Dino-bird theory fossilised according to reports in ScienceDaily 9 July 2014 and Journal of Ornithology, doi:10.1007/s10336-014-1098-9. Stephen Czerkas of the Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, Utah, and Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina have carried out a detailed study of a small fossil creature named Scansoriopteryx found in Inner Mongolia. This creature had been classified as a small theropod dinosaur.
Czerkas and Feduccia used advanced microscopic and photographic techniques to reveal the structure of the fossil and found “numerous unambiguous birdlike features such as elongated forelimbs, wing and hind limb feathers, wing membranes in front of its elbow, half-moon shaped wrist-like bones, bird-like perching feet, a tail with short anterior vertebrae, and claws that make tree climbing possible”.
According to Czerkas and Feduccia Scansoriopteryx was not a dinosaur, but an early bird descended from tree-climbing archosaurs that lived at a time before dinosaurs.They claim “Scansoriopteryx fulfils predictions from the early twentieth century that the ancestors of birds did not evolve from dinosaurs, and instead were derived from earlier arboreal archosaurs which originated flight according to the traditional trees-down scenario”. The “trees-down scenario” is the opposite of the currently popular “ground-up” theory that claims flying birds evolved from ground dwelling dinosaurs.
Editorial Comment: Although the popular media presents dinosaur to bird evolution as a proven fact, there is considerable debate going on amongst the scientists who actually study fossils. Alan Feduccia is a recognised expert in fossil birds, so he should be able to recognise the features of a tree dwelling, flying creature, even if it is different from living birds. However, that is not proof such a creature evolved from either archosaurs or dinosaurs. It simply proves there once were more kinds of tree dwelling feathered creatures than there are now.
As evolutionists debate the trees-down vs ground-up theories of flight, we would point out that both theories fail miserably. Any creature that jumped, or fell, out of a tree without already having the necessary features for flight is doomed to be naturally selected out in the struggle for life after one attempt. Furthermore, why would any dinosaur or archosaur that is perfectly well equipped for living on the ground want to try flying? Even if it did, that is not going to create the genes necessary to change its body and brain to equip it for flying. It certainly does make more sense to believe God created flying creatures, fully formed and functional, according to their kinds as recorded in Genesis, and it’s a fact there is no evidence fossil or otherwise, to contradict this. (Ref. aves, flight, arboreal, fossils)
Evidence News vol. 14, No. 13
23 July 2014
Creation Research Australia