Hello thanks for coming to my blog.
I am fourteen and I started this blog to share what I learn and already know. This was my creation week post. To see another great creation week post click on
this.
For those of you who watched the Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate last Tuesday and
are considering homeschool, I would say just do it. When I was a younger child I
LOVED dinosaurs, and still do. So when the "dinosaur subject" came to my
Christian private school I was overly exited. During these classes I would
learn about the Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic periods. I also took classes
about fossils at the local museum and learned more about these periods and about
evolution. After this, I was reading books from AiG and about what the bible
said on creation and dinosaurs and I realized I had been lied to. I didn't blame
my teachers but I was in shock that I wasn't taught the other side. So I started
going beyond school and did research on creation and evolution.
Presuppositions
After the Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate I read some comments and remarks, one
went," I wish Ken Ham would of used more evidence". Ken ham didn't give evidence
not because of a lack of evidence but because of Mr. Bills presuppositions.
Presuppositions are your fundamental beliefs about your world view.
World view
A world view is and what determines how you look at the world. An evolutionary
world view cannot account for logic and/or reasoning because he believes that
everything will change, but we as Christrians can account for logic and reason.
We can be sure that things like gravity will be the same tomorrow as it was
today. In evolution you can't be sure that gravity will stay unchanged.
Basically you can't predict ANYTHING with out a Christrian world view. That's
quite the opposite of what Bill Nye said in the debate. Evidence is great for
confirming creation, but not for proving it. When ever you give an evolutionist
a great piece of evidence they will always have a "rescuing device". We all have
the same evidence and fossils, we just have different world view "glasses" on.
What does the bible say?
I take the bible for what it says even the bizarre things like the floating ax
head in Acts. The creation account in Genesis describes the creation of
birds(day 5)and dinosaurs (day 6).
Activity
Read Genesis 1:20-25 and discuss the different land animal "kinds".
What do evolutionists claim?
The famous Darwinian apologist Thomas Huxley was the first to speculate (in
the mid 1800s) that birds evolved from dinosaurs. When John Ostrom discovered a
rather “bird-like” early Cretaceous theropod dinosaur called Deinonychus
evolutionists got exited because they had discovered a dinosaur with "bird-like"
characteristics, but an adult Deinonychus measured about 12 feet (3.5 m) long,
weighed over 150 pounds (68 kg), and was about 5 feet (1.5 m) tall standing on
its two hind legs. Like other theropods (which means “beast foot”), Deinonychus
had forelimbs much smaller than its hind limbs, with hands bearing three fingers
and feet bearing three toes. The most distinctive feature of Deinonychus (which
means “terrible claw”) is a large curved talon on its middle toe.
One of the main reasons that Deinonychus and other similar theropod dinosaurs
(called dromaeosaurs) seemed to be plausible ancestors to birds is that, like
birds, these creatures walked solely on their hind legs and have only three
digits on their hands. But as we shall see, there are many problems with
transforming any dinosaur, and particularly a theropod, into a bird.
Problem#1
Warm- blood vs. Cold- blood
Seemingly forgotten in all the claims that birds are essentially dinosaurs (or
at least that they evolved from dinosaurs) is the fact that dinosaurs are
reptiles. There are many differences between birds and reptiles, including the
fact that (with precious few exceptions) living reptiles are cold-blooded
creatures, while birds and mammals are warm-blooded. Indeed, even compared to
most mammals, birds have exceptionally high body temperatures resulting from a
high metabolic rate. The difference between cold- and warm-blooded animals isn’t
simply in the relative temperature of the blood but rather in their ability to
maintain a constant body core temperature. Thus, warm-blooded animals such as
birds and mammals have internal physiological mechanisms to maintain an
essentially constant body temperature; they are more properly called
“endothermic.” In contrast, reptiles have a varying body temperature influenced
by their surrounding environment and are called “ectothermic.” An ectothermic
animal can adjust its body temperature behaviorally (e.g., moving between shade
and sun), even achieving higher body temperature than a so-called warm-blooded
animal, but this is done by outside factors. In an effort to make the evolution
of dinosaurs into birds seem more plausible, some evolutionists have argued that
dinosaurs were also endothermic, but there is no clear evidence for this. One of
the lines of evidence for endothermic dinosaurs is based on the microscopic
structure of dinosaur bones. Fossil dinosaur bones have been found containing
special microscopic structures called osteons (or Haversian systems). Osteons
are complex concentric layers of bone surrounding blood vessels in areas where
the bone is dense. This arrangement is assumed by some to be unique to
endothermic animals and thus evidence that dinosaurs are endothermic, but such
is not the case. Larger vertebrates (whether reptiles, birds, or mammals) may
also have this type of bone. Even tuna fish have osteonal bone in their
vertebral arches. Another argument for endothermy in dinosaurs is based on the
eggs and assumed brood behavior of dinosaurs, but this speculation too has been
challenged. There is in fact no theropod brooding behavior not known to occur in
crocodiles and other cold-blooded living reptiles.
Alan Feduccia, an expert on birds and their evolution, has concluded that “there
has never been, nor is there now, any evidence that dinosaurs were endothermic.”
Activity
Define endothermic and ectothermic.
Problem#2
Bird hip vs. Lizard hip
All dinosaurs are divided into two major groups based on the structure of their
hips (pelvic bones): the lizard-hipped dinosaurs (saurischians) and the
bird-hipped dinosaurs (ornithiscians). The main difference between the two hip
structures is that the pubic bone of the bird-hipped dinosaurs is directed
toward the rear (as it is in birds) rather than entirely to the front (as it is
in mammals and reptiles), but the bird-hipped dinosaurs, including such bizarre
creatures as the armor-plated ankylosaurs and the horned ceratopsian dinosaurs,
are even less bird-like than the lizard-hipped, bipedal dinosaurs such as the
theropods. This point is rarely emphasized in popular accounts of dinosaur/bird
evolution.
Problem#3
One-way lung vs. U-turn lung
One of the most distinctive features of birds is their lungs. Bird lungs are
small in size and nearly rigid, but they are, nevertheless, highly efficient to
meet the high metabolic needs of flight. Bird respiration involves a unique
“flow-through ventilation” into a set of nine interconnecting flexible air sacs
sandwiched between muscles and under the skin. The air sacs contain few blood
vessels and do not take part in oxygen exchange, but rather function like
bellows to move air through the lungs. The air sacs permit a unidirectional flow
of air through the lungs resulting in higher oxygen content than is possible
with the bidirectional air flow through the lungs of reptiles and mammals. The
air flow moves through the same tubes at different times both into and out of
the lungs of reptiles and mammals, and this results in a mixture of oxygen-rich
air with oxygen-depleted air (air that has been in the lungs for awhile). The
unidirectional flow through bird lungs not only permits more oxygen to diffuse
into the blood but also keeps the volume of air in the lungs nearly constant, a
requirement for maintaining a level flight path. If theropod dinosaurs are the
ancestors of birds, one might expect to find evidence of an one-way type lung in
such dinosaurs. While fossils generally do not preserve soft tissue such as
lungs, a very fine theropod dinosaur fossil (Sinosauropteryx) has been found in
which the outline of the visceral cavity has been well preserved. The evidence
clearly indicates that this theropod had lung and respiratory mechanics similar
to that of a crocodile—not a bird. Specifically, there was evidence of a
diaphragm-like muscle separating the lung from the liver, much as you see in
modern crocodiles (birds lack a diaphragm). These observations suggest that this
theropod was similar to an ectothermic reptile, not an endothermic bird.
Activity
Draw a one-way lung and a U-turn lung.
Problem#4
Feathers vs. Scales
If birds evolved from dinosaurs or any other reptile, then feathers must have
evolved from reptilian scales. Evolutionists are so confident that feathers
evolved from scales that they often claim that feathers are very similar to
scales. The popular Encarta computerized encyclopedia (1997) describes feathers
as a “horny outgrowth of skin peculiar to the bird but similar in structure and
origin to the scales of fish and reptiles.” In actual fact, feathers are
profoundly different from scales in both their structure and growth. Feathers
grow individually from tube-like follicles similar to hair follicles. Reptilian
scales, on the other hand, are not individual follicular structures but rather
comprise a continuous sheet on the surface of the body. Thus, while feathers
grow and are shed individually (actually in symmetrically matched pairs!),
scales grow and are shed as an entire sheet of skin. The feather vane is made up
of hundreds of barbs, each bearing hundreds of barbules interlocked with tiny
hinged hooklets. This incredibly complex structure bears not the slightest
resemblance to the relatively simple reptilian scale. Still, evolutionists
continue to publish imaginative scenarios of how long-fringed reptile scales
evolved by chance into feathers, but evidence of “sceathers” eludes them.
Activity
Study a feather and scales
and note differences
Go bird watching, and learn their flight patterns.(E.G. flap, flap, glide)
One of my own bird watching photos.
Problem#5
Fossils
Feathers have long been considered to be unique to birds. Certainly all living
birds have feathers of some kind, while no living creature other than birds has
been found to have a cutaneous appendage even remotely similar to a feather.
Since most evolutionists are certain that birds evolved from dinosaurs (or at
least are closely related to them), there has been an intense effort to find
dinosaur fossils that show some suggestion of feathers or “protofeathers.” With
such observer bias, one must be skeptical of recent widely publicized reports of
feathered dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are reptiles, and so it is not surprising that
fossil evidence has shown them to have a scaly skin typical of reptiles. For
example, a recently discovered well-preserved specimen of Compsognathus (a small
theropod dinosaur of the type believed to be most closely related to birds)
showed unmistakable evidence of scales but alas—no feathers. Still, there have
been many claims of feathered dinosaurs, particularly from fossils found in
Liaoning province in northeastern China. The earliest feathered dinosaur from
this source is the very unbird-like dinosaur Sinosauropteryx, which lacks any
evidence of structures that could be shown to be feather-like.
Structures described as “protofeathers” in the dinosaur fossils Sinosauropteryx
and Sinithosaurus are filamentous and sometimes have interlaced structures
bearing no obvious resemblance to feathers. It now appears likely that these
filaments (often referred to as “dino-fuzz”) are actually connective tissue
fibers (collagen) found in the deep dermal layer of the skin. Feduccia laments
that “the major and most worrying problem of the feathered dinosaur hypothesis
is that the integumental structures have been homologized with avian feathers on
the basis of anatomically and paleontologically unsound and misleading
information.” Complicating matters even further is the fact that true birds have
been found among the Liaoning province fossils in the same layers as their
presumed dinosaur ancestors. The obvious bird fossil Confuciusornis Sanctus, for
example, has long slender tail feathers resembling those of a modern
scissor-tail flycatcher. Two taxa (Caudipteryx and Protarchaeopteryx) that were
thought to be dinosaurs with true feathers are now generally conceded to be
flightless birds.So the only obvious dinosaur fossil with obvious feathers that
was “found” is Archaeoraptor liaoningensis. This so-called definitive feathered
dinosaur was reported with much fanfare in the November 1999 issue of National
Geographic but has since been shown to be a fraud.
What would it prove if features common to one type of animal were found on
another? Nothing. Simply that God uses various designs with various creatures.
Take the platypus, for example—a mosaic. It has several design features that are
shared with other animals, and yet it is completely distinct. So if a dinosaur
(or mammal) is ever found with feathers, it would call into question our human
criteria for classification, not biblical veracity.
Activity
Make your own fossil impression
What you need:
Plaster of Paris
Play-dough
Plastic dinosaurs or animals
Small cups or baby food jar lids
The origin of flight
One of the biggest problems for evolutionists is explaining the origin of
flight. To make matters worse, evolutionists believe that the flying birds
evolved before the nonflying birds, such as penguins. The theropod type of
dinosaur that is believed to have evolved into flying birds is, to say the
least, poorly designed for flight. These dinosaurs have small forelimbs that
typically can’t even reach their mouths. It is not clear what theropods, such as
the well-known T. Rex, did with their tiny front limbs. It is obvious that they
didn’t walk, feed, or grasp prey with them, and they surely didn’t fly with
them! Another problem is that this bipedal type of dinosaur had a long heavy
tail to balance the weight of a long neck and large head. Decorating such a
creature with feathers would hardly suffice to get it off the ground or be of
much benefit in any other way.
Conclusion
"The fool says in his heart there is no God" Psalms 14:1 "The fear of The Lord
is the beginning of knowledge" Proverbs 1:7 Without God every knowledge claim is
arbitrary. The meaning of science is to know or to have knowledge, and if a
evolutionist says there is no God, how can he do science properly. So any
evidence given by an evolutionist cant be accepted as fact because his world
view doesn't line up with science. So we can expect that no mechanism to change
scales into feathers, no mechanism to change a reptilian lung into an avian
lung, and no legitimate dinosaurs found with feathers are all good indications
that dinosaurs didn’t turn into birds. The evidence is consistent with what the
Bible teaches about birds being unique and created after their kinds.
Genesis is clear that God didn’t make birds from pre-existing dinosaurs. In
fact, dinosaurs (land animals made on Day 6) came after winged creatures made on
Day 5, according to the Bible.
God created birds ( and dinosaurs) to do what they do do, and what they do do
they do do well don't they, I think they do, do you, I do, hope you do too.
So in conclusion, both biblically and scientifically, chicken eaters around the
world can rest easy—they aren’t eating mutant dinosaurs.
