“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.’” -->(!!!)<--

Cladogram of Mesozoic Bird Relationships

A list of birds with approximate dates they arose in the fossil record. An excerpt from The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds edited by Dr. Gareth Dyke, Gary Kaiser

(Source)

Birds were living before and after the Cretaceous theropod dinosaur. Dinosaurs are not necessary to explain the evolution of birds.

See the fossil record for (true) birds in red and (true) dinosaurs in green. There is no need to "prove" an intermediate between dinosaur and bird. The only "intermediate" is to demonstrate gradual evolutionary transition from Archosaurs and modern birds to confirm Darwin's theory.. and the oldest known, Archeopteryx did share reptilian features but was in fact, a bird, in the modern sense. How this argument became corrupted with
1) the need to prove Archeopteryx was a cold-blooded reptile, or
2) that he branched off from dinosaurs in the Cretaceous (100 million years after he lived) is evidence of all the radicalism that surrounds the issue.

There is no definitive way to know with certainty whether or not extinct and fossilized remains were, with all certainty, "warm-blooded" or "cold-blooded." There are merely theories and hypotheses. Nothing more. Most of which, do nothing but cloud the issue of what is known with certainty about the origins of birds based on evidence.

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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)]