"bird-like DNA"

It's not DNA, it's collagen and although that might seem picky it's a very important distinction.


"your learned post did still indicate that what has always been thought impossible is now considered more than just possible by virtue of the supposed fact of dino extinction 65 million yr ago."

Not sure what you're getting at here. If you mean we're learning, then yes we are. If you mean we've revised our ideas in the light of new data, then yes we have. If you mean the new data somehow negates what we understand about the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, then no it doesn't.


"if the "hard evidence" is really that birds come from [in whatever complicated and inexplicable gradualistic pathway]dinos it strikes me as strange that there are evolutionary avian experts who reject such interpretation"

You're referring to people like Feduccia who ply a very individualistic furrow, and are essentially fighting a lone rearguard action against scientific orthodoxy. Not a bad thing you might think, but these people (and they are very few) are essentially ignoring a mountain of evidence, sort of evolutionary flat-earthers. Interestingly, Thomas Huxley (a personal hero of mine) first recognised a relationship between birds and dinosaurs way back in 1868, but it took 100 years for his ideas to start on the road to acceptance.

Also, your statement that the evolutionary developmental pathway of birds is inexplicable is wrong, full stop. Although the exact origin of birds is still unresolved we are homing in on it. The main issue here is to stop thinking of birds as separate to dinosaurs; they are dinosaurs and clade aves sits firmly within the dinosauria. Look it up. They share many characters with non-avian dinosaurs, including all the features that make a dinosaur a dinosaur, as well as derived characters such as feathers, which almost certainly evolved before birds did.

I doubt there are many palaeontologists who would place birds outside dinosauria (I've never met one) and in all honesty the debate within the field moved on long ago, even if public perception hasn't. With over 10,000 extant species we are still in the age of the dinosaurs, and I for one are glad they are still here in all their incredible diversity of form. Wonderful.