Last night I picked up Gerhard Heilmann's The Origin of Birds and rediscovered a passage that is one of my favorites in the whole of paleontological literature. Addressing an absurd hypothesis for the origins of birds (and flight), Heilmann sarcastically tears down the fanciful speculation and provides a wise warning about books written by authors that love to puff themselves up with affiliations to associations;
Before proceeding, we take out one of the books accompanying us on our expedition. The title is "Extinct Animals" (London 1909), and, on opening it we happen to catch sight of a rather astonishing passage, p. 202: "In fact it is now certain that reptiles similar to the Iguanodon were the stock from which birds have been derived, the front limb having become probably first a swimming flipper or paddle, and then later an organ for beating the air and raising the creature out of the water for a brief flight. From such a beginning came the feather-bearing wing of modern birds."
Dear me! How evident! we exclaim. The origin and evolution of the entire class of birds presented in a nutshell, and not the slightest doubt as to the correctness of the conclusion: "In fact it is now certain." Hands off! All further investigations superfluous; we may just as well pack up again.
But are we really justified in relying upon our authority? we muse, turning to the title page, bearing the author's name. We are struck with awe as we read: "E. Ray Lankester, M.A., LL. D., K.C.B., F.R.S., Late Director of the Natural History Department of the British Museum; Correspondent of the Institute of France." And in the preface we further read: "This volume is a corrected shorthand report of the course of lectures adapted to a juvenile audience given by me at the Royal Institution, London."
Well, then there can be no doubt whatever. No scientist, of course, would tell anybody, especially young people, what was not absolutely reliable. A pity, though, that he has not furnished us with an illustration, too, of this interesting process of evolution; it would have been a grateful task to draw the reptile "similar to the Iguanodon," standing half-way in water, waving its paddle-like organs in the air, "raising the creature out of the water for a brief flight."
To be fair, "standing half-way in water" is not mentioned and probably not meant in the original account, and Iguanodon was just the default bipedal dinosaur at the time, so it's not as stupid as it looks like.
Well, "in fact it is now certain" is of course as stupid as it looks like...
Oh, wait. "In fact it is now certain" only applies to "reptiles similar to the Iguanodon", i. e. bipedal dinosaurs, being bird ancestors. That was actually correct, if perhaps slightly overconfident for 1909. The rest is dampened by "probably".