods.

Stike one against Ted. He got the probable ancestor species wrong, by about 30 million years at least.

TH> This poor little creature is supposed to have somehow survived a multi-thousand generation process during which it had neither functional arms, nor functional wings, during which it had enough flight feathers to look weird and be laughed at, but not enough to fly, a light enough bone structure to be kicked around on beaches, but not light enough to fly, and was generally an outcast, pariah, ugly duckling, and effortlessly free meal for every predator which ever saw it for 1000s of generations before it ever succeeded and flew.

Here Tedolution asserts that a limb, and by extension any piece of anatomy can have one, and only one, function for which it is optiomally designed. If this piece of anatomy is needed for something else, it must change to be optiomally designed for its new function. Until it gets to this new design, its useless. This, of course, rules out any piece of anatomy having more than one function at any one time.

However, this is not the case, as some examples I will provide later should show. Also, these examples will hopefully show that the "proto-bird" would be as helpless as Tedolution would have you believe.

TH> An idea of how hard it would truly be for "proto-bird" (TM) to make it to flying-bird status can be gotten from the case of the escaped chicken. The escaped (or 'feral') chicken is where the proto bird supposedly was on the last day of his journey before he made it.

This is, of course, a Tedolutional assertion. The chicken is a bird that makes its home mainly on the ground. In this way its similar to the Turkey or the Grouse. It is not a "proto-bird" in the sense Ted is trying to convey, but a Full-Fledged-Bird (tm).

TH> Consider that man raises chickens in gigantic abundance, and that on many farms, these are not even caged. Consider the numbers of such chickens which must have escaped in all of recorded history; look in the sky overhead: where are all of their wild-living descendants??

This is an interesting question. There are two answers to this. One, there are still living wild relatives of the domestic chicken still extant in South-east Asia. They apparently look and act like the chickens you or I would recognise. Two, there are "feral" chickens, derived from domestic stock, living in the South of the U.S.

TH> Why are there no wild chickens in the skies above us?? They've got wings, tails, and flight feathers, and the whole nine yards. In their domestic state, they can fly albeit badly; they are entirely similar to what you might expect of an evolutionist's proto-bird, in the final stage of evolving into a flight-worthy condition. Moreover, they are starting from a base of billions while "proto bird" was starting from a much smaller base.

TH> According to evolutionist dogma, at least a few of these should very quickly finish evolving back into something like a normal flying bird, once having escaped, and then the progeny of those few should very quickly fill the skies.

One of the tenets of Tedolution is that normal flight is the ultimate "survival" attribute for birds; therefore this is the natural goal of the Tedolutional process. This, however, does not answer the question of what constitues a "normal flight". Is "normal flying" gliding like an albatross, or soaring like an Eagle, or hovering like a hummingbird, or simple flight like the sparrow, or the "flight" of the penguin (by which I mean that the penguin "flies" in a different medium)? This also does not take into account the non-flying birds like the osterich or emu, which seem to be surviving quite well in their non-flying state.

TH> But the sky holds no wild chickens. In real life, against real settings, real predators, real conditions, the imperfect flight features are fatal burdons, and the bad flying capabilities do not suffice to save them.

Ted stated above that domestic chickens fly "albeit badly". As Tedolution has yet to explain what "normal flight" is, we have no way to judge what flying "badly" means. This same point holds for the "imperfect flight feathers". As we have seen, there are many forms of bird flight. An "imperfect flight feather" for one form could be the "perfect flight feather" for another.

As for the feral chicken holding its own in the real world, this is an assertion made by Ted, and has yet to be backed up. However, in the real world the chicken is quite capable of holding its own.

The central point of Ted thesis is that feral chickens cannot fly. However, Ted has admitted that domestic chickens can fly, so I ask him if domestic chickens can fly, why can't "feral chickens". And as other posters have pointed out, they can fly. They don't soar like eagles, but they fly. And this flying level suffices for them. They only need to fly as high or as far as they need to get away from predators. Also, a chicken can stun its predators with its wings. This stunning lasts long enough for the chicken to fly away or up. This I know from personal experience. And the rooster have a nasty spur on each leg, which may not kill an attacking prdator, but could discourage it enough to leave. So in real life conditions against real predators, the chicken can hold its own.

TH> Thus we see that "proto-bird" (TM) not only couldn't make it the entire journey which he is supposed to have, he couldn't even make it the last yard if we spotted him the thousand miles minus the yard.

This Tedolutional tenet falls flat when you stop to consider that the chicken has no need to develop eagle-like flight, or albatross-like flight, or even ostrich-like non-flight. Simply having Tedolution state as much, as Ted is doing, is not enough.

This, of course, helps blows Tedolutions "proto-bird" argument out of the air. He has not proved that feral chickens MUST "re-aquire" what he calls "normal fly skills". As for Evolutions theory on the origins of birds, I direct you to the T.O. Faq's, as this article deals with Tedolution .

