Dinosaur and Bird Feathers found in Amber

[Keachian]

Dinosaur Feathers Found in Amber Reinforce Evolution Theories - Hans Villarica - Life - The Atlantic

Beautiful images and evidence for the evolution of feathers

 

[Saucy]

Only one of those images looks like feathers to me. I think it's a GIANT leap to say any of those are dinosaur feathers. More like wishful thinking.

 

[The_Chris]

Poor, poor Amber. I hope she's doing ok!






(I'm joking.)

 

[Amber the Duskbringer]

Neat :3

 

[philadiddle]

Only one of those images looks like feathers to me. I think it's a GIANT leap to say any of those are dinosaur feathers. More like wishful thinking.

So the cartoonish carving in the other thread is definitely a stegasaurus, and to think that these are definitely feathers is a giant leap of faith?

You think that evolutionists are bias when they interpret evidence, and it's true that everyone is bias to at least some degree. Do you think that you are bias at all or do you objectively know that those cannot be feathers?

 

[Keachian]

Only one of those images looks like feathers to me. I think it's a GIANT leap to say any of those are dinosaur feathers. More like wishful thinking.

Just out of interest which of the pictures looks like a feather, would it be no. 10? How about no. 7 which is a potograph of a feather from a living bird? Or 8 and 9 which also look close to modern feathers to me at least?

 

[shernren]

Poor, poor Amber. I hope she's doing ok!






(I'm joking.)

At least it's not Heather in Amber, that would be plain wrong.

 

[Saucy]

Just out of interest which of the pictures looks like a feather, would it be no. 10? How about no. 7 which is a potograph of a feather from a living bird? Or 8 and 9 which also look close to modern feathers to me at least?

That's what interesting...you have feathers from birds and dinosaurs in amber? I thought dinosaurs turned into birds?

Do you think that you are bias at all or do you objectively know that those cannot be feathers?

Here's the thing with me. I used to be an atheist and evolutionist, who later became a Christian and turned creationists and now I'm on the fence. I'm not quite too sure which idea is the best. As long as you don't take God out of the equation, I'm fine with either old or young earth. Neither one effects my salvation.

So when I look at a piece of evidence, I look at it objectively. I have not come across a single piece of evidence that would suggest that the earth is is billions of years old, though I accept it could be.

In order to be a real scientist and be taken seriously, you must accept the billion-year model or else you don't have a career. So I think a lot of scientists are biased and every single thing they find has no other explanation than billions or millions of years. Just like a creationist is biased to see thousands of years and young earth.

I haven't seen one piece of evidence or report that hasn't been swung or can't be swung in either direction. There has been no conclusive proof of either or. I think God could've created everything in six literal days, including all the plants and animals already full grown and mature, Adam and Eve fully mature, the stars already in the sky because mankind needed the stars...giving everything the appearance of age. Could God have done that? Certainly. Nobody can tell me that there's no way God could put the light of the stars already in the sky. At the same time, the universe could've already existed when God put earth in its place. The earth could've been spinning for billions of years before He did anything with it.

Those feathers...most of them don't look like feathers. Some look like pine branches or needles to me.

 

[shernren]

That's what interesting...you have feathers from birds and dinosaurs in amber? I thought dinosaurs turned into birds?

As I understand it (which isn't much when it comes to dino evolution) dinosaurs evolved feathers over the course of the dino-bird transition. Hence you would have had some feathers in the amber come from dinosaurs, and some from birds (that is birds which existed right after the dino-bird transition).

Here's the thing with me. I used to be an atheist and evolutionist, who later became a Christian and turned creationists and now I'm on the fence. I'm not quite too sure which idea is the best. As long as you don't take God out of the equation, I'm fine with either old or young earth. Neither one effects my salvation.

I'm glad you see things that way!

So when I look at a piece of evidence, I look at it objectively. I have not come across a single piece of evidence that would suggest that the earth is is billions of years old, though I accept it could be.

In order to be a real scientist and be taken seriously, you must accept the billion-year model or else you don't have a career. So I think a lot of scientists are biased and every single thing they find has no other explanation than billions or millions of years. Just like a creationist is biased to see thousands of years and young earth.

Now I think I've come across plenty of evidence for the Earth and the universe being billions of years old, but I'm not here to brawl.

I do want to suggest, however, that perhaps your perception of bias is in fact a bias itself. In other words, it may be that every time someone says they have evidence for an old Earth (such as myself), you automatically think "that person is biased" or "it's just their line of work that has trained them to say that", without genuinely considering that perhaps the person has genuinely considered the evidence and has come to a reasoned acceptance (not a biased or knee-jerk statement) of an old Earth.

My question to you is this