The document summarizes Paul Chambers' book "Bones of Contention" which recounts the story of Archaeopteryx, a famous fossil known as the missing link between birds and reptiles. Since its discovery in 1861, Archaeopteryx has generated significant controversy among scientists about whether it was truly a missing link or just a bird. Some creationists even believed it was a hoax. While scientists like Thomas Huxley saw it as evidence supporting Darwin's theory of evolution, others like Richard Owen denied it could be a transitional form. Today, the debate continues over whether birds evolved directly from dinosaurs or had an earlier reptilian ancestor, with most paleontologists arguing for the dinosaur origin of birds.

1. Searching for the missing
link
Birds? Reptiles? Fakes? Archaeopteryx fossils have been enerating
controversy since 1861. Paul Chambers investigates a very strange creature in
Bones of Contention

2. Archaeopteryx
• Paul Chambers's Bones of Contention recounts the story of the famous "bird-reptile" Archaeopteryx and the scientists who have
spent the past 140 years arguing over it. Chambers deals particularly well with the human characters lurking behind
Archaeopteryx's enigmatic feathers, a contrast with Pat Shipman's excellent 1998 book Taking Wing, which is scientifically more
absorbing.
• The controversy surrounding the nature, origin and meaning of this animal began soon after the first specimen was discovered in
1861. Although not all of its reptilian characteristics were evident, eventually it became clear that this feathered "bird" had a long
bony tail and tooth-lined jaws. Here was a chimera that seemed to support Darwin's notion that one type of creature could evolve
into another, a "missing link" between birds and their reptilian ancestors.
• Richard Owen, doyen of mid-19th-century science and an opponent of Darwin, was the first British scientist to get his hands on
the fossil. He publicly declared that Archaeopteryx was simply a bird and thus incapable of being a missing link to anything. The
arch-Darwinian Thomas Huxley was in the audience and everyone expected him to maul Owen, but for once he held his tongue,
a silence that caused consternation at the time. The existence of the creature threatened one of Huxley's most cherished beliefs,
namely that birds and many other types of animals originated long before Archaeopteryx's time. For both men this feathered
beast was trouble. Little has changed since.
• From the time of its discovery, persistent rumours have circulated that Archaeopteryx might be a fake, perhaps cobbled together
by Darwin's supporters following the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species. Many creationists still believe this, and even
as late as the 1970s some scientists, notably Chandra Wickramasinghe and the late Sir Fred Hoyle, two physicists renowned for
their wacky understanding of evolution, were inclined to think the same.
• Fortunately, the physicists' arguments were so shabby that palaeontologists managed to demolish them. Archaeopteryx has also
been a dominant player in the often acrimonious debate about the origin of birds, though less so than in the past. Did our
feathered friends, including Archaeopteryx, evolve directly from dinosaurs, or did both birds and dinosaurs spring from older
reptilian ancestors?

3. Charpter 3
• Huxley made a strong case for the dinosaur-bird trajectory. On his side today are Bad people ("Birds Are
Dinosaurs"), who are mostly palaeontologists, while their opponents, mainly ornithologists, constitute the Band
("Birds Are Not Dinosaurs"). Interdisciplinary wars are usually particularly bloody, and this one has been no
exception. With their indisputable examples of dinosaurs with feathers garnered from China, I am inclined to
think that the Baddies won years ago, but a few very vocal ornithologists continue to lob bricks at every
opportunity. Feathery things with tails and teeth are as troublesome today as they ever were.
• So academically controversial are the subjects covered in Bones of Contention that I'm sure palaeontologists will
have a lot to say about the book, not all of it good (and they'll be deeply irritated by the misspelled dinosaur
names). But as an accessible primer for Taking Wing, or just a timely exposition of the very human side of
science, Chambers has crafted an easy and engaging read.