Archaeopteryx scales To Feathe
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 featherlike, 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?