How does evolution explain the Duck-Billed Platypus?
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Or Jerry Springer,or Tammy Faye Bakker.
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I remember the Mythbusters addressed this question in episode 8. I remember (vaguely) that it had to do with the frequencies of the sound; the echo sounds almost the same as the original quack and therefore both get confused in our hearing.\nHowever, that's not a scientific study. I've searched at GoogleScholar and although there are papers on the vocalizations of ducks, no one seems to have interest in their echoes. And I imagine that Science would not publish it either :-P
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This idea that apes are still around, so we couldn't have evolved from them is a surprisingly common argument that reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor. The deeper error is that this objection is tantamount to asking, “If children descended from adults, why are there still adults?” New species evolve by splintering off from established ones, when populations of organisms become isolated from the main branch of their family and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. The parent species may survive indefinitely thereafter, or it may become extinct.\n\nSome Creationists say that evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils—creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance. Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups. One of the most famous fossils of all time is Archaeopteryx, which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock’s worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus. Whales had four-legged ancestors that walked on land, and creatures known as Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus helped to make that transition [see “The Mammals That Conquered the Seas,” by Kate Wong; Scientific American, May]. Fossil seashells trace the evolution of various mollusks through millions of years. Perhaps 20 or more hominids (not all of them our ancestors) fill the gap between Lucy the australopithecine and modern humans. Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds—it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two. These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record. Nevertheless, evolutionists can cite further supportive evidence from molecular biology. All organisms share most of the same genes, but as evolution predicts, the structures of these genes and their products diverge among species, in keeping with their evolutionary relationships. Geneticists speak of the “molecular clock” that records the passage of time. These molecular data also show how various organisms are transitional within evolution.\n\nSpeciation is probably fairly rare and in many cases might take centuries. Furthermore, recognizing a new species during a formative stage can be difficult, because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species. The most widely used definition, Mayr’s Biological Species Concept, recognizes a species as a distinct community of reproductively isolated populations—sets of organisms that normally do not or cannot breed outside their community. In practice, this standard can be difficult to apply to organisms isolated by distance or terrain or to plants (and, of course, fossils do not breed). Biologists therefore usually use organisms’ physical and behavioral traits as clues to their species membership. Nevertheless, the scientific literature does contain reports of apparent speciation events in plants, insects and worms. In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection—for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits—and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders. For example, William R. Rice of the Univer
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>>>> Are some of todays birds direct descendants of dinosaurs?\n\nNo, ALL of todays birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. It would be impossible for just some of them to be descendants.\n\n>>>>one example?\n\n\nAn example of what? An example of a bird?\nA crimson macaw.\nThat's a good example of a bird. You can defintitely tell it's a bird. Beak, two scaly legs, feathers. Yep, a crimson macaw is a bird all right.
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The better question is, "if evolution is true... what cause some of the monkeys to evolve and the others to stay the same?
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Yeah, all ducks have webbed feet, although in some species the webbing isn't as complete and can be harder to see.\n\nBut the birds you saw are almost certainly coots. Your description fits them to a 'T' in both size, colouration and behaviour. Coots are vicious greedy little buggers.\n\nHave a look at the links below to see if they look familiar
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Yes, or at least from some predatory archosaurs. There are currently two strong theories, each with their supporters: birds are dinosaurs (Padian, Chiappe, etc.), or birds are non-dinosaur archosaurs (Feduccia).\n\nIf they evolved within the Dinosauria, as much evidence seems to show (see link), then according to a cladistic classification they ARE dinosaurs (the same way that we are Sarcopterygians, even if we're not fish-like anymore).
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It doesn't work like that.  \n\nWe're going to have to back up a long ways so you can understand first how evolution works, then I can answer your question.\n\nOkay.  The dinosaurs didn't "turn into" birds.  Most of them died out due to massive climate changes that took millions of years.  Some smaller dinosaur species gradually, again over millions of years, evolved into avians.  \n\nOther reptiles are still around today, but in forms that can effetively compete with mammals, all of which started from a small rodent-like creature that coexisted with the dinosaurs.  After the dinos died out, this mammal evolved into the millions of mammalian species we see today, again over a period of perhaps 200 million years.\n\nSome of these mammals evolved into primates; some of these primates evolved into hominids, and some hominids evolved into homo sapiens.  The rest died out because they could not effectively compete against existing species.  "Survival of the Fittest" and all that.  Many primate species survived to evolve into the thousands of different kinds of primates we see today.\n\nIt's actually quite elegant, when you see the pattern clearly.
