New Pterosaur Fossil Forces Re-think of Standard Evolution

ICR News ^ | October 21, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

Charles Darwin admitted that the sudden appearance of fully formed creatures in fossil deposits was one of the biggest problems with his hypothesis that nature generated living creatures through natural selection. His vision of organisms gradually morphing from one kind to another over vast time spans predicted that most fossils should reflect that steady grading from one basic body plan to another.

Some scientists believe they have found a creature that bridges one of the many gaps in the fossil record, although it requires a significant reworking of evolutionary theory. The crow-sized pterosaur fossil from China has been named Darwinopterus in honor of the “year of Darwin.” This is certainly ironic, considering the fact that the creature had none of the partially graded features that would show transition from one to the other of the two major pterosaur types. Instead, it demonstrated a unique mosaic of fully functional body parts...

[ElectricStrawberry]

Oooo....more lyin' Brian Thomas MS* tripe.

Instead of showing the expected transitional attributes, Darwinopterus was a mosaic of fully formed features woven into a whole and functional animal, now presumed extinct.

Lyin' Brian here cannot even accept that these animals are extinct. Imagine that...

However, there remains no empirical evidence for a process like this occurring today

That's right, Lyin' Brian Thomas MS*.....if we cannot actually witness something in real time that takes eons to occur....it doesn't exist. BUT, Man walked the Earth with 100+ species of large meat eating dinosaurs....right?

And without such gradual changes, the creation of discrete forms must be considered as a superior origins explanation.

False conclusion, lyin' Brian.

Of course, lyin Brian Thomas MS* thinks this is an erotic nude artistic recreation.....turns him on....

[Natural Law]

"LOL...the more fossils they find, the worse it gets for darwood’s evo-religous creation myth. Do your homework for a change."

Actually the exact opposite is true. The greater the variation (sigma) in any population the greater the probability for unanticipated or unpredicted (rogue) outcomes. I would recommend you take a basic course in probability and statistics before "Laughing Out Loud".

[BlueDragon]

Certainly doesn't look she/it has been stomped by hippos, now does it?

[whattajoke]

fully formed creatures

This is one of those creationist phrases that just strikes me as ignorant. What does it mean? What is a non fully formed creature and why do they expect to find fossils of them?

[chuckles]

I try to stay away from the circular reasoning in evo threads, but somehow just can't. I try to make a statement and move on, but the insults come for days and some need answers.

For your Salvation question,....no, you do not have to believe in anything but that Jesus is God in the flesh, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, took your sins to the cross and died so you wouldn't have to pay the sin price, and was alive again in 3 days, and rose to sit in judgment of the world. BTW, you must also repent of your sins and agree with God that you are a sinner.

One aspect of all this is to stop your rebellion to God. We lost our relationship with God by our rebellion to His sovereignty. To come back to God and have His Spirit within us, we must agree with God. This is why a Christian cannot say homosexuality is ok, when the Bible says plainly in numerous places that it isn't. Did God repent of the destruction of Sodom?

Now, in Genesis, God says during creation that the evening and morning was the first day. That is why Jews start their days in the evening,... because God did. The 6 day creation is a prophesy from God of our history. What He is telling us is we will have 6000 years of man on earth and end with 1000 years of God on earth. He explained creation, Adam and Eve, the Flood, ect, pretty plainly. It is us that start to question what God has plainly said, just as we did in the Garden when we were told not to eat of the fruit of just one tree. We did it anyway, thinking God was a liar.

If you study the Bible, you will see that the prophesies have all come true in their own time, in order. We have but 3 more Biblical prophesies in the future. Feast of Trumpets should be the day we are Raptured, Yom Kippur, or Judgment Day will happen after that, and Feast of Tabernacles will mark the beginning of the 1000 year reign of Christ on earth.

Now, some questions about a young earth. Dis God attempt to tell His people the future events coming their way? Yes. Did Christ fulfill His prophesied coming on Earth at the specified time? Yes. When Christ preached in the Synagogue, did he say we came from pond scum or Adam was a monkey, or the Flood didn't happen? NO! He preached Genesis, Word for Word, because He wrote it. If Jesus failed to report that Genesis was a lie, did He not sin and would that not make Him no better than any man and unable to be a sinless sacrifice for us?

The question isn't whether a Christian has to believe in a young earth, but are you a Christian? Are you still in rebellion? The Bible makes it clear that there is no excuse for non belief in God. He says that fools deny there is a God. He says "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools". He says He will confound them and allow them strong delusion.

As we see in this thread, the evo's will have to re adjust their theory to fit their set of "facts", as they have done for most of my 58 years. I will be attacked as a Bible thumper and called names here. I have read and seen their " facts" since I was a young boy and have determined that God is my friend, God doesn't lie, and I trust God more than atheist men. It is a personal choice I have made over the years as I see a "God" explanation in every pronouncement that they make trying to prove there is no God. Years of Bible study have given me answers that have never changed and years of name calling and fact "massaging" from evo's haven't changed a thing for me but to highlight their "lostness."

We are commanded to "work out our own salvation" and that is just what we must do. No one can say if you are saved or lost if you believe that the earth is billions of years old, but at some point you must decide if your Savior lied to you and the atheists are telling the truth. They certainly don't know what happened, so it is a theory, not truth as they would have you to think. I wasn't there to see Creation so I can't prove Intelligent Design. So it boils down to faith in God, or faith in men. I chose God, and name calling doesn't change the facts. Since Darwin wrote his book, they have changed the theory. They continue to change it because the theory is flawed. It just boils down to whether you are still in rebellion to God? Are you really "His people"?

As we "work out our own salvation" we are confronted with many questions that MUST be answered. One is "Is abortion murder?" Most Christians agree that life comes from God and killing a baby is murder. They have their own DNA, heartbeat, fingerprint, bloodtype, brainwaves, ect, but "scientist's" can't seem to determine if they are human till they come out of the womb. Is homosexuality permitted by Christians? The Bible has scores references on the subject, yet churches are splitting every day over the issue. Evolution is just another attempt by sinful man to remove God from the world and turn Christians from the Truth. IMHO, of course. ;<)

[Ira_Louvin]

Brian Thomas seemed to have overlooked this part of the paper he cited:

(b) Documenting an evolutionary transition

Darwinopterus provides, to our knowledge, the first detailed insights into the transition from basal pterosaurs to pterodactyloids and, when combined with our rapidly increasing knowledge of the pterosaur fossil record (Barrett et al.2008), helps to pinpoint several key features regarding the nature and timing of this event (figure 4c). Two distinct phases are recognized. In the first, elongation of the skull, breaching of the bony bar separating the nasal and antorbital opening, reconfiguration of the cranium leading to an increase in the relative size and volume of the braincase and simplification of the dentition, together with changes to the shape of the cervical vertebrae and loss of the cervical ribs, culminated in the monofenestrate skull and modified neck inherited by Darwinopterus and all pterodactyloids

The authors cleary state that Darwinopterus is a transitional fossil.

It appreas that Mr Thomas should do a little research on Exodus 20:16

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

What is a non fully formed creature and why do they expect to find fossils of them?

I've asked over and over for a description of what one of the "transitionals" they claim doesn't exist would look like. I finally got one to answer that if birds came from dinosaurs, we should find four-legged dinosaurs with little wing stubs that gradually got larger (as, I guess, the front legs withered away). Another one recently asked why, if animals evolved pairs of eyes, we didn't find fossils with just one eye, then fossils with, I guess, one and a half eyes, until we got two. Apparently a non fully formed creature is something that exists now with parts subtracted.

[Natural Law]

"What is a non fully formed creature and why do they expect to find fossils of them?"

With the number of highly adapted predators and scavengers prevalent in the ecosystems the dinosaurs lived in the probability of any intact carcass surviving is incredibly remote. Its kind of like expecting to find a whole chicken in the dumpster behind an NFL training camp kitchen.

Those that are found relatively intact are nearly all the result of geological event, which feeds the YEC crowd's wrong stratum argument.

[metmom]

Is it necessary to believe in a young earth creation in order to be saved?

That's the most obvious baiting that I've seen in a long time.

[GodGunsGuts]

I get that about once or twice a month. I used to give long and involved answers, but since I have learned to conserve my energy, I have found a simple “no” will do :o)

[GodGunsGuts]

Wow, since the Temple of Darwin blessed it as a transitional, there must be no other interpretation...LOL!

The point is, they did not expect or predict (and were indeed surprised and frustrated) that the so-called “transitional” would be a mosaic of fully functional body parts. Do try to keep up, Ira.

[Natural Law]

"The point is, they did not expect or predict (and were indeed surprised and frustrated) that the so-called “transitional” would be a mosaic of fully functional body parts."

As I stated in an earlier post, due to scavenging and predation, the probability of finding a complete or intact fossil is more remote than finding a whole, intact chicken carcass in the dumpster behind an NFL training camp kitchen. You just have to keep reminding yourself that discussing science with most of the YEC types is like trying to describe a sunset to someone who is color blind.

[Ira_Louvin]

So what empirical evidence does the author cite to show any other interpretation?

[GodGunsGuts]

==So what empirical evidence does the author cite to show any other interpretation?

Ira, Ira, Ira...why is it so hard for the evos to grasp that the empirical evidence is the same for both sides? The question is, which side explains the empirical evidence better. And seeing how the evos were "surprised" and "frustrated" by this new pterosaur, whereas biblical creation anticipates such mosaic creatures, I think it is clear which side has the superior exlanation for the same. Or in the words of the author:

Instead of showing the expected transitional attributes, Darwinopterus was a mosaic of fully formed features woven into a whole and functional animal, now presumed extinct. The researchers noted that it had a head like Pterodactyloids, but it also had the body and long tail of Rhamphorhynchoids. This “bizarre” combination “came as quite a shock to us.”[1]

Thus, these authors advocated a controversial new “mechanism” for the origin of species—rapid, modular evolution. In this view, significant and “whole groups of features (termed ‘modules’ by the researchers)” somehow shuffled between different life forms, then became rewired to make a totally novel form, very rapidly.[1] However, there remains no empirical evidence for a process like this occurring today.[3] Instead, “modular evolution” is entirely inferred from the fossil record’s lack of clearly transitional forms.

Darwinopterus still provides no evidence for gradual transitions between major functional body parts―neither within pterosaurs, nor between their supposed land-based reptile ancestors and flying reptile descendants. And without such gradual changes, the creation of discrete forms must be considered as a superior origins explanation. Thus, the admitted evolutionary frustration is quite understandable.

The creation model predicts that each living creature always existed in basic “either/or” forms. It is thus gratifying for Bible believers, and not at all frustrating, to learn that fossil creatures are found exactly that way.

Unwin admitted that “whole groups of features…that form important structures…seem to have evolved together.”[1] It would be difficult to find a better way to describe God’s creative activity as revealed in a plain reading of Genesis―whole groups of features that form important structures appeared together suddenly, when “he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.”[4]

[Ira_Louvin]

Darwinopterus still provides no evidence for gradual transitions between major functional body parts―neither within pterosaurs, nor between their supposed land-based reptile ancestors and flying reptile descendants. And without such gradual changes, the creation of discrete forms must be considered as a superior origins explanation. Thus, the admitted evolutionary frustration is quite understandable.

The creation model predicts that each living creature always existed in basic “either/or” forms. It is thus gratifying for Bible believers, and not at all frustrating, to learn that fossil creatures are found exactly that way.

However this evidence directly contradicts the assertion shown above. ·

(b) Documenting an evolutionary transition

Darwinopterus provides, to our knowledge, the first detailed insights into the transition from basal pterosaurs to pterodactyloids and, when combined with our rapidly increasing knowledge of the pterosaur fossil record (Barrett et al.2008), helps to pinpoint several key features regarding the nature and timing of this event (figure 4c). Two distinct phases are recognized. In the first, elongation of the skull, breaching of the bony bar separating the nasal and antorbital opening, reconfiguration of the cranium leading to an increase in the relative size and volume of the braincase and simplification of the dentition, together with changes to the shape of the cervical vertebrae and loss of the cervical ribs, culminated in the monofenestrate skull and modified neck inherited by Darwinopterus and all pterodactyloids

Mr Thomas is dishonestly cherry picking the paper in an attempt to support a completely un-scientific position.

[Natural Law]

"Ira, Ira, Ira...why is it so hard for the evos to grasp that the empirical evidence is the same for both sides?

GGG may not know squat about science and evolution but he certainly has condescension down pat.

[Ira_Louvin]

When that is all that you have you have to go with it.

[xcamel]

Must be a 'creation' thing, but did anyone else notice that 'ggg' is really 666 upsidedown?

[stormer]

"GGG may not know squat about science and evolution but he certainly has condescension down pat."

GGG may does not know squat about science and evolution but he certainly has condescension down pat.

There, fixed it for ya.

[Ed Hudgins]

“Existence of Creationists Cause Scientists to Posit Two Evolutionary Paths from Homo Habilis: One to Modern Humans, the Other to Smaller-Brained ‘Creationist’ Species.”