…and this is a 
Bat wings and mouse feet
Category: Development • Evolution
Posted on: May 18, 2008 4:02 PM, by PZ Myers
You may recall that a while back I mentioned how Jerry Coyne praised some work on bat evo-devo. I also said that I was going to have to write that paper up sometime. The bad news: I haven't written it up for the blog. The good news: I did write it up for a future Seed column. The better news: Stephen Matheson has a summary right now, so you don't have to wait for my column to come out.
You should still subscribe anyway. It's pretty on shiny paper.
Life Science
Comments
And, of course, all vertebrate wings are modified forelimbs of their direct ancestors.
You might think the "designer" has a foot fetish. But that doesn't explain it either, since it only likes to turn mammal feet/legs into mammal wings, dinosaur feet/legs into bird wings, and similar with pterosaur wings.
I think I see why they don't want to identify the designer. They'd be shown to be worshipping a defective god having extremely strange cognitive and/or psychological problems.
Glen D
tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 18, 2008 4:20 PM
We don't care about the biology or the bats, how does The Joker fit into all of this?
Posted by: Steve Ulven | May 18, 2008 4:32 PM
It's maybe worth noting, too, that recently found bat fossils indicate that flying developed before sonar in bats.
In the sense of mosaic evolution, then, we have an important transitional form, although, as with archaeopteryx, we don't have a transitional form of flying (even if it's clear that archaeopteryx was as predicted by evolution, not as well adapted to flight as much later birds are). With bats, fossils of transitionals might be completely impossible to find, since the transition to flight (at least gliding) seems like it may have been very rapid
Anyway, it looks like it's going to be an informative article.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 18, 2008 4:38 PM
PZ - I just saw this cartoon and immediately thought of you.
Check it out!
http://www.flowgo.com/funny/3204_thanks-all-hard-work.html
Posted by: Paguroidea | May 18, 2008 5:36 PM
Nice! Really, that's all I can say. I've always loved bats. Speaking of which, has there been any more news about the mysterious "white-nose plague" that's been afflicting bats in New England?
Posted by: Joe Z. | May 18, 2008 6:30 PM
Glen,
A while back I pondered the fact that the god of the bible appears to suffer some sort of dissociative identity disorder. That, rather amusingly, leads the obvious conclusion that christians and jews needs must be polytheists.
Posted by: Sili | May 18, 2008 6:36 PM
Well they say, "follow the evidence."
While one must admit that they'd never arrive at a designer by following the evidence, once they've snuck it into science they'd best admit that the designer has serious problems, or it's all due to some weird committee of gods.
So, while we can't find god via science, they would have to admit a fucked-up god as soon as they decided that god is responsible for life. ID tells the non-theist nothing then, it just puts the theist in a serious bind.
Or iow, I think it's true that many theists really do like evolution for religious reasons, for although theodicy remains a problem for all believers in a beneficent god, at least evolution absolves god of direct responsibility for great evil and stupidity.
While we recognize that god has the only excuse possible for a deity, he actually is not present in the universe according to the evidence, and apparently never has been.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 18, 2008 7:32 PM
I hear there's some caffeine fortified drink which reportedly causes the drinkers to sport wings which appear to be non-homologous to forearms. I assume it's simply a forced expression of those genes much like the mouse with the ear on it's back. In any case the stuff would clearly be best avoided... not only because that's creepy but because the stuff tastes like crap.
Posted by: Tatarize | May 19, 2008 5:12 AM
Evolution does point out certain weaknesses in their good books though..
Even if we were to ignore geo-time, the authors (Edited by theo?!)seem to fuck up by as soon as day four in their first novell.. That is, if we were to "believe" recent evolutionary hypothesis.
Then again, no devine proof for that, is there?
Nice bat post!!!
Posted by: Rijkswaanvijand | May 19, 2008 9:35 AM
I hear there's some caffeine fortified drink which reportedly causes the drinkers to sport wings which appear to be non-homologous to forearms. I assume it's simply a forced expression of those genes much like the mouse with the ear on it's back.
:) I'm going for the Hox genes on the wings, but I'm almost 99% positive that mouse was just a I.D. scam by some very creative plastic surgeons with a cartilage fetish.
Posted by: LARA | May 19, 2008 2:00 PM
I guess this fits best here; from the "What good is half a wing?" files:
"The fish was completely airborne for 45 seconds."
Posted by: Sili | May 20, 2008 9:40 AM