Ho-Hum, Another Feathered Dinosaur

CEH ^ | September 25, 2009

[GodGunsGuts]

Ho-Hum, Another Feathered Dinosaur

--snip--

Last January when the most recent flap about feathered dinosaurs made the rounds (01/21/2009), we listed 18 questions that should be asked before believing the claims made about bird and feather evolution. It would be a good time to review those again (see also footnote 3). The rush to judgment and eagerness to prove dinobird evolution should raise red flags...

[Gondring]

The Cambrian Explosion (watch the movie) renders all Darwinian explanations for the origin of animal body plans superfluous.

That's why it's wonderful that science progresses, and scientific understanding adapts to the evidence and reality. "Darwin's Dilemma" was 150 years ago. Isn't it great that we have learned a lot since then and can realize that it doesn't mean evolution is wrong?

[Boogieman]

Yes, there are several camps amongst Creationists. What is probably the more traditional view, is that the Earth isn’t much older than 6,000 years old. That is the date that seems to correspond to the most straightforward reading of the Bible, and the calculation of it preceded the whole Evolution vs. Creation debate.

Of the other theories, one is that the 7 day “creation week” of Genesis may not have been literal 24 hour days, but “prophetic days”, following the rule that a day to the Lord is like unto a thousand years. So this camp can make the case that the creation may have taken place up to 13,000 years ago (or even longer in some theories which think each “day” of creation was an entire epoch of uncertain duration).

Another theory is the “Gap Theory”, which says that there is an unknown period of time that transpired between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Under this theory, the creation which is described after those verses was subsequent to a previous creation event which was followed, after some unknown duration of time, by a cataclysmic destruction, which made the earth “formless and void”.

Generally the first group is referred to as YEC (Young-Earth Creationists), and the last group is referred to as OEC (Old-Earth Creationists). I guess the middle group is probably closer to YEC but I’m not sure if that’s how they are usually designated.

Oh yeah, and then you also have the “Guided Evolution” folks, who believe that the creation narrative in Genesis is symbolic and that the history proposed by modern science is accurate, except that God was guiding the natural forces in order to create life instead of them progressing blindly. This group is usually not lumped in with the rest of Creationists though.

[Boogieman]

I assume that you are referring to the “punctuated equilibrium” branch of evolutionists? In my estimation, these types are merely abandoning some of the more untenable propositions of Darwin but still clinging to the rest of his flawed theory. No matter how many limbs they lop off, the patient is still terminally ill!

[count-your-change]

Complaints about Darwinist for evolutionist is the straw man as over worked as that term is by the Darwinists.

[editor-surveyor]

"I would argue that most of them (the vast, vast majority) are completely honest, but are self-deceived"

Really?

Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?

[zebra 2]

I am a HS Science teacher and consider myself about as CONSERVATIVE on political, social, economic, foreign affairs, etc.; as one could get. I am a consumate reader and like to think that my opinion is informed.

It is distressing to see some of my fellow conservatives become so vocal and adamately opposed to evolution. Evolution is the core, unifying, theme on which the science of biology is based. Without it, biologists would have to wander aimlessly. With it, biology makes sense.
Chemistry has Rutherford’s atom, math has Euclid’s geometry and Newton’s calculus, physics has Newton’s laws and Einstein’s relativity. Biology has Darwin’s evolution. Without them we’d all take a giant step backwards for our way of life. Modern, informed, biology is on the cutting edge of medicine, nutrition, vaccines, reproduction, animal and plant husbandry...you name it.

Conservatives do themselves and their OTHER causes no favors when the seek to discredit evolution. In fact, they embarrass me.

Inform yourself. The local public library probably has copies of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. They are good reads. The man was very thorough.

[blackpacific]

No. You can be a perfectly expert biologist without adopting any of the evolutionary trappings. All you have to do is pay attention the the subject under study, and not blindly accept dogma about how species and functionality came to be. Reject the mythology and embrace the science, it is that simple. The scientists who recently discovered that the Monarch Butterfly navigates by circadian clocks housed in their antennae, did they need evolution to find this out? No, they performed experiments, not unlike J. Henri Fabre, by cutting and painting antennae and observing results. They challenged the status quo which maintained that the circadian clock function was somewhere in the brain. Without this nav aid, these butterflies would not be able to fly their ridiculously long migration. Love the scientist, hate the mythology.

[qam1]

Another Feathered Dinosaur

Yes another transitional fossil that Creationist claim don't exists is found!!! Don't you always hate being proved wrong.

But why would any God make this/these dino/bird mix if he/she/it already had made "full" birds and "full" dinos

Evolution wise they make sense, the dino/birds were transitioning into a (then) new unoccupied niche.

Creation wise it's silly to believe God would create these mixed creatures along side modern ones which would easily out compete them and quickly drive them to extinction.

[CharlesWayneCT]

There is no such thing as a “Creationist Theory”. Creationism isn’t a scientific theory, it is a belief, much like the mythology of evolutionary origins.

You could ask what is the latest mythology of evolutionary origins. It changes each time they find something new.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Well, maybe the “year of Darwin” was a mistake for the evolutionsts then — if they don’t believe what Darwin taught.

Sometimes if you worship a guy with a big anniversary celebration, you just might be accused of having some affinity with him.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I managed to understand biology perfectly well without having to make up some story about origins.

I find it no harder to understand the error of evolutionist pretending to be scientific than I do the global warming scientists pretending to be scientific.

Science has a history of political and cultural corruption.

The history of the world as written by evolutionists is in fact the natural product if your premise is that everything had to happen without any external force.

[GodGunsGuts]

On what basis do you declare this particular find transitional? Trasitional from what to what (exactly)?

[GodGunsGuts]

Why is it that when an evo disagrees with an IDer or a Creationist, they assume that they haven't read Darwin's outdated evo-religious creation myth?

In my experience, Creationist and ID scientists are generally far more knowledgable about evolution then their neo-Darwinian counterparts.

Having said that, the evolutionists who do understand the subject are abandoning the neo-Darwinian synthesis in droves. Darwin has lost his more important prediction, his so-called "tree of life."

But it doesn't stop there, your neo-Darwinian co-religionists also had to abandon their prediction that some 97-98.5% of the genome is functionless or "junk" DNA leftover from our supposed evolutionary past. As it turns out, the genome is almost entirely functional, just as Creation and ID scientists predicted.

I could go on and on. The long and short of it, is that the HMS Beagle is sinking and sinking fast. Even the die-hard of the die-hard evos are starting to abandon ship in search of a new God-denying explanation for our origins.

Indeed, except for the obligatory Heil Darwins from the Temple of Darwin faithful, most evos are well aware that Darwin's evo-religious creation myth has very little to do with real biological research:

‘While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas, the editor wrote. “Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” The annual programs of science conventions also tell the story. When the zoologists met in 1995 (and changed their name to the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology), just a few dozen of the 400 academic papers read were on evolution. The North American Paleontological Convention of 1996 featured 430 papers, but only a few included the word “evolution” in their titles. The 1998 AAS meeting organised 150 scientific sessions, but just 5 focused on evolution—as it relates to biotechnology, the classification of species, language, race and primate families.' Larry Witham, Oxford University Press, 2002

[Gondring]

I should have used the more general “red herring,” but I had hit Post right as I realized that. Sorry.

[count-your-change]

So long as evolutionists use the term “Darwinist” to describe themselves, I will also.

[Nathan Zachary]

"Evolution wise they make sense, the dino/birds were transitioning into a (then) new unoccupied niche. "

Huh? Dino birds? Where? Transitioning? How? and where is there any evidence of this?

An "Unoccupied niche?" LMAO! What the HECK is that? Evolution works like a roulette table; unorganized premadoral goo rolls round and round, till it falls in an "unoccupied niche". LMAO!

[UCANSEE2]

To explain one contradiction, they’ve trapped themselves into another, which often happens when you are building a web of lies.

It's not easy when you have too few bones, and too many opinions.

[Gondring]

Well, maybe the “year of Darwin” was a mistake for the evolutionsts then — if they don’t believe what Darwin taught.

Sometimes if you worship a guy with a big anniversary celebration, you just might be accused of having some affinity with him.

Intelligent people would realize that a person can be celebrated without (a) believing everything he said, and (b) believing only what he said. Are you saying you don't realize that?

This method of refuting something of Darwin and then claiming that invalidates anything he said or any theory that incorporates part of his work is akin to the tactic of saying that because George Washington was a slaveholder, he and America are without moral grounding.

They can drag the red herrings all around, but it just stinks up the place and doesn't change reality.

[Gondring]

Well, not all evolutionists do...so you can stop now. Your use of the term refers only to those who describe themselves thus, but that’s irrelevant to discussions of, for example, Modern Evolutionqry Synthetics.

[xcamel]

you’re catching on....