TH> Proto-bird (TM) is supposed to have evolved into birdhood via a process which lasted 10,000 generations during which, of course, he had front appendages which were not useful for running, jumping, flying, grasping prey, or anything else since they were in a process of transition while, presumably, living on welfare for 10,000 generations in the days of Alley Oop. That's really pretty stupid, when you think about it.

What is pretty stupid is that Ted hangs onto this line. He has been shown examples of where his logic fails, but he insists on holding onto Tedolutional dogma. Here are the example I promised earlier, taken from some of my posts to Ted.

Ted, if this is how you view it, how useful is the limb in the n-1 generation? This is the generation immediately before the generation where the limb fully aquires its new function.

Here I bring up Ted's favorite creature: Splifford The Bat. We've all seen Splifford, splayed at the bottom of about half of Ted's posts. I find it particularly ironic that Ted's "mascot" can be used as an example against Tedolution.

Splifford's wing is interesting. Take a look at it. It's a hand with skin stretched between the fingers. So, what does that make it? A wing, or a hand with strange webbing? Ted has never really told us. In any case, according to Tedolution, the bats forelimbs should be crippled, and bats hard pressed to survive. However, this is not the case. Bats can fly quite well with its wings. And this is true flight, not gliding. In addition, the bats can use said limbs for walking and climbing. Hardly a crippled creature.

Tedolution seems to postulate that an organ or limb in "transition" need be "dysfuntional" and therefore a "hinderence" to the animal in question. I'm asking Ted to bring forth proof for this rather absurd assertion.

For this example I will use Ted favorite mascot: Splifford the Bat. Now, Ted says that a limb that was once used for walking or grasping that one day decides to become a wing. For the next n number of generations this limb is ABSOLUTLY USELESS for anything until the magical day its a wing. I would like Ted to explain the utility of such a limb in the n-1 generation, but I digress. A corrollory of this is that a limb or organ cannot have duel purpose.

Back to Spliffy. Take a look at his wings. You will note that it is a hand with five recognizable fingers. It also has skin stretched between the fingers. Now is this a wing, or a limb in transistion to BEING a wing? Thats for you to judge. But the bats wing has more than one function. It is a wing, allowing the bat true flight, making it the only truly flying mammal. The wing also allows the bat to walk on the ground, as well as climbs vertical surfaces. Does this make it a foot or hand, instead of a wing; or is it a limb in transition? Tedolution would say the bats wing is in transition, since it does not have a single use i.e. ONLY as a wing or ONLY as a hand. Therefore, in Tedolution, the bat's wing should be dysfunctional and drag the poor helpless bat to its doom. Poor Spliffy.

Or consider the seal, which Wayne Throop dredged up. Look at its flippers. These limbs are of great utility in the sea, but they also allow the seal to move around on land. Not like a gazelle or a human, but the seal can get around on land. Now, are these limbs fully flippers? Tedolution would say no, since flippers could only be used EXCLUSIVELY in the sea to steer the animal. Since these limbs can be used on land, they are therefore transitional between leg and flipper. Therefore, the animal in question should be crippled with dysfunctional front limbs, and an easy mark for any predator who happened along. Now I ask you, does a seal look or ACT dysfunctional?

I recently had pointed out to me an example involving the the human arm and hand. Now most of us have these appendeges and we know that they are used for: hands for manipulating, and arms for manipulating/lifting/moving. Since they each have an apparently well defined function, they should be the perfect Tedolutionist limb. However, how many of you swim? How many of you do the backstroke or the breaststroke? Here the hand and arm together act as a means of PROPULSION and STEERING, not manipulation. So apparently this duel functioned limb should be rendered dysfunctional until it can decide what function it wants to do, according to Tedolution. As we can see from experience, the arm is quite useful and far from dysfunctional.

Hopefully, the above has briefly pointed out what problems I have with Tedolutional example of the Feral Chicken. As a person whose family raised chickens I know full well what those (admittedly stupid) birds are capable of. The example ignores postings from other people who pointed out the flaws in it, making no attempt to address them. Tedolution's concept of the final goal of birds (i.e. flight) is insufficiently supported in the example, and appears to ignore those birds that do not fly and have survived quite well. Tedolution's explaination of change also appears to me quite shallow, as it postulate a single use for a limb or organ. From experience, I know that that this isn't so, so I question the process that Tedolution has based on this assumption. From this I conclude for myself that the Flying Feral Chicken example is not valid.

"Why post evidence, when I can simply post lies,
and avoid all de facts, unlike dem t.o. guys."

So Ted boot up, and he post de posts,
and he write dem stories, "how can I b.s. de most?"
his mind be fried, he spew dat pollution,
an' all he keep talkin' 'bout is TEDOLUTION...

Poem Copyright © 1995, David Iain Greig (greig@ediacara.org)