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“Ape-Men”—What Were They?\n\nFOR many years there have been reports that the fossil remains of apelike humans have been found. Scientific literature abounds with artists’ renderings of such creatures. Are these the evolutionary transitions between beast and man? Are “ape-men” our ancestors? Evolutionary scientists claim that they are. That is why we often read expressions such as this article title in a science magazine: “How Ape Became Man.”1\n\n2 True, some evolutionists do not feel that these theoretical ancestors of man should rightly be called “apes.” Even so, some of their colleagues are not so exacting.2 Stephen Jay Gould says: “People . . . evolved from apelike ancestors.”3 And George Gaylord Simpson stated: “The common ancestor would certainly be called an ape or a monkey in popular speech by anybody who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors were apes or monkeys.”4\n\n3 Why is the fossil record so important in the effort to document the existence of apelike ancestors for humankind? Because today’s living world has nothing in it to support the idea. As shown in Chapter 6, there is an enormous gulf between humans and any animals existing today, including the ape family. Hence, since the living world does not provide a link between man and ape, it was hoped that the fossil record would.\n\n4 From the standpoint of evolution, the obvious gulf between man and ape today is strange. Evolutionary theory holds that as animals progressed up the evolutionary scale, they became more capable of surviving. Why, then, is the “inferior” ape family still in existence, but not a single one of the presumed intermediate forms, which were supposed to be more advanced in evolution? Today we see chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, but no “ape-men.” Does it seem likely that every one of the more recent and supposedly more advanced “links” between apelike creatures and modern man should have become extinct, but not the lower apes?\n\nHow Much Fossil Evidence?\n\n5 From the accounts in scientific literature, in museum displays and on television, it would seem that surely there must be abundant evidence that humans evolved from apelike creatures. Is this really so? For instance, what fossil evidence was there of this in Darwin’s day? Was it such evidence that encouraged him to formulate his theory?\n\n6 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists informs us: “The early theories of human evolution are really very odd, if one stops to look at them. David Pilbeam has described the early theories as ‘fossil-free.’ That is, here were theories about human evolution that one would think would require some fossil evidence, but in fact there were either so few fossils that they exerted no influence on the theory, or there were no fossils at all. So between man’s supposed closest relatives and the early human fossils, there was only the imagination of nineteenth century scientists.” This scientific publication shows why: “People wanted to believe in evolution, human evolution, and this affected the results of their work.”5\n\n7 After more than a century of searching, how much fossil evidence is there of “ape-men”? Richard Leakey stated: “Those working in this field have so little evidence upon which to base their conclusions that it is necessary for them frequently to change their conclusions.”6 New Scientist commented: “Judged by the amount of evidence upon which it is based, the study of fossil man hardly deserves to be more than a sub-discipline of palaeontology or anthropology. . . . the collection is so tantalisingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmentary and inconclusive.”7\n\n8 Similarly, the book Origins admits: “As we move farther along the path of evolution towards humans the going becomes distinctly uncertain, again owing to the paucity of fossil evidence.”8 Science magazine adds: “The primary scie
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A team made up of a geneticist, philosopher and chicken farmer claim to have found an answer. It was the egg.\n\nPut simply, the reason is down to the fact that genetic material does not change during an animal's life.\n\nTherefore the first bird that evolved into what we would call a chicken, probably in prehistoric times, must have first existed as an embryo inside an egg.\n\nProfessor John Brookfield, a specialist in evolutionary genetics at the University of Nottingham, told the UK Press Association the pecking order was clear.\n\nThe living organism inside the eggshell would have had the same DNA as the chicken it would develop into, he said.\n\n"Therefore, the first living thing which we could say unequivocally was a member of the species would be this first egg," he added. "So, I would conclude that the egg came first."\n\nThe same conclusion was reached by his fellow "eggsperts" Professor David Papineau, of King's College London, and poultry farmer Charles Bourns.\n\nMr Papineau, an expert in the philosophy of science, agreed that the first chicken came from an egg and that proves there were chicken eggs before chickens.\n\nHe told PA people were mistaken if they argued that the mutant egg belonged to the "non-chicken" bird parents.\n\n"I would argue it is a chicken egg if it has a chicken in it," he said.\n\n"If a kangaroo laid an egg from which an ostrich hatched, that would surely be an ostrich egg, not a kangaroo egg."\n\nBourns, chairman of trade body Great British Chicken, said he was also firmly in the pro-egg camp.\n\nHe said: "Eggs were around long before the first chicken arrived. Of course, they may not have been chicken eggs as we see them today, but they were eggs."
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I'd like to think that you're asking this question with an earnest wish to get good informative answers. If that is the case, I invite you to see the link that Kurdiatcha left, or to do a web search for the term, or else, to read some good Evolution textbooks such as Ridley's "Evolution" or Freeman & Herron's "Evolutionary analysis", or Futuyma, or Stephen Jay Gould if you want something more entertaining.\nIf that is not the case, I'm not bothering anymore *sigh*
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evolution. Or perhaps speciation.
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Whoa! slow down, there is fossil evidence a transition from reptiles and birds. Most famously Archeopteryx with reptilian skull, teeth, digits, claws, vertebrae, sternum, ribs, pelvis, tail, and mainly unfused bones, and a few bird traits like a wishbone, wings and feathers!! In older sediments, there are theropod dinosaurs with skeletal similarities to Archeopteryx. In younger sediments, there are several fossils with more birds-like traits, such as Sinornis and Shenzhouraptor and dozens more (wikipedia "fossil birds").\n\nFossils of scales and feathers are very very rarely preserved. Imprints of the Archeopteryx feathers are only preserved because the fossils are embedded in very rare, very fine limestone that used to be used in lithography. It is unreasonable to demand fossil evidence of a transition between scales and feathers. That said, there are several theropod fossils with feathers that have been recently discovered in a fine Chinese deposit, things like Sinosauropteryx, Caudipteryx and Beipiaosaurus.\n\nBut sure, every detail of the the transition from reptiles to birds isn't documented. Other than demanding an excessive amount of evidence, I really don't know what arguments you can use, I don't think there are any true ones. But you might find some convincing sounding ones on Creationist propaganda websites. It depends on your audience.
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Nobody really knows, but the most convincing explanation I have seen is that parrots evolved as desert species. That might seem strange to people who are used to viewing parrots as animals of tropical rainforests but even today by far the greatest diversity of parrots is found in arid and semi-arid regions of Australia. Certainly the parrot beak and claw arrangements seem ideally suited to hard, dry seeds more common to arid regions than to he soft fruits of tropical forests.\n\nMany desert animals have anomalously long lifespans. That is because reproduction in desert regions is unpredictable. Rainfall varies so much that animals may only be able successfully reproduce every 5 years, or even less.  That is the situation today for many parrot species in Australia.\n\nThe first point to appreciate is that mating competition in male birds is incredibly stressful and shortens their lifespans markedly. In predictable environments that doesn’t matter because it doesn’t really matter how young a male bird dies. If every clutch survives it is more profitable for a male to mate with 20 females every year and die in 5 years than to mate with just one female every year and live for 20 years. \n\nHowever in unpredictable arid environments it is entirely possible that every single female mated with will fail to raise a clutch over an entire five year period. In such an environment a male that stresses himself by trying to be polygamous could easily die without leaving any offspring at all. With that sort of failure rate it become more advantageous for the males to become monogamous and survive for long periods than to be polygamous and survive for short periods. Although monogamous mate with fewer females they still produce far more young.\n\nWith reproductive opportunities so uncertain it becomes beneficial for a species to have longer lifespans. Birds of more benevolent climates can afford to gamble everything on a five years of reproductive success before dying but when  there is no certainty of raising even one successful clutch in that five year period such a strategy is suicidal.\n\nI guess the main to point to bear in mind is that reproductive potential is not the same as reproductive success, in fact the two are only tangentially related. While budgerigars may have a reproductive potentially of 2 young every year they never manage that in the wild.\n\n\nIt has been suggested that the same ancestral environmental uncertainty is the reason why so many waterfowl are monogamous and long-lived. Many waterfowl can only breed when rivers or wetlands flood and such floods may be many years apart. As with desert animals that makes breeding opportunities extremely sporadic and puts pressure on males to evolve long term commitments and long lifespans.
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Probably cause gorillas are stronger than ducks.
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Penguins, like other flightless birds (ostriches and emus) evolved from birds that could fly.\n\n65 million years ago the ancestors of today's penguins flew over the ocean and dove down into the water for food.\n\nOver millions of years, their hollow bones became solid and they could no longer lift themselves out of the water to fly. But, their heavier bones made is easier for them to dive down into the water.
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Pigs are generalists, tend to adapt well to a feral condition, and likely have a good chance of surviving the current human-induced mass extinction event.  In a hypothetical future time after humans, there will probably be an absence of large animals and they will be much better candidates for getting large instead of getting smaller (niches better filled by rodents and other smaller creatures).\n\nFlight has only evolved four times.  It's likely to evolve again, but the odds would seem best in an arboreal animal rather than a large, slow herbivore/omnivore.  Unless they become bipedal and go one of the hypothesized possibilities for birds: jumping and flapping after flying insects, flight in pigs would be best accomplished through a tree-climbing intermediate.  If pigs could climb, evolve to really get specialized for that mode of life they may have a chance.  It's not a big step to add streches of skin to allow for gliding.  It is a big step to go from there to powered flight, but it's happened more than once.\n\nOverall I'd say if they outlive humans (not too unlikely), survive a subsequent mass extinction or two that can eliminate the arboreal competition (less likely as I suspect they'd get bigger and more specialized making their chances even worse), evolve into an active arboreal niche (inflexible hoofs are no small problem), and evolve gliding (not too impossible at that point), then we could get flight.  \n\nMy guess is if it happens (it won't) it could take as little as 20 million years.