According to evolution, dinosaurs lived during an age when birds and non-reptile land creatures were either present in just a few “primitive” forms or not at all.
YEC scientist Brian Thomas is either incompetent or dishonest. According to the evidence, both birds and non-reptile creatures were plentiful in the cretaceous. This is common knowledge and consistent with the evolutionary history of life over geological time.
I made the mistake of reading your ICR article. I’m not linking it to spare others the trouble and deny them the traffic. To quote:
“Dinosaur rock layers contain all kinds of creatures from all kinds of habitats, including those of both land and sea. Evolution can provide no explanation for this circumstance. It is completely to be expected, however, if these creatures were created all together and then deposited in catastrophic mudflows powered by the year-long, world-destroying Flood and its residual effects.”
On the sudden deposition of fossils in a “world-destroying Flood,” see above.
David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York has been digging fossils in a Cretaceous deposit in Madagascar for over ten years. The interview with National Geographic highlighted his “most interesting and important finds,” and the array of remains he’s discovered lines up with what Werner found—plenty of non-dinosaur kinds located in dinosaur rock layers.
Please understand, this talk of “non-dinosaur kinds located in dinosaur rock layers” is just mealy-mouthed YEC jargon. The operative word is kinds, and evolution has plenty of explanations for the situation described.
Let’s start with the microraptor from the OP. It was a flightless dinosaur with feathers. Hmmm. Transitional species, anyone? The microraptor with a mammal’s foot in its gut was dated to more than 120 mil years ago. The first birds appeared in China around 125 mil years ago. When did the first mammals evolve? More than 250 mil years ago. When did pygmy shrews appear? About 145 mil years ago. When did dinosaurs go extinct? About 65 mil years ago.
I’d say evolution has a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the presence of “non-dinosaur kinds in dinosaur rock layers.”
The claims in the creation*com article are too ridiculous to address. @jammycakes mentioned some of the problems, but the idea that scientists are hiding data is ludicrous. As I pointed out, your OP about microraptors was based on an article published by an international team of scientists. Excavations are carried out by teams of people. Samples are sent to independent labs for testing by teams of technicians.
Should I go on? It’s a conspiracy theory on the grandest scale imaginable.
I know it’s tacky to quote yourself, but I forgot to mention that lizards, snakes, bony fish, amphibians, crocodilians and possibly turtles all predated the dinosaurs. Yet somehow, ICR claims evolution has no explanation for the fact that “Dinosaur rock layers contain all kinds of creatures from all kinds of habitats, including those of both land and sea.” That’s deliberately misleading, at best.
Appreciated @anon61138028’s thoughts. I’ll come back to it later. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
I often start to look over threads like this one, because I feel like, “Well, it’s your duty, if you’re hanging around this forum, at least to look at some of the science related stuff.” 10 minutes into the debate and arguing, my eyes glaze over. All I often see is that I don’t have a background on the topic.
Somewhere in the first half of the 1980s was the last class I had that covered geologic eras, dinosaurs and fossils. What I really need is an organized overview of the topics (in case I need to add: by real scientists who are writing IN THEIR FIELD OF EXPERTICE, working for REAL ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS) at a complete beginner’s level. I am not too proud to read great kids’ books! DK is one of my all time favorite publishers.
So, do any of you have favorite books that cover these subjects well? (Maybe that you share with your kids?)
PM is fine, if you feel like answering in the thread is too distracting to the public debate.
But surely a reasonable Christian might expect modern evolutionary theory to apply even when it causes someone with a very limited understanding of theology to experience a great many dilemmas. The Bible alone needn’t cause any Christian to run into any difficulty with science so long as no one goes looking in the Bible for something it was never intended to address.
The Bible, Rocks and Time (a more in-depth and technical treatment of the subject; contains a lot of information about the history of geology as well as about the subject of geology itself)
Technically, “crocodilians” refers just to the order containing the modern groups (which appeared more like the mid-Cretaceous). Crocodylomorphs would be the more technically-correct term for things like Sarcosuchus or “sphenosuchians”. Psedosuchia is the term for “anything closer to modern crocodiles than to modern birds”.
i will simply respond by reminding you of the issue with what was considered one of the greatest discoveries of the modern era concerning our ancestors…lucy
> the August 2005 Scientific American suggests that there might be a problem. William E.H. Harcourt-Smith (American Museum of Natural History) and Charles E. Hilton (Western Michigan University) challenge Lucy’s bipedality. They claim that the fossil reconstruction of the A. afarensis foot is based on a mixture of fossils, some from the 3.2 million year old A. afarensis collection, and some from the 1.8 million year old Homo habilis collection. Specifically, they claim that one of the bones, the navicular, used to determine that the A. afarensis foot was arched, actually was a Homo habilis fossil foot bone, not an A. afarensis fossil foot bone.
seems to me that more manufacturing of evidence is being made on the darwinian side in order to promote pre existing models.
The reality is that TEists are the ones who twist biblical writings in order to fit their scientific faith. Theirs is not a Christan faith based on the inerrancy of the bible…what they say is that the bible writers didn’t understand the science.
here’s the problem i have with that…bible writers wrote what God told them to write.
Since when do you know more about science than God does?
Do you not accept that Satan exists and has spent the entire oral and written history of the bible (over 6,000 years) corrupting interpretations of Gods plan and story?
How can you as a Christian make the claim that Science is your first and foremost source of all authority when the only interpretation you adhere to is one coming from those scientists who deny God?
I find it incredible that any Christian can intentionally discredit YEC science interpretations that very obviously agree with a straightforward reading of the bible! That is the point…YECers are not manipulating scripture in order to fit the science…they are simply interpreting science in a way that matches self evident Bible writings! I cannot for the life of me understand how it is that TEists are so blind to this really obvious theological stuff up they are making?
I get that 30 or 40 years ago, there was not enough YEC scientific research and references out there for YEC to put forward sound options for Christians. But that is not the fault of the YEC interpretations now…they are logically and conclusively putting forward significant research that really does call into question Darwinian models…and actually supports the biblical account. What I am seeing here however is that the traditional Darwinian following Christians are incapable of moving with the times…they are rigidly and dogmatically sticking to those theories presented by atheists who claim there is no room in science for God!
I think the point of all this O.P is being lost.
Please explain why it is that very few (and I mean very few) fossils are ever found where the predator has bones from its eaten prey located in its stomach?
Surely you must agree that a predator running for its life from a catastrophe such as rising floodwaters, would not have anything in its stomach because the last thing of interest is food when ones very existence is at stake.
Doesnt this support the idea of a global flood?
Surely anyone with even the slightest bit of common logic and lifes experience given floods in our local regions during the last few decades where animals (both predatory and prey have coexisted without one trying to eat the other when obviously hungry after fighting to survive against rising flood waters for days) must concede this point! There are lots of examples in the media of such occurrences all around the world.
Dont those occurrences raise eyebrows when one considers how few supposedly ancient fossils of predators (apparently millions of years of age) have bones in their stomachs from prey they have eaten? Dont you think that is evidence in favor of the bible account of the flood (I cannot but concede it does support the bible account because I have seen numerous examples/evidence of it in my own lifetime during floods)
How do you get that conclusion from that minor squabble over a foot bone? Seems like a rather manufactured argument. In reading about Lucy, it seems all the bones were confirmed hers, except for a vertebra that was too small and may well have come from an orangutan that co-existed with her.
The truth is, ECs (or TEs if you insist) do not feel biblical writings are about evolutionary theory, or quantum theory, or astronomical theory and do not try to twist the Bible to address those subjects, in stark contrast to YECism, which defines its beliefs in science and physical observations by distorting scripture into being a scientific text, The way EC interprets early Genesis actually allows for a young earth, if there were any evidence that that were true.
Now sure you can find an occasional individual who will point to the “bringing forth” language as an affirmation of evolution, but no one who really has thought critically about it feels that way so far as I know.
As a Christian, science is not an authority at all. It is a methodology of verifying hypothesis concerning nature. From scientific methodology we have gained understanding of our world in space and time, and for many generations now the evidence has incontrovertibly demonstrated that the earth is ancient.
YEC organizations scarcely support labs in which to even conduct research, while enthusiastically promoting speakers, conferences, glossy brochures, and web sites. They are devoted to disinformation, not research.
You have not acknowledged the explanations already offered. Read your own thread.
if I quote YEC scientists such as Creation ministries or Answers in Genesis, you immediate claim they are nutcases.
What I see is scientists who are attempting to reconcile a biblical narrative + comprehensive and adequate Bible theology, with science.
I do not believe a secular interpretation can be relied upon to present valid interpretations when those interpretations very specifically deny God!
um…say what? Can you provide evidence of this because I see evidence of the opposite.
Answers in Genesis spend an enormous amount of money and resources supporting such research. Trouble is, whenever research is conducted in secular laboratories by YECers, immediately those laboratories are discredited as being insufficiently funded and equiped to conduct such research. If YECers use their own labs. they are biased and not telling the truth!
This is a problem Stephen Myer and Michael Behee have both complained about…ie that their research is restricted from entering into larger institutions/laboratories for verification so they have been forced to use the best they are able to given that restriction.
Even Andrew Snealing complained that he was prevented by US national parks for a long time from gaining access to specific parts of the Grand Canyon to conduct research and collect samples known to likely support the YEC claims about the flood which were also contrary to accepted secular Darwinian interpretations!
I do not agree with your statement about YEC scientists and labs…that is on the balance of the evidence I’ve provided above to be a bit unfair. there is plenty of evidence that many publishers wont even publish YEC material…if the big publishers refuse to publish, how can it get adequate peer reviews other than to say…its published by an unknown and therefore not credible?
The point here is this…YECers are not claiming absolute answers to anything. They are trying to find suitable conclusions that are consistent with bible theology and science results. I genuinely believe that is by far the best option given that YECers are not making those interpretations from a position of “their is no God”,
In terms of this thread…my position remains the same…if predators are running from rising flood waters, is it not quite likely that is a very sound reason why very few of them (only about 20 known samples worldwide) have evidence of bones in their tummies?
Dont you find that a rather surprising fact? In my mind it absolutely equates to a very interesting death…a much larger number of predator fossils should have evidence of undigested bones in their stomachs…the fact the don’t is highly suspicious and I think supports the biblical flood narrative given where lots of these dinosaurs are found (in sedimentary deposits)
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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What more could there be? It’s scientifically interesting in many ways yes. Especially in demonstrating how the masses incorporate the findings of science in to their unscientific, folk worldviews. The necessarily mean straw is a sad travesty of the first line of Blake’s Auguries of Innocence.
Yes, on its own it is scientifically interesting. It’s worth wondering what actually WAS going on with that particular creature when and wherever it happened. I can also see why someone might wonder if this had some corroborative implications with regard to a worldwide deluge. But, yes, I think we can agree that much more would be needed to know for that to be an issue here.
There seems to be no wondering.
Rather there is the claim that, when interpreted properly to support a foregone conclusion” such and such situation “proves” or “supports” the foregone conclusion of a nonexistent event.
This is then punctuated by claims that those of us who claim to be christians but who don’t hold these foregone conclusions are at best wrong, probably something much worse.
Same song in a slightly different key. Again.