In 1996, newspapers reported a find in China of a reptile fossil that supposedly had feathers. Some of the media reports claimed that, if it were confirmed, it would be "irrefutable evidence that today's birds evolved from dinosaurs." One scientist stated, "You can't come to any conclusion other than that they're feathers." However, in 1997 the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia sent four leading scientists to investigate this find. They concluded that they were not feathers. The media report stated, concerning one of the scientists, "He said he saw ‘hair-like' structures—not hairs—that could have supported a frill, or crest, like those on iguanas."
No sooner had this report appeared than another media report claimed that 20 fragments of bones of a reptile found in South America showed that dinosaurs were related to birds.
Birds are warm-blooded and reptiles are cold-blooded, but evolutionists who believe dinosaurs evolved into birds would like to see dinosaurs as warm-blooded to support their theory. But Dr. Larry Martin, of the University of Kansas, opposes this idea:
Recent research has shown the microscopic structure of dinosaur bones was "characteristic of cold-blooded animals," Martin said. "So we're back to cold-blooded dinosaurs."
Several more recent reports have fueled the bird/dinosaur debate among evolutionists. One concerns research on the embryonic origins of the "fingers" of birds and dinosaurs, showing that birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs. A study of the so-called
feathered dinosaur from China revealed that the dinosaur had a distinctively reptilian lung and diaphragm, which is distinctly different from the avian lung. Another report said that the frayed edges that some thought to be "feathers" on the Chinese fossil are similar to the collagen fibers found immediately beneath the skin of sea snakes.
There is no credible evidence that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Dinosaurs have always been dinosaurs and birds have always been birds.
What if a dinosaur fossil was found with feathers on it? Would that prove that birds evolved from dinosaurs? No, a duck has a duck bill and webbed feet, as does a platypus, but nobody believes that this proves that platypuses evolved from ducks. The belief that reptiles or dinosarus evolved into birds requires reptilian scales on the way to becoming feathers, that is, transitional scales, not fully formed feathers.
Topic: Birds (Read 2582 times)
