天山-4-5 criticisms = unconvinced?

noting that Archaeopteryx lithographica— the oldest known bird— appears in the fossil record about 150 million years ago, where-

as the fossil remains of various nonavian

(10) maniraptor theropods— the closest known relatives of birds— date only to about 115 million years ago.  But investigators have now uncovered bones that evidently belong to nonavian maniraptors dating to the time of

(15) Archaeopteryx.  In any case, failure to find fossils of a predicted kind does not rule out their existence in an undiscovered deposit. Skeptics also argue that the fused clavicles

(the “wishbone”) of birds differ from the

(20) unfused clavicles of theropods.  This objection was reasonable when only early theropod clavicles had been discovered, but fossilized theropod clavicles that look just like the wishbone of Archaeopteryx

(25) have now been unearthed.  Finally, some scientists argue that the complex lungs of birds could not have evolved from theropod lungs, an assertion that cannot be supported or falsified at the moment, because no fossil

(30) lungs are preserved in the paleontological record.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q5:

The primary purpose of the passage is to

A.  compare the development of two hypotheses concerning the evolutionary origin of birds

B.   suggest revisions to the standard theory of the evolutionary history of birds

C.   evaluate the usefulness of fossil evidence in determining the evolutionary history of birds

D.  challenge the theory that birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs

E.   respond to criticisms of the theory that birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs

此题给出的答案选E，但偶选了D，原因是E中的criticisms 是不是太严厉了，科学家们只是怀疑而已，没有批评，虽然作者罗列了一些事实，确实是对科学家们的怀疑的一个respond.

还是e对，因为作者是对这些疑问否定态度的，如15行，in any case---, 总体还是批评的态度。希望大家聚叙讨论。

嗯，我仔细看了看，还是criticisms是可以滴。

偶一开始认为如果改为 skepticism 那就好了。

经楼上的提醒，偶在文中找到了这样一句：

(20) unfused clavicles of theropods.  This objection was reasonable

这个这个，应该可以表达出criticisms的意思了。

D选项只是站在了criticisms的角度；但文章，其实作者是超然独立，引用论据来评论一方对另一方的criticism，故此E更合适一些。

Ｇood job

请问B选项中的 standard theory 是不是指birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs，？？

然后B选项就与作者原意相反了，所以错误？？

我觉得本文作者并不是完全独立于事外，他还是比较倾向于原来的意见。个人想法。

  由原文看來standard theory 是指birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs,

  雖然原文並沒有很明確指出standard theory，

  但是the author的中心是以birds evolved from ground-dwelling theropod dinosaurs為論據

  我覺得關鍵應該是"suggest revisions"，the author just cites others evidences to reject scientists

  open to discussion

同意作者倾向于为恐龙变鸟的理论辩护。从L12 和 L23两个BUT的强转折及L28～31强调“反正古生物学记录里就没见过化石肺”可以看出作者倾向。

B错，因为作者只为恐龙变鸟的理论辩护 ，并没有谈到什么standard theory，也没有建议revise the other theories。