"In EichstÃ¡tt , Germany , in 1984 there was a major meeting of scientists who specialize in bird evolution , the International Archaeopteryx Conference . They disagreed on just about anything that was covered there on this creature , but there was very broad agreement on the belief that Archaeopteryx was a true bird . Only a tiny minority thought that it was actually one of the small , lightly built coelurosaurian dinosaurs [ small lightly framed dinosaurs ] ."
"1984 , huh ? I 'm sure that is all still very relevant . Actually there is a lot of discussion about the nature of Archaeopteryx . Much of it deals with whether it could fly and what it teaches us about how birds came to fly - ground up or trees down . But what they all agreed on , even back then , was that Archaeopteryx is a transitional . Taxonomic debates are n't really very meaningful , really . Creationists like to make a big deal about the fact that most taxonomists and ornithologists classify Archaeopteryx as a bird . But where else would it go ? That 's a limitation of the Linnean classification system - everything is put somewhere , even if it does n't exactly fit . The only debate about the evolution of Archaeopteryx among experts is whether it evolved from theropod dinorsaurs or from archosaurs . It 's still a transitional ."
"in 1984 there was a major meeting of scientists who specialize in bird evolution ,"
"1984 , huh ? I 'm sure that is all still very relevant"