| | Archaeopteryx part 4- Scales to feathers
The idea that feathers have some kind of ability to evolve from
reptilian scales is patently absurd. One source that was mentioned
by one person in support of the theory stated that the
Archaeopteryx had feathers and scales. the author could have been
referring to the bird-type scales on the feet which are found on
all birds. But the problem is, these scales found on the
Archaeopteryx are bird scales and are totally different from the
reptile scales.
The following are treatments on the feather/scale subject.
"Adam and Evolution" Professor Michael Pitman copyright 1984.
page 42 Consider reptilian scales, bird feathers and fur. The
evolutionist holds that feathers and fur have evolved, divergently
from scales. But can such different skin-coverings be called
'homologous'?
For example, a feather and a scale develop from
different layers of skin and follow different development paths;
feather's greater structural complexity must reflect a more complex
genetic background. Yet the first known feather is entirely feather-
like, not scale-like.
The genes coding for each type of skin
covering must contain a sequence (subroutine) for keratin, because
each is made primarily of a form of keratin. Yet this subroutine
could well be integrated into quite a different overall set of genes.
If so, how could we explain their origin in terms of simple
inheritance from a common ancestor?
Page 222 All birds have feathers: no other organisms do.
Archaeopteryx has feathers. There exists absolutely no evidence for
the evolution of feathers. The guess that DNA coding for scales
'must have' changed to produce feathers is entirely unsubastantiated.
No intermediate scale-feather exists.
Feathers are aerodynamic beauties. They are light, the shaft
being hollow, and quite different from the scales which are coded on
to the feet alone of birds. They grow from capsules called 'pin
feathers' and become lifeless when full grown. A feather from wing
or tail is composed of a shaft with branches, called barbs, arranged
diagonally to the left and right. The barbs have branches to the
right and left called barbules. These overlap neighboring barbules
and are interlocked to eachother by little hooks and eyelets.
Some large feathers contain over a million barbules, with hooks
and eyelets to match, in perfect order. The feather is useless
without this interlocking mechanism which acts something like an
automatic zip fastener whose disturbance preening rearranges. When
outstretched in flight, the hooks cause the whole wing-assembly to
form a continuous sheet to catch the wind. The whole feather is a
cohesive, elastic and light structure, well designed to function as
an air-resistant surface. Sensory receptors record its precise
position.
Over both wings they effect the continuous variations and
fine adjustments of more than ten thousand tiny muscles attached to
the base of the feathers. Behold the parts of a precision instrument
of aerospace, unparalleled in design and workmanship by human
technology.
Feathers are in no way frayed or modified scales. They even
arise from a different layer of skin cells. Whence evolved the
pigment mechanism for coloring and patterning both plumage and egg?
In the latter colours are laid down in the oviduct, in whose walls no
pigment has been found. This indicates that the organization of
pigment and pattern is coded into then avian DNA. By a megamutation?../
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