The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

(Fig. 29) show two clusters, corresponding to the two main blocks of positive correlation from the BDC, with Coelurus and Nqwebasaurus situated between the two clusters. The final subset of the Brusatte et al. (2014) dataset we analyzed consisted of therizinosauroid and oviraptorosaur taxa (10 taxa, 68 characters, 0.3 taxic relevance cutoff). We wanted to include more taxa, but to get more than 50 characters, we had to exclude all but 3 therizinosauroids. The BDC (Fig. 30) shows one large cluster of positive correlation corresponding to Oviraptorosauria, except for the oviraptorosaur Incisivosaurus , which did not correlate with any other taxa. The therizinosaurids Erlikosaurus and Nothronychus share positive correlation, and the “basal” therizinosaur Falcarius did not share positive correlation with any of the taxa in the analysis. Some negative correlation can be found between Erlikosaurus and several oviraptorosaurs and between Nothronychus and Avimimus . Removal of Incisivosaurus from the analysis makes the characters used jump to 100, but the pattern does not change. The MDS results (Fig. 31) show a similar result to the BDC, however it is worth noting that the taxon closest to the loosely clustered therizinosaurids is the “basal” therizinosaur Falcarius . 2. Lee et al. (2014) Results We ran the Lee et al (2014) dataset at a 0.25 taxic relevance cutoff initially including the birds Meleagris and Ichthyornis (BDC results inAppendix), but we then excluded these taxa as we suspected they were masking the evidences of continuity and discontinuity among the non-avian coelurosaurs. The BDC (Fig. 32) shows two main blocks of positive correlation: Pennaraptora and the rest of the theropods. The 3D MDS results (Fig. 33) show an undecipherable shotgun blast pattern. As with the Brusatte et al. (2014) analysis, we determined to analyze each block separately. The BDC results (Fig. 34) for the Pennaraptora subset (263 characters, 18 taxa, 0.25 taxic relevance cutoff) show four main blocks of positive correlation. One block corresponded to oviraptorosaurs, another to avialans, another to some dromaeosaurids, and another to troodontids + Archaeopteryx + some dromaeosaurids. Archaeopteryx also shares positive correlation with some avialans. The MDS results (Fig. 35) show four main clusters of taxa, corresponding to the four blocks of positive correlation in the BDC, separated from each other by gaps in morphological space.  The oviraptorosaurs are the farthest removed cluster. Although Archaeopteryx is located between the avialan and dromaeosaurid clusters, it is closer to the dromaeosaurids. The three dromaeosaurid taxa ( Achillobator , Velociraptor , and Deinonychus ) that were not positively correlated with the other dromaeosaurids in the BDC are also separated from the other dromaeosaurids in the 3D MDS results. As oviraptorosaurs are obviously different from the rest of the taxa, we determined to drop them and run a strictly paravian dataset (277 characters, 14 taxa, 0.25 TRC). There are three major blocks of positive correlation corresponding to the blocks from the pennaraptoran analysis (Fig. 36). The main difference is that Archaeopteryx does not correlate with any other taxa, except some negative correlation with the dromaeosaurids Deinonychus and Achillobator . The MDS results (Fig. 37) were similar to those obtained for Pennaraptora (Fig. 32) except for the absence of oviraptorosaurs. We also analyzed the remaining non-pennaraptoran taxa from the Lee et al. (2014) dataset using BDISTMDS (164 characters, 38 taxa, 0.25 taxic relevance cutoff). The BDC results (Fig. 38) show two major blocks of positive correlation. One block is made of tyrannosauroids and non-coelurosaurs, and the other contains the non-tyrannosauroid coelurosaurs. Alvarezsaurids and the therizinosaurid Erlikosaurus do not correlate positively with many other taxa in theBDC.Additionally, the ceratosaurs Majungasaurus , Limusaurus , and Masiakasaurus correlate positively with each other andwith very fewother taxa in the BDC. Oddly, herrerasaurids group well with the basal coelurosaurs. The MDS results (Fig. 39) show three big clusters of taxa: 1) Ornithomimosauria, 2) “basal” coelurosaurs + Herrerasauridae + Cryolophosaurus + Falcarius + Haplocheirus + Dilong + Guanlong , and 3) non-coelurosaurs + Tyrannosaurus + Yutyrannus . Scattered around the three clusters McLain et al. ◀ Feathered dinosaurs reconsidered ▶ 2018 ICC 485 Figure 20. BDC plot of the Paraves subset of the Brusatte et al. (2014) dataset. Black squares indicate significant positive correlation, whereas open circles indicate significant negative correlation. Figure 21. MDS results for the Paraves subset of the Brusatte et al. (2014) dataset. The four taxa that form a small block of positive correlation in the BDC of Figure 26 cluster together here and are circled. Colors: orange – Dromaeosauridae; yellow – Troodontidae; light green – Avialae. Sapeornis Jixiangornisorientalis Jeholornisprima Confuciusornis sanctus Troodon formosus Zanabazar junior Sinornithoidesyoungi Sinovenator changii Mei long Mahakalaomnogovae Buitreraptorgonzalozorum Xiaotingia Aurornis Anchiornishuxleyi Sinornithosaurusmillenii Microraptor zhaoianus Balaurbondoc Archaeopteryx lithographica Velociraptormongoliensis Tsaaganmangas Deinonychusantirrhopus Bambiraptor feinbergorum Adasaurusmongoliensis