Birds Created Before Dinosaurs

[StuartJ]

Day Four

And God (the Elohim) said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Day Five

And God (the Elohim) said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so

Day Four - birds and fishes, Day Five - land creatures.

What happened to birds evolving from dinosaurs in this creation myth ...?

I think: "We have the fossils, we win" applies here.

[OnceConvinced]

You appear to have difficulty comprehending what I've clearly written.

Perhaps a little less time in Sunday school and a lot more time with advanced education would be beneficial.

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[Guy Threepwood]

[Replying to post 8 by StuartJ]


your question was

What happened to birds evolving from dinosaurs in this creation myth ...?

Well, quite possibly they did not- as David Raup, curator of the Chicago Field museum once said, 'ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time,'

because time and again, direct examples of ancestry first assumed on superficial morphology in Victorian times, fails under the scrutiny of modern science. and the hypothetical common ancestor gets pushed back into mystery- as in this example. We are learning that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry.

You misapplied the link ... intentionally, I suggest:

I really do have trouble trusting people of faith when it comes to matters of faith.

For the record let me tell you what I think of Darwinists like you! I think you are perfectly honest, intelligent, and capable of critical thought, at least I find that assumption makes for a more interesting discussion than ad hominem!

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 8 by StuartJ]


your question was

What happened to birds evolving from dinosaurs in this creation myth ...?

Well, quite possibly they did not- as David Raup, curator of the Chicago Field museum once said, 'ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time,'

He also said, in the same 1979 article titled "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology": "I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."

If you were to read the entire article, and I sincerely hope you do, then you will find that the point of his writing was to discuss what he called neutral evolution (which was the advancement of traits that did not confer a fitness advantage but was not a detriment either) could be responsible for some features of animal populations. He also touches on other topics, including the extinction of large groups of animals. That discussion is dated unfortunately because the Chicxulub crater was just being discovered around this time, and he was unaware of the cosmic source for the mass extinction of most dinosaur lines at the time he was writing that article.

because time and again, direct examples of ancestry first assumed on superficial morphology in Victorian times, fails under the scrutiny of modern science. and the hypothetical common ancestor gets pushed back into mystery- as in this example. We are learning that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry.

On the contrary, the amount of empirical data and evidence has only increased, in sizes of order, since the Victorian days. And that doesn't even count the relatively new and completely unrelated field of study - genetics - which has shown that the tree of life constructed from paleontology, morphology, and geology was incredibly accurate and reliable. The fact that a completely unrelated field like genetics confirms the theory of evolution is an amazing verification.

[Guy Threepwood]

[Replying to post 8 by StuartJ]


your question was

What happened to birds evolving from dinosaurs in this creation myth ...?

Well, quite possibly they did not- as David Raup, curator of the Chicago Field museum once said, 'ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time,'

He also said, in the same 1979 article titled "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology": "I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."

If you were to read the entire article, and I sincerely hope you do, then you will find that the point of his writing was to discuss what he called neutral evolution (which was the advancement of traits that did not confer a fitness advantage but was not a detriment either) could be responsible for some features of animal populations. He also touches on other topics, including the extinction of large groups of animals. That discussion is dated unfortunately because the Chicxulub crater was just being discovered around this time, and he was unaware of the cosmic source for the mass extinction of most dinosaur lines at the time he was writing that article.

because time and again, direct examples of ancestry first assumed on superficial morphology in Victorian times, fails under the scrutiny of modern science. and the hypothetical common ancestor gets pushed back into mystery- as in this example. We are learning that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry.

On the contrary, the amount of empirical data and evidence has only increased, in sizes of order, since the Victorian days. And that doesn't even count the relatively new and completely unrelated field of study - genetics - which has shown that the tree of life constructed from paleontology, morphology, and geology was incredibly accurate and reliable. The fact that a completely unrelated field like genetics confirms the theory of evolution is an amazing verification.

