Image from online ICR article.
Posted on 09/06/2013 9:28:26 AM PDT by fishtank
Pterosaur Revolution Confirms Creation by Brian Thomas, M.S. *
Research into pterosaurs—ancient flying reptiles whose fossils lie intermingled with dinosaurs—now approaches an upswing of what some predict will be a revolution of understanding.1 Better details of pterosaur anatomies are painting a different picture than the long-held perceptions of these creatures as clumsy fliers.
In a recent feature in the UK's Observer, writer Mark Witton explained that many view pterosaurs as "gargoyles with lanky limbs." This bad reputation may have been spawned by "poor scientific communication" that indicated "pterosaurs were crude biological hang gliders."2
In actuality, experts are now reconstructing pterosaur biomechanics and finding them to be wonders of aerodynamic precision.3 The old notions of clumsiness are not supported by this fossil evidence—so how did pterosaurs get such a bad rap?
Was the description, "gargoyles with lanky limbs," a result of mere evolutionary speculation? Based on seeing pterosaur fossils occur in strata below other flying vertebrates, perhaps evolutionists reasoned that pterosaurs evolved first and therefore represented evolution's initial, clumsy attempts to produce large flyers. It would then follow that evolution spent millions of years working through numerous aerodynamic issues, eventually generating the supposedly superior flight mechanics of bats and birds.
Pterosaur research is now soaring, and it supports that former "clumsy" conjecture less than ever.
For example, pterosaur tracks in France reveal that these creatures were skillful and adept at landing and take-off procedures.4
Moreover, in his Observer article, Witton confirmed that "scientists are getting a handle on many aspects of pterosaur paleobiology [ancient biology], and the results are casting pterosaurs in whole new lights. They were not evolutionary also-rans, but strong, adaptable animals that earned their 160m [million] years of evolutionary history."2
But what an ironic statement! Surely 160 million years of slow and gradual changes to pterosaur anatomy would have produced more "evolutionary also-rans" before developing the "strong, adaptable animals" the fossils actually reveal. Where are all of evolution's experiments?
For example, a single, long bone supported pterosaur wings while bat wings contain five, finger-like bones that fold like a Chinese fan. Where are the two- or three-boned wings or the half-sized wings that evolution might have produced in its alleged eons of tinkering?
Not a single, undisputed "evolutionary also-ran" candidate exists, despite a century of diligent search.5
The evolutionary timeline fails to match the most obvious pterosaur fossil data, but Genesis history readily explains them. First, pterosaur structure was flight-ready from the get-go because God created it to be. Second, a terrible, watery cataclysm like Noah's Flood buried these winged creatures—alongside the dinosaurs, fish, lizards, small mammals, and birds often found all in the same layer—forming pterosaur fossils in the first place.6
References
Hone, D.W.E. 2013. Pterosaur Research: Recent Advances and a Future Revolution. Acta Geologica Sinica. 86 (6): 1366-1376.
Witton, M. Why Pterosaurs Weren't So Scary After All. The Observer. Posted on theguardian.com August 10, 2013, accessed August 23, 2013.
For example, see references in: Thomas, B. Studies Show Extinct Reptiles Moved with Grace and Ease. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org November 19, 2010, accessed August 26, 2013.
Thomas, B. Pterosaur Flight Plans. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org August 31, 2009, accessed August 26, 2013.
Sherwin, F. 2005. Pterosaur! Acts & Facts. 33 (9).
Thomas, B. Pterosaur Tracks Show Traces of the Great Flood. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org September 2, 2009, accessed August 26, 2013.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on September 6, 2013.
Image from online ICR article.
If I had the ability to fly (without the NSA's prying hands) I'd be smiling too!
Onion?
Onion?
I believe these are popularly known as pterodactyls, or flying reptiles with hands. Their scientific name is ‘pfell pbeasts’ or ‘Shriekers’. They were sturdy mounts for the pnazgul, were named by the Witch King of Angmar who pwned several and made nice pets, albeit ‘one-owner’ pbeasties.
I might, when (if) I know the end approacheth ... build or buy an ultralight and take my chances.
Watching creationists perform science is like watching five year old girls having a tea party.
I enjoy many of the Intelligent Design discussions but at the same time I like to refer to St. Augustine’s 1600 year old writings when it comes to the interpretation of Genesis:
39. Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”67
“For example, a single, long bone supported pterosaur wings while bat wings contain five, finger-like bones that fold like a Chinese fan. Where are the two- or three-boned wings or the half-sized wings that evolution might have produced in its alleged eons of tinkering?”
This is so ignorant, that one hardly knows where to begin. The author seems to think that the alternative to special creation is that pterosaurs were the ancestors of all modern flying creatures, particularly bats.
Now it is pretty well established that mammals were derived from synapsid reptiles long before pterosaurs appeared. Archosaurs, the group including dinosaurs and pterosaurs, were separate from the ancestors of the mammals. Thus mammals are in a separate brach from the pterosaurs. Bats are (as you must know) mammals. They developed flight separately from the pterosaurs and the birds.
Insects also developed flight independently. It would not make sense to say that we expect to find an intermediate between a pterosaur and a butterfly, for example.
Everything else I have to say on this matter has already been said by the saint quoted above, to whom I happily defer.
phanks for the pnote!!!
Book II "Question of the phase in which the moon was made" 15, 30"God, after all is the author and founder of things in their actual natures. Now whatever any single thing may in some way or other produce and unfold by its natural development through periods of time that are suited to it, it contained it beforehand as something hidden, if not in specific forms and bodily mass, at least by the force and reckoning of nature, unless of course a tree, void of fruit and stripped of its leaves throughout the winter, is then to be called imperfect, or unless again at its origins, when it had still not yet borne any fruit, its nature was also imperfect. It is not only about the tree, but about its seed also that this could not rightly be said; there everything that with the passage of time is somehow or other going to appear is already latent in invisible ways. Although, if God were to make anything imperfect, which he then would himself bring to perfection, what would be reprehensible about such an idea? But you would be quite within your rights to disapprove if what had been begun by him were said to be completed and perfected by another."
Going on my memory (chancy I know), I recall that there are two families of bats, each developed flight independently.
I bet He did put that smile on there.
See....before people starting using the phrase, “Happy as a clam,” they always said, “Happy as a pterosaur” before that.
They switched because pterosaurs used to complain a lot, whereas, nobody has EVER heard a clam complain about anything.
Yep ... y’may be right ... except ... what about all those pigs in mud puddles ?
Dang! That’s a tough one!
Back to the drawing board!
7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Back to the drawing board!
Happy as T-square on a drawing board ?
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