Evolution - Feathered Dinosaurs get plucked
Evolutionary Scientist, Dr. Alan Feduccia has released a fairly damning report on whether any dinosaurs really had feathers. Dr Feduccia

found no evidence for the existence of protofeathers on dinosaurs and no evidence in support of the morphogenesis of the feather from putative filamentous protofeathers. They suggest that 'protofeathers' described on fossil findings "are probably the remains of collagenous fiber 'meshworks' that reinforced the dinosaur integument." Based on their examination of fossilized remains of dinosaurs with no relationship to birds, they suggest that decomposition of skin can lead to patterns resembling feathers.

Dr Feduccia also laments that

the publication and promotion of feathered dinosaurs by the popular press and by prestigious journals and magazines, including National Geographic, Nature and Science, have made it difficult for opposing views to get a proper hearing.

The scientific establishment trying to crush dissent. No suprise there.

Of course, Dr Feduccia still agrees that birds and dinosaurs are related via a common ancestor. He just disagrees that birds evolved from advanced theropod dinosaurs. Part of the argument is that we have fully formed birds from before any 'feathered' dinosaurs have been found. What I find ironic is this is the same comment that creationists have made in debating skeptics (for instance, in this debate which I personally attended)and yet the skeptics in question insult the creationist for 'not understanding science' when they make the comment.

Not suprisingly, Answers In Genesis also made another similar observation to Dr Feduccia, which was never dealt with by their opponent Paul Willis and indeed he avoided my question about it in questions afterwards by claiming it had been overturned by more recent research. A blatant falsehood. Anyways, onto the important observation...

Birds have been thought to be related to theropod dinosaurs because both groups have a hand reduced to three digits. Theropods are known from fossil evidence to exhibit a hand with digits 1-2-3, the thumb and next two digits. However, the researchers found that the vast majority of evidence supports a 2-3-4 digit identity for bird wings. The bird hand "appears different from that in theropod dinosaurs," they say, and casts doubt upon the theropod derivation hypothesis

This observation has been ignored by the pro dinosaur-bird crowd for years. So much for a theory explaining all the observations. Apparently, if you are pushing dino-bird theory, you can ignore inconvenient facts at your leisure.

Just think. If it wasn't for Dr Feduccia (an evolutionist), then all the attempts by creation scientists to point out this observation would be ignored and derided.

I'll leave you with one of Dr Feduccia's comments for you to contemplate how evidence really doesn't speak for itself

With the advent of ‘feathered dinosaurs,’ we are truly witnessing the beginnings of the meltdown of the field of paleontology. Just as the discovery a four-chambered heart in a dinosaur described in 2000 in an article in Science turned out to be an artifact, feathered dinosaurs too have become part of the fantasia of this field. Much of this is part of the delusional fantasy of the world of dinosaurs, the wishful hope that one can finally study dinosaurs at the backyard bird feeder.

- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, October 11, 2005