Yes I read the whole article, I used to live quite near the Chicago Field museum home of 'Sue the T rex' and visited often, I'm familiar with his views.

and once again nobody debates natural selection, as a selection process of what has already been created. The creation of new animals has always been the question Darwinism cannot answer. We see the distribution and makeup of populations change- largely due to extinction- not adaptation- natural selection of existing animals, not mutation into new ones. He was very clear in noting how animals appear abruptly, remain in stasis , and disappear in the fossil record. With very little evidence of any beneficial/ gradual adaptation going on- that's an ever persistent pop-science misconception

" In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks."

He was ahead of his time, his skepticism has been ever more validated the more evidence we find-

https://www.voanews.com/a/scientists-bi ... 63705.html

DNA very much compounds the problems observed in the fossil record, showing inherent limits to adaptation in it's hierarchical structure- we learned that altering the DNA sequence alone cannot create new body plans as once believed. & some animals that are superficially very similar yet with greatly different genetic information. What we are seeing is that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry

that it all still 'must have happened by an unguided process' is demanded purely by the 19th C theory, not the 21st C scientific evidence

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 8 by StuartJ]


your question was

What happened to birds evolving from dinosaurs in this creation myth ...?

Well, quite possibly they did not- as David Raup, curator of the Chicago Field museum once said, 'ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time,'

He also said, in the same 1979 article titled "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology": "I think it is safe to say that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work. There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a biological process works."

If you were to read the entire article, and I sincerely hope you do, then you will find that the point of his writing was to discuss what he called neutral evolution (which was the advancement of traits that did not confer a fitness advantage but was not a detriment either) could be responsible for some features of animal populations. He also touches on other topics, including the extinction of large groups of animals. That discussion is dated unfortunately because the Chicxulub crater was just being discovered around this time, and he was unaware of the cosmic source for the mass extinction of most dinosaur lines at the time he was writing that article.

because time and again, direct examples of ancestry first assumed on superficial morphology in Victorian times, fails under the scrutiny of modern science. and the hypothetical common ancestor gets pushed back into mystery- as in this example. We are learning that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry.

On the contrary, the amount of empirical data and evidence has only increased, in sizes of order, since the Victorian days. And that doesn't even count the relatively new and completely unrelated field of study - genetics - which has shown that the tree of life constructed from paleontology, morphology, and geology was incredibly accurate and reliable. The fact that a completely unrelated field like genetics confirms the theory of evolution is an amazing verification.

Yes I read the whole article, I used to live quite near the Chicago Field museum home of 'Sue the T rex' and visited often, I'm familiar with his views.

and once again nobody debates natural selection, as a selection process of what has already been created. The creation of new animals has always been the question Darwinism cannot answer. We see the distribution and makeup of populations change- largely due to extinction- not adaptation- natural selection of existing animals, not mutation into new ones. He was very clear in noting how animals appear abruptly, remain in stasis , and disappear in the fossil record. With very little evidence of any beneficial/ gradual adaptation going on- that's an ever persistent pop-science misconception.

Let's clarify what you are meaning here, because I didn't realize in your original post that this was your slant. Are you saying that the theory of evolution cannot explain where new species come from? Or are you saying that it cannot explain where the first life forms originally came from?

" In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general. these have not been found-yet the optimism has died hard and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks."

He was ahead of his time, his skepticism has been ever more validated the more evidence we find-

His point was that evolution doesn't allow predictions as to what things will evolve INTO. The theory only predicts that things will change over time. The theory also doesn't claim at what rate things will change. Some species (crocodiles are a great example) change very little, while others change a lot more. Raup and others felt that there are multiple ways things evolve, including things like punctuated evolution, and it makes a lot of sense. But please don't confuse his desire to lessen the value of the slow steady evolution concept to mean that evolution is no longer a valid scientific theory. The consensus is still clearly that animal populations change over time, and sometimes those changes are large and varied enough that you get a distinctly new species. No one, including Raup from above or Feduccia from your link below disputes that.

https://www.voanews.com/a/scientists-bi ... 63705.html

Feduccia (the scientist mentioned in the article from your link) is from a small minority that thinks that birds and dinosaurs evolved from a common ancestor. His claims in the article that Scansoriopteryx isn't a dinosaur at all is rather ludicrous, given that it had teeth and not a beak, it's lower jawbone was fused together like a lot of other oviraptor dinos, and it's hip bone faced forward like all theropods (three toed hollow boned dinosaurs). The forelimbs were longer than the hind limbs, opposite from what modern bird hatchlings have. It was bird like in some ways, and dino like in others.

On a side note: The movement that birds came first and dinos came from them has been headed by a guy named George Olshevski I believe (spelling may be wrong). I'd look him up if you want to research that hypothesis more.

DNA very much compounds the problems observed in the fossil record, showing inherent limits to adaptation in it's hierarchical structure- we learned that altering the DNA sequence alone cannot create new body plans as once believed.

Never heard this claim before. Seems nonsensical on the surface, given how some species that are closely related to each other only differ in their genome by a couple of percentage points. Perhaps you can provide a link to a scientific paper here?

& some animals that are superficially very similar yet with greatly different genetic information. What we are seeing is that form follows function, not necessarily ancestry

What we are seeing is that similar physical traits can evolve separately in different groups of animals. Bats and birds for example both developed flight, yet are not closely related. It's called parallel evolution, and it's a well known thing, and it doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution, because the theory does not predict what things will change into, only that they will change.

that it all still 'must have happened by an unguided process' is demanded purely by the 19th C theory, not the 21st C scientific evidence

Hogwash. The evidence is overwhelming. Even the articles that contain the quote mines from guys like Raup and Feduccia clearly show that they consider evolution to be a valid scientific theory...

[Guy Threepwood]

[Replying to post 15 by Kenisaw]

Let's clarify what you are meaning here, because I didn't realize in your original post that this was your slant. Are you saying that the theory of evolution cannot explain where new species come from? Or are you saying that it cannot explain where the first life forms originally came from?

neither in short

'Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection' is a misnomer

natural selection can only select, not originate- that leaves pure blind chance do all the creative work according to conventional wisdom- which is mathematically problematic, - again something far better understood in the information age than the Victorian I would submit to you..

Feduccia (the scientist mentioned in the article from your link) is from a small minority that thinks that birds and dinosaurs evolved from a common ancestor. His claims in the article that Scansoriopteryx isn't a dinosaur at all is rather ludicrous, given that it had teeth and not a beak, it's lower jawbone was fused together like a lot of other oviraptor dinos, and it's hip bone faced forward like all theropods (three toed hollow boned dinosaurs). The forelimbs were longer than the hind limbs, opposite from what modern bird hatchlings have. It was bird like in some ways, and dino like in others.

"It’s just not a dinosaur. In other words, there’s not anything about this creature that allows classifying it as a dinosaur," [Feduccia] said."

I agree in part, I don't think it's conclusive, but this relates to the OP and general trend of ToE that Raup alluded to - at the very least we are LESS certain of many transitions now than in Darwin's time

Because the fossil and DNA evidence is giving us more accurate information than many assumptions originally made from superficial morphological similarities- (and an empty tree of life diagram to try to fill in!)

https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/ac ... ted_wolves

Never heard this claim before. Seems nonsensical on the surface, given how some species that are closely related to each other only differ in their genome by a couple of percentage points. Perhaps you can provide a link to a scientific paper here?

You'd have to argue that with most scientists at the cutting edge of biology today I would think! for starters: Epigenetics, "It’s not ALL in the genes—the role of epigenetics" :https://www.science.org.au/curious/epigenetics

What we are seeing is that similar physical traits can evolve separately in different groups of animals. Bats and birds for example both developed flight, yet are not closely related. It's called parallel evolution, and it's a well known thing, and it doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution, because the theory does not predict what things will change into, only that they will change.

Yes, and that's what we are increasingly seeing -parallel lines - rather than a single tree of life pattern- a pine forest rather than a great oak- the converging branches are proving elusive

because the theory does not predict what things will change into, only that they will change

that's what the theory predicted yes, not what we find

many species like the Horseshoe crab remain clearly unchanged for 100's of millions of years... the vast periods of stasis are as problematic for random mutation/ gradual adaptation as the sudden appearances

if a xeroxed office memo is identical after a million handouts, you know it's from a master copy, not a million successive generations of accumulated distortion, right?

Hogwash. The evidence is overwhelming. Even the articles that contain the quote mines from guys like Raup and Feduccia clearly show that they consider evolution to be a valid scientific theory...

I will allow Raup to clarify his position himself! (I'm adding the bold)

"Now with regard to the fossil record, we certainly see change. If any of us were to be put down in the Cretaceous landscape we would immediately recognize the difference. Some of the plants and animals would be familiar but most would have changed and some of the types would be totally different from those living today. . . This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change took place, and that is really the question'

[Kenisaw]

[Replying to post 15 by Kenisaw]

Let's clarify what you are meaning here, because I didn't realize in your original post that this was your slant. Are you saying that the theory of evolution cannot explain where new species come from? Or are you saying that it cannot explain where the first life forms originally came from?

neither in short

'Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection' is a misnomer

natural selection can only select, not originate- that leaves pure blind chance do all the creative work according to conventional wisdom- which is mathematically problematic, - again something far better understood in the information age than the Victorian I would submit to you..

I don't think your understanding of natural selection is very accurate. You are taking the phrase "natural selection" a bit too literal. From a dictionary website, natural selection as defined as: "the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring. The theory of its action was first fully expounded by Charles Darwin and is now believed to be the main process that brings about evolution."

Natural selection is the process where random genetic mutations are tested simply by an organism trying to survive with those mutations. If the mutations are helpful, the chances of survival are better. If they are harmful, the chances of survival are worse. That is "natural selection".

Mutations to genetics are a common thing. They literally happen all the time. In fact every single human currently has cancer cells in their body, which are the result of genetic mutations. (Fortunately our bodies kill these mutated cancer cells off almost all the time). So mutations aren't questioned, even by creationists. And since mutations are seemingly random in occurrence, there is no rhyme or reason to how animals change over time. It literally is pure chance.

You may be one of those people that think there has to be a reason for everything, and that may be why your understanding about natural selection and the source of the changes doesn't add up in your mind. Nothing does "creative work". It is not guided or directed in any way.

As for why you think there is something "mathematically problematic" I'm a little fuzzy on. The theory of evolution describes the changes observed in living things over time, and there is nothing mathematically problematic about that. Perhaps you are thinking of the inaccurate creationist claims about the odds of life starting are 1 in 10^29 (or whatever that number is). First, that is bad math, and second that deals with abiogenesis (the start of life), not evolution (the change in living things over time). Two different topics.

Feduccia (the scientist mentioned in the article from your link) is from a small minority that thinks that birds and dinosaurs evolved from a common ancestor. His claims in the article that Scansoriopteryx isn't a dinosaur at all is rather ludicrous, given that it had teeth and not a beak, it's lower jawbone was fused together like a lot of other oviraptor dinos, and it's hip bone faced forward like all theropods (three toed hollow boned dinosaurs). The forelimbs were longer than the hind limbs, opposite from what modern bird hatchlings have. It was bird like in some ways, and dino like in others.

"It’s just not a dinosaur. In other words, there’s not anything about this creature that allows classifying it as a dinosaur," [Feduccia] said."

Yet I just listed above in my previous post characteristics of the creature that are not avian, but dinosaur. So he has no justification for saying that.

I agree in part, I don't think it's conclusive, but this relates to the OP and general trend of ToE that Raup alluded to - at the very least we are LESS certain of many transitions now than in Darwin's time

Which is why I attempted to point out that Raup doesn't think that evolution is wrong. He is convinced that groups or organisms change over time, and that given enough time new species are generated. He isn't convinced that slow, gradual change is the main explanation. Hell, he may be right. It might be more punctuated changes, bursts of change here and there (especially after extinction events). But that is an argument about how evolution happens, not IF evolution happens. Raup, Feduccia, and all these other quote mined scientists still believe in the accuracy of the theory of evolution. They just dispute the processes that cause it to occur.

Because the fossil and DNA evidence is giving us more accurate information than many assumptions originally made from superficial morphological similarities- (and an empty tree of life diagram to try to fill in!)

https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/ac ... ted_wolves

The tree of life gave us an understanding of how living things are related. The field of genetics basically confirmed the whole thing as accurate and reliable. Dogs are still wolves. Their genomes are 99.9% identical.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 2507003058

It's semantics whether or not dogs came from grey wolves or a close cousin that went extinct 30,000 years ago. Either way, they are wolves. You seem to be trying to make it sound like there is this massive difference between the tree of life from Darwin's time and the genetic tree of life today. There simply isn't. It isn't like we discovered dogs came from horses. Dogs came from wolves, and are 99.9% the same as grey wolves today. The tree of life was pretty accurate, and genetics confirmed this.

Never heard this claim before. Seems nonsensical on the surface, given how some species that are closely related to each other only differ in their genome by a couple of percentage points. Perhaps you can provide a link to a scientific paper here?

You'd have to argue that with most scientists at the cutting edge of biology today I would think! for starters: Epigenetics, "It’s not ALL in the genes—the role of epigenetics" :https://www.science.org.au/curious/epigenetics

Again I think there is some misunderstanding here. Epigenetic changes modify the activation of certain genes, but not the genetic code sequence of DNA itself. Also, some epigenetic changes are not inheritable, which means that since they aren't inheritable by future generations they are not drivers of evolutionary change. Other epigenetic affects disappear after just a few generations (not surprising since the DNA hasn't been changed). Epigenetics has not been field verified (to my knowledge I must state here for full disclosure), but only shown in the lab, so it is unknown if this is something that is a regular driver of evolutionary change in the real world.

But regardless of all that, this doesn't change the big picture. The theory of evolution states that living things change over time. Whether it is mutation to DNA or epigenetics, where it is slow and gradual or it happens in bursts of punctuated changes, it's all still evolution.

What we are seeing is that similar physical traits can evolve separately in different groups of animals. Bats and birds for example both developed flight, yet are not closely related. It's called parallel evolution, and it's a well known thing, and it doesn't invalidate the theory of evolution, because the theory does not predict what things will change into, only that they will change.

Yes, and that's what we are increasingly seeing -parallel lines - rather than a single tree of life pattern- a pine forest rather than a great oak- the converging branches are proving elusive

Not at all. All those animals that have (or had) flight are traced back to common ancestors. They aren't parallel lines, they are divergent lines. The morphological evidence was quite clear back in Darwin's time, and the 2 billion or so fossils we've found since then have only added to that conclusion. The sequencing of genomes has fully validated the tree of life.

because the theory does not predict what things will change into, only that they will change

that's what the theory predicted yes, not what we find

many species like the Horseshoe crab remain clearly unchanged for 100's of millions of years... the vast periods of stasis are as problematic for random mutation/ gradual adaptation as the sudden appearances

if a xeroxed office memo is identical after a million handouts, you know it's from a master copy, not a million successive generations of accumulated distortion, right?

Uh, no.

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/in-evolut ... ower-pace/

They have changed. They have evolved. But they haven't evolved much. The theory of evolution doesn't claim that a group of animals has to change much. Just that they will. Gators are another classic example of that. They haven't changed much either, but they have changed.

If a particular type of animal lives in a niche that it excels in, and there is no real pressure on them to compete against other animals, then there is no pressure on them to change. So most of the mutations they have don't make them more competitive, because they are already at the top of the game.

Hogwash. The evidence is overwhelming. Even the articles that contain the quote mines from guys like Raup and Feduccia clearly show that they consider evolution to be a valid scientific theory...

I will allow Raup to clarify his position himself! (I'm adding the bold)

"Now with regard to the fossil record, we certainly see change. If any of us were to be put down in the Cretaceous landscape we would immediately recognize the difference. Some of the plants and animals would be familiar but most would have changed and some of the types would be totally different from those living today. . . This record of change pretty clearly demonstrates that evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; but it does not tell us how this change took place, and that is really the question'

Right, evolution occurs, but how, when, and at what speed they occur is still up in the air. He's not questioning the theory of evolution.