Page 112 - The Origin of Birds and Flight

During an interview in Australia, Professor Andy
McIntosh, a member of the University of Leeds teaching
staff and an expert in the field of aerodynamics, made the
following comments about the perfect structure in birds:
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P Prof. Andy McIntosh: Many aspects of nature show that
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creatures have been designed. . . creatures which fly. I got
here to Australia on a great big jumbo jet. I watched the
careful maneuvering as it came down to land, as the great
big flaps came out at the back, increasing the size of the
Professor Andy
wing to get more lift so as to fly at a much slower speed. I
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was struck by all the design that went into that wing in or-
der to make sure it worked. Now, are we to say that the birds which come
to land every day weren’t designed? I have seen a photo in a book, of an
aircraft landing at Hong Kong, and underneath it is a falcon landing at the

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same time. Now as you look at birds and planes together, are you going to
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s say that one is designed and the other isn’t? I would find that scientifically
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C Chris Field: We know that in order for modern flight to take place, countless
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thousands of man-hours and much high technology had to go into the de-
sign process.
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Oxford professor] Richard Dawkins, with his view that flight somehow came
about by chance, just because some creature took a jump, then mutation
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added bits to its structure, so it could jump further, and so on. It just does-
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C Chris Field: Why the particular interest in flight?
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am originally an aero-
dynamicist—my