It's not fake news, Answers in Genesis

[a_haworthroberts]

It's not 'fake news', Answers in Genesis reality deniers.


The feathery tail of a tiny Cretaceous dinosaur (probable juvenile coelurosaur) has been found preserved in amber in Myanmar. Young earth creationist apologists at Answers in Genesis are agitated about this. As indeed are some others (one or two of them sound less panicked). See also responses by the Institute for Creation Research, David Coppedge at CREV (who used to be a scientist working for NASA), another prolific and hardline daily propagandist - and also another young earth creationist blogger at the Creation Club.

Cue more attacks upon the scientific community from higher profile young earth creationist vigilantes - who have decided in advance that certain facts simply 'cannot be' because they might support the theory of evolution in some way. Such as a dinosaur that possessed feathers on its tail (how utterly 'unbiblical').

Here's one news report:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38224564
"Dr McKellar said examination of the tail's anatomy showed it definitely belonged to a feathered dinosaur and not an ancient bird.
"We can be sure of the source because the vertebrae are not fused into a rod or pygostyle as in modern birds and their closest relatives," he explained."
"The feathers lack the well-developed central shaft - a rachis - known from modern birds."
However the Abstract of the paper in Current Biology does state "Many feathers exhibit a short, slender rachis with alternating barbs and a uniform series of contiguous barbules ...".
That said, AiG's most detailed response (12 December) informs readers that "the rachis (central shaft) of the feathers is somewhat thinner than that of most modern feathers".

http://www.inquisitr.com/3787683/ken-ha ... bird-link/
https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/ ... ther-tail/
https://facebook.com/aigkenham
"Evolutionists have a blind faith religion with a fictional story they impose on whatever fossil evidence they find. So, 1.5 inches of vertebrae with feathers and suddenly it's a dinosaur? Why? Because evolutionists clutch at straws!
Evolutionists have to justify their fictional belief that dinosaurs evolved into birds so they have a spin about a tail. Yes, evolutionists are desperate to brainwash people with a false belief, so they make up fanciful stories about a tail."
(Ken Ham - who prefers his own dogma to facts - with yet more hysterical false accusations against scientists, posted on 11 December.)
https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/ ... -in-amber/ (the brand new article by David Menton of 12 December)
I find the reasoning in Menton's Conclusion (which wrongly flags reference 3 instead of 4) highly contrived. Viz:
"We conclude that DIP-V-15103 is a bird, and not a 99-million-year-old theropod dinosaur. This is supported by the discovery of 99-million-year-old bird wings including bones and feathers found by Lida Xing et al. in the same type of Burmese amber as DIP-V-15103. I reject the age assigned to these fossils, but it shows that small birds, perhaps juveniles, left evidence of their unquestionably bird-like anatomy in Burmese amber. So where is the evolution?"
He doth protest. And rush to get a 'rebuttal' out.

http://www.icr.org/article/9759 (Sherwin makes statements such as "why didn’t the authors explain the very close resemblance of these feathers to those of birds living today?" - ignoring the rachis point quoted in the BBC News article, though see my above comment regarding the Abstract of the Current Biology paper.)
http://crev.info/2016/12/proof-of-dinosaur-feathers/ (this article is more even-handed than his usual efforts and mentions two YECs who apparently ARE open to the probable facts of this creature's identity and morphology)
http://www.piltdownsuperman.com/2016/12 ... amber.html
http://thecreationclub.com/a-new-fossil-tail/#

So. If you are a YEC and you have decreed that dinosaurs NEVER had feathers because that is 'unbiblical', then you must either deny the existence of the feathers or deny that they were possessed by any sort of dinosaur. After all, why shouldn't YECs respond thus? Because they believe the Bible (or their dogma that is loosely inspired by the Bible) they know better than all those scientists. And they are declaring that those horrible scientists are making up stories. And the horrible media are spreading those stories to the public!

And that this feathered tail belonged to a bird, maybe an extinct one. Which bird that might be is not speculated upon by AiG or any other YEC. But no dinosaur - certainly NOT one of those. Problem solved. For now.

Because the AiG and ICR responses are knee-jerk reactions based upon dogma rather than a dispassionate assessment of evidence and the wider context of what scientists believe they already know from other evidence previously examined.

PS It is the case that one of the subgroups of the coelurosaurian clade does includes modern birds. Evolution does not of course require that this fossil in amber must have belonged to a dinosaur not some sort of bird.

[a_haworthroberts]

I see that the Washington Post have reported:

"X-ray images revealed that no ancient bird grew this tail. The tail tip belonged to a two-legged dinosaur called a theropod. “We can tell that this specimen came from a theropod dinosaur because the tail is flexible and the vertebrae articulate with each other, instead of being fused together to form a solid rod — which is a characteristic of modern birds and their closest relatives,” McKellar said. Specifically, the researchers hypothesized the animal was a type of dinosaur called a coelurosaur, and likely a juvenile."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... e7b3dafedd

PS More here:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... -in-amber/

PPS And here:
https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2016/12 ... dinosaurs/ (this pre-dates the AiG article of 12 Dec)

[a_haworthroberts]

https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2016/12 ... dinosaurs/ (provides an overview of previous reactions by YECs towards fossil evidence that some dinosaurs possessed feathers)
I submitted a brief comment under this blog post earlier this evening (it's awaiting moderation). It reads:
"I wrote an update last night (before seeing this blog). It refers to the AiG article about this fossil in amber, dated 12 December:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3792&p=51134#p51134"
(my post on this forum is my email of last night reproduced almost verbatim)

I've also commented here:
http://scienceandcreation.blogspot.co.u ... amber.html

Only just catching up on blogs due to recent hospital stay and then loss of internet back home.

[a_haworthroberts]

https://facebook.com/Piltdown.Superman

"Hateball is at it again, saving the world from facts in favor of evolutionary ideology."
"He's a science denier and self-appointed martyr, even saving evolutionists from themselves. -CBB"

Prove that I am a 'science denier'.

Or fail to do so - and thus prove once again that you are unrepentant serial hate-filled liars.

This is mainly why I do this (it's also educational and sometimes entertaining). Because liars hate being exposed as liars - and I get a 'kick' out of that. These bigots have also proven me right - again.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3790
"Sorensen will either name-call me over this post, or quote-mine me, or simply ignore the post. He will NOT engage with the actual content of the post. Rest assured of that.
Reality is SO troubling if you are a hardline 'biblical' young earth creationist."

They are cowards as well. Thus name-calling, and trying to alienate me in the eyes of other opponents of YEC pseudo-science, are the weapons of choice (they know they would lose a rational debate so they avoid rational debate at all costs).

Not all YECs are so extreme and so mendacious of course.


PS Hope you feel better soon. Seriously.

[a_haworthroberts]

Another YEC who is not totally blinded by bigotry over this particular news story and appears willing to assess the evidence for what it is (not what it 'ought' to be according to 'creationist worldview'):
http://blog.drwile.com/?p=15403#more-15403

Meanwhile rabid Ken Ham is still ushering in darkness - instead of knowledge and light - on his facebook page:
"It's a plane, it's a dinosaur, it's a.... It's a bird, a true bird. No evolution whatsoever. Just evolutionary hype. Why do evolutionists make outrageous claims like this recent feathered tail being a dinosaur? Publicity, funding etc.
Learn more about this find in this article by AiG's Dr. David Menton:"
The man hates science. He is a bigot, dangerous and delusional. The first time I EVER heard him, nearly 30 years ago, I knew something was 'wrong' (and I was a keen Christian at that time). I have never belong to his 'cult' I am glad to say.

Meanwhile the hate-filled hypocritical narcissistic YEC blogger who keeps proving me right will get one final mention in this thread since he is clamouring for my attention yet again even though this thread is NOT about him:
"The narcissist made a remark including the phrase, "...trying to alienate me in the eyes of other opponents of YEC pseudo-science..." No, he alienated himself with hateful rants, blatant misrepresentation, lack of logical thinking, blatant lying, personal attacks, and more. He's blocked by many, and fellow anti-creationists tire of his whining. Too bad Haywire can't get a life instead of trying to save the world, and he's no to be taken seriously in the first place. No, Poindexter, comments buried in a post, that don't name you, are not going to hurt your nonexistent credibility. Get over yourself, and your seething, consuming, burning hatred. -CBB"
https://www.facebook.com/Piltdown.Superman/

Calm down and get well soon Bob and Curtis. I meant that seriously - yesterday. But the man is showing that he is evil, tribal, fascistic, a pathological liar, self-deluded, and utterly incapable of honesty, again - so is it still right to wish him well (I really can't decide)?

I think these people need to repent of their sin and try converting to Christianity. It might help them (and lower their blood pressure).

[a_haworthroberts]

Another YEC zealot wants to believe - against the weight of evidence and expert analysis of the evidence - that the tail in amber belonged to a bird not a dinosaur:
http://creation.com/feathered-forerunne ... t-of-fancy

Despite one the scientists who co-authored the Current Biology paper, Ryan McKellar, being quoted in the Washington Post as saying: "We can tell that this specimen came from a theropod dinosaur because the tail is flexible and the vertebrae articulate with each other, instead of being fused together to form a solid rod — which is a characteristic of modern birds and their closest relatives".

The deceitful Smith quotes from THIS paper (whilst falsely - or incompetently - claiming it is from THIS (second, 2016) paper:
https://evodevojournal.biomedcentral.co ... -9139-5-25
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/ful ... 60-9822(16)31193-9
"Archaeopteryx retained an ancestral caudal vertebral count of between 20 and 23. The next most basal bird, Jeholornis, from the Jiufotang Formation of China and dated at approximately 120 million years old, was also long-tailed, and had 22 caudal vertebrae that are nearly identical to those of Archaeopteryx". (Archaeopteryx is now classified as a genus of bird-like dinosaurs.)

At a quick glance, Smith may also have partly plagiarised this:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/12/fe ... 03354.html


PS The Current Biology link is failing. But it can be reached via this article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... e675325045