“The theory that birds are the equivalent of living dinosaurs and that dinosaurs were feathered is so full of holes that the creationists have jumped all over it, using the evolutionary nonsense of ‘dinosaurian science’ as evidence against the theory of evolution,” he said.
“To paraphrase one such individual, ‘This isn't science . . . This is comic relief.’” -->(!!!)<--

Genetic Similarity Between Birds and Crocodiles

I found the article (click) on birds and crocodiles and the 93% similarity between alligator and crocodiles. Very interesting research. What is the approximate percentage of similarity between bird and crocodile genome?

This burning question is answered by the persons who actually did whole genome alignments between the crocodilians and several birds. Explanations which include Benedict Paten, David Ray and Joel Armstrong, which goes a little deeper than the whole genome alignments on the alligator and crocodile.

On to estimating just how similar any given bird vs. a crocodilian might be... what is the average percent identity for crocs vs. birds?

BENEDICT: The math answer is to take the neutral rate tree from the ancient repeats (it's in the paper), sum the branch lengths along the path between the two genomes of interest and reverse the multiple substitutions per site correction calculation. You should get close to the genome wide % identity between your chosen pair of genomes.
Alternatively, you could directly count from the genome alignment, which is available (see the supplementary materials). The alignment is in HAL format, and I believe you can calculate this using the HAL stats command
(see (click)).
JOEL: We did a count of the genome-wide % ID of all genomes to the crocodile genome using our alignment a while ago.
The rate varies somewhat between birds, but for example, chicken has 61.7% identity with crocodile according to our alignment. This is a bit higher than what you would expect given the distance in the 4d site tree: the crocodile-chicken distance is 0.688, which if my math is right, works out to about 55% expected identity. The difference is due to the 4d rate being a neutral rate, while a significant portion of the aligned bases between chicken and crocodile are conserved.

Thanks. I'm going to safely assume then, that chickens actually do bear a closer relationship with crocodiles (61.7%) than T-Rex (58%).
Thank you for answering that question. There is absolutely nothing substantial on the web about the actual percentage of DNA similarity between Chickens and Crocodiles.

"...About 60 percent of chicken genes correspond to a similar human gene. However, researchers uncovered more small sequence differences between corresponding pairs of chicken and human genes, which are 75 percent identical on average, than between rodent and human gene pairs, which are 88 percent identical on average. Differences between human and chicken genes were not uniform across the board, however. Chicken genes involved in the cell's basic structure and function showed more sequence similarity with human genes than did those implicated in reproduction, immune response and adaptation to the environment."
(click) and (click)

So, in some places chickens are closer in their genetic relation with humans than either t. rex or even crocodiles.

Based on genetic evidence, it really is difficult to make such a drastic conclusion that "chickens definitively evolved from T. Rex".

"...About 60 percent of chicken genes correspond to a similar human gene."
"...chicken has 61.7% identity with crocodile according to our alignment."
"...many pieces of the protein (t. rex) they came up with a number of 58% sequence identity (with chicken)..."

And some conclude the chicken is more related to the T. Rex, than the crocodile or the mammal. In what alternative mathematical reality?

All that fuss about "life began on Mars," well that explains the dinosaur extinction too. They went home.

They're barely related to anything known on this earth. The genetic evidence clinches it.

Not kidding.

Don't say I didn't tell you so.

Now, you know.

There is a lot of misleading information out there. Notice the emphasis on the word, "closest living relative," as if something extinct, were even closer.

That's why I contacted the dudes who sequenced the crocodile genomes. They had the Alligator vs. Crocodiles genome sequencing (determining 93% similarity) so what was the similarity between Crocodiles and Birds?!

Crocodilia
"They appeared 83.5 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage) and are the closest living relatives of birds..."
(click)

Are they implying dinosaurs were even closer than crocodiles?

The crocodile is the "closest living AND EXTINCT relative of birds."
(Considering the fact that Crocodile DNA has changed very little over the past 100 million years.)

EXTINCT dinosaur: 58% genetic similarity to a chicken.
EXTINCT AND EXTANT crocodile : 61.7% genetic similarity to a chicken.

Hmmm and I bet if you compared ancient Crocodile DNA with the chicken genome that % of similarity would be quite possibly higher than that of modern crocodiles!

The proper wording should be "Crocodilia are the closest known relative of birds."
PERIOD.

REACTION FROM DR. ALAN FEDUCCIA:

"Interesting, but we do not know anything about the T. rex genome, just size, and even that is somewhat speculative."
Best, alan

That isn't what the "Orthodox" crowd are saying.

See attachment culled from one book I came across on Google Books.
They swear by the "conclusive" DNA evidence.

"conclusive" (in quotes) denotes sarcasm.

58%

Dr. Alan Feduccia:

Yes, but our "T. rex skeptics group" has seriously questioned that study by Schweitzer; see chapter one in my book Riddle. And even if true (which I seriously doubt) it is just a small snippet of collagen. . . .

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Interesting Related Links


For the Anti-Creationism Darwinist Among Us

Thales of Miletus

My Other Blog:
Genesis in the Ancient World
"The Jews integrated into Greek culture around 300 BC. Notably, much of the modern Biblical literature is actually Greek. Enlightened Greek thought becomes apparent in the opening of Genesis. "One of the first evolutionary theories was proposed by Thales of Miletus (640–546 BC) in the province of Ionia on the coast near Greece followed by Anaximander (550 B.C.) who speculated that life evolved from the water; lower forms of life, in a very primitive precursor to evolutionary theory."

Namely this *ouch!*

Evolution and Paleontology in the Ancient World
"...For Anaximander, the world had arisen from an undifferentiated, indeterminate substance, the apeiron. The Earth, which had coalesced out of the apeiron, had been covered in water at one stage, with plants and animals arising from mud. Humans were not present at the earliest stages; they arose from fish. This poem was quite influential on later thinkers, including Aristotle.
Had Anaximander looked at fossils? Did he study comparative fish and human anatomy? Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what evidence Anaximander used to support his ideas. His theory bears some resemblance to evolutionary theory, but also seems to have been derived from various Greek myths, such as the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha, in which peoples or tribes are born from the Earth or from stones. His concept of the apeiron seems similar to the Tao of Chinese philosophy and religion, and to the "formless and void" Earth of the Hebrew creation account and other creation myths. However, even though Anaximander's ideas drew on the religious and mythical ideas of his time, he was still one of the first to attempt an explanation of the origin and evolution of the cosmos based on natural laws."

(Source, ucmp.berkeley.edu History)

[Sadly, what the site fails to mention is that the oldest known biblical manuscripts date no earlier than around 300 B.C., therefore, Anaximander (610-545 B.C.) could not have based any of his concepts on Biblical Hebrew. However it can be deduced, the Hebrew Genesis account was borrowed from mainstream Greek philosophy.] [The analysis by Harvard and several other University sources are quite impressive: (Scala Naturae of the Bible, Charles Darwin and Ancient Greek Philosophy)]