I swear that there are times when I don’t understand scientists. I mean, these are learned individuals, making observations of the world, and hypothesizing things which can be tested by experiment.
OK, so, fine. The “big news” in paleontology lately has been that many dinosaurs were probably feathered. There’s a huge debate about how feathering first occurred, and why would it have given an advantage, etc.
One of the main arguments against the evolution of feathering is that “half a wing” is not useful. That is, a bird can fly because it has fully-feathered wings, but if it only had half a wing (as the structures for flight were evolving), it would be useless.
Well, I’m here to tell you that apparently none of the paleontologists or anti-evolution crackpots ever raised chickens.
We’ve had the chicks for about a week now. They’re less than 10 days old. They are still tiny, way smaller than a tennis ball. Each of them has about 4 or 5 feathers out at the tips of the wings, that look a little like fingers when they stretch out. Other than that, they are covered with down.
The chicks can all leap (and flutter) about 5 times their body length.
It is obvious to me that even the tiny amount of feathering that they have is significantly enhancing their ability to get from point A to point B. The difference between a “hop” and a “flutter-hop” would be the difference between catching that insect or not. It would be a huge evolutionary advantage. Add in the insulative powers of feathers, and this all seems pretty simple to me.
So why hasn’t anybody mentioned this before? I mean, humans have been keeping chickens (and other birds) for thousands of years. Any chicken farmer who spent 5 minutes looking at 10-day-old chicks would be able to tell you that even “half a wing” (that is, even 5 feathers or so) changes everything.
It seems impossible to me that I’m the only one who’s noticed this.