You got it backwards, birds are now dinosaurs. The world just got that much cooler. If you're not convinced, look through YouTube for videos of my favorite dinosaur, the raven.
Mainly just that ravens are awesome, and velociraptors are awesome, so Q.E.D. Not really a scientific argument.
I do wonder how many Cretaceous critters were intelligent to the degree of ravens or dogs or primates, if any. We know they weren't as good at terraforming as we are, or there'd be some evidence in the strata. But the Cretaceous was longer than the current period, so I wouldn't be shocked if something we could call intelligent evolved.
