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Member (Idle past 4627 days) Posts: 175 From: Klamath Falls, OR Joined: |
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Author | Topic: How creationism explains the Archaeopteryx | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ApostateAbe Member (Idle past 4627 days) Posts: 175 From: Klamath Falls, OR Joined: |
CONSILIENCE
"The Consilience of Inductions takes place when an Induction, obtained from one class of facts, coincides with an Induction obtained from another different class. Thus Consilience is a test of the truth of the Theory in which it occurs." --William Whewell, 1840. Consilience is a very useful way to evaluate theories of science and any sort, but it is not very well known. When one theory has many independent lines of evidence, then it is the best theory to accept. It is inappropriate to think that there could be one single "smoking gun," although that is what most people really want in terms of evidence. It is the true theory that has on its side many diverse lines of evidence. It is the untrue theory that dismisses each line of evidence, finding ad hoc explanations with weak evidence for each. That is the method of pseudoscience adherents, conspiracy theorists, ideologues and representatives of scientific theories that are just plain wrong. As just one example, let us look at a fossil of one transitional species, the Archaeopteryx. ARCHAEOPTERYX
This species was found just two years after Darwin published in book. It is a bird with teeth, clawed wings, long bony tail, thick bones, and a spinal chord that connects at the back of the skull instead of the bottom. This seems to fit an evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs, and the link is reinforced by fossils of feathered dinosaurs.
What do creationists say about the Archaeopteryx? Well, many things. Answers In Genesis wrote a long article and put it online, refuting the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.
Did Dinosaurs Turn Into Birds? Here is a summary of their points:
Other creationists are more direct, and they say that Archaeopteryx was just another bird, a mosaic that God created, and there is no reason God can't create a bird with lots of things in common with a dinosaur. Yes, that's right. Maybe, on the Fifth Day, God created a bird with teeth, clawed wings, long bony tail, thick bones, and a spinal chord that connects at the back of the skull. And this bird presumably went extinct soon after its creation for being unable to compete with other birds that were more smartly suited for flight. That is possible. But possibilities must yield to what is probable. The evidence from many sources lines up in favor of the theory that birds descended from theropod dinosaurs. That is consilience. But wait there's more--we need other rungs on the ladder. This about the consilience of the evidence, after all. OTHER SPECIES
Wikipedia has a long list of feathered dinosaurs. It can be hard to make out fossil feathers from a photo, but sometimes we are in luck. Here is a photo of a Sinornithosaurus.
You can make out at least the feathers and the long pointy teeth. The Archaeopteryx seems to have had only flat beak-like teeth. Here is an artistic reconstruction of the Sinornithosaurus.
The Microraptor is another good one.
And the good people at Answers in Genesis supplied species with transitional features. Here are fossil remains of the Hesperornis. You can't help but notice the very nasty teeth on the beak.
Here is a sketch of an ostrich wing:
Here is the juvenile hoatzin:
Each of these species help to model a transition between theropod dinosaurs and birds. This is significant, because we haven't found any species that looks remotely like this:
or this:
Those animals are digitally edited, and if real they would be transitions between (1) birds and dogs or (2) birds and crocodiles, respectively. For more, I found a slide show on the MSNBC website titled, 9 links in the dinosaur-to-bird transition. It talks about transitions in egg-laying behaviors, the T-Rex flesh, transition in size, transition in lungs, transition in feathers, and transition in feet. Gentlemen, that is consilience. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Reduced size of some photos by making them thumnails.
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AdminNosy Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: |
Thread copied here from the How creationism explains the Archaeopteryx thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2106 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
None of that proves anything. I don't see any evidence anyhow.
Were you there? Its not in the bible, so it couldn't be TRVE even if you found it. /creationist & creation "scientist" mode Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.
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ApostateAbe Member (Idle past 4627 days) Posts: 175 From: Klamath Falls, OR Joined: |
Well, the thing is I have faith.
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Augray Junior Member (Idle past 5304 days) Posts: 9 From: Toronto, Canada Joined: |
This species was found just two years after Darwin published in book. It is a bird with teeth, clawed wings, long bony tail, thick bones, and a spinal chord that connects at the back of the skull instead of the bottom. "Thick bones"?
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ApostateAbe Member (Idle past 4627 days) Posts: 175 From: Klamath Falls, OR Joined: |
"Thick" isn't the right word, probably. Modern birds have bones that are hollow, to aid flight. Dinosaurs have non-hollow bones (thick bones). The Archaeopteryx has non-hollow bones.
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pandion Member (Idle past 3000 days) Posts: 166 From: Houston Joined: |
ApostateAbe writes:
Sorry. This is incorrect. While it cannot be determined if there were or were not air sacs as in modern birds, the bones of Archaeopteryx were hollow. I refer you to "Taking Wing" by Pat Shipman.
thick bones
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Augray Junior Member (Idle past 5304 days) Posts: 9 From: Toronto, Canada Joined: |
"Thick" isn't the right word, probably. Modern birds have bones that are hollow, to aid flight. Dinosaurs have non-hollow bones (thick bones). The Archaeopteryx has non-hollow bones.
This isn't entirely correct. First of all, one has to make a distinction between hollow bones, and pneumatic bones, in which air sacs involved in the pulmonary system invade the interior of the bone. Living birds have extensive pneumatization, and there's no consensus as to whether it's related to flight or not. Archaeopteryx had hollow long bones and limited pneumatization, and in non-avian theropods, which also had hollow long bones, pneumatization was limited to certain vertebrae and ribs. Christiansen, P., & N. Bonde. 2000. Axial and appendicular pneumaticity in Archaeopteryx. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 267:2501-2505. O’Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256. Available here. Edited by Augray, : Edit stupid spelling mistakes.
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ApostateAbe Member (Idle past 4627 days) Posts: 175 From: Klamath Falls, OR Joined: |
You are right, thank you for the correction.
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pandion Member (Idle past 3000 days) Posts: 166 From: Houston Joined: |
The more complete reference:
Pat Shipman. 1998. Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight. Touchstone. New York. 336 p. There is also: Gregory S. Paul. 2002. Dinosaurs Of The Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 460 p. While the latter book present a quite different view of the origin of bird flight, is still makes it clear that Archaeopteryx had hollow, possibly pneumatic, bones.
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