..ah the apparent intelligence of nature!

there have been questions raised about orthodox evolutionary theory such as why do we not find fossils of 'half-stages' in certain adaptions, e.g. the wing...there's no 'half a wing'..
some form of calculation or 'intelligence' seems to pick forms which work...random?

but, i don't have the scope or references handy right now.. (& i'm no biologist)
just saying Lamarck may not have got it all wrong..

good question cyb

i was under the impression dinosaur "arms" were "half-wings" (used primarily for stability as it would tear its prey to shreds with its legs)
pic related: its a velociraptor

This is a common criticism, a variant of which goes like: how individual parts of complex organs evolved if their efficiency at serving said organ can only judged when the organ is complete? In other words,it would appear that feathers evolved with a foresight of being used in a wing or the eye lenses evolved to serve the complete eye bulb.

The mainstream answer is that the individual parts that make complex organs preexist but assume different functions. Feathers on forelimbs could initially participate in mating rituals; the very same feathers in a more advanced, species could be used for manoeuvring while said species chased prey (or was chased by). Further evolutionary modifications might have brought feather shape and structure to the point of performing long jumps from an elevated level, followed by (or simultaneous) limb modifications. And so the story goes on.

Scary looking pic....till you find out that a velociraptor is actually the size of a chicken.

yea everyone has a misconception about velociraptors, because in jurassic park they modeled the size of the velociraptor after the deinonychus which is an average of 12 feet long, and ~150 lb.
which is.. considerably bigger than a chicken

...plus the movie opened the main character talking about how scary velociraptors are, to scare the piss out of school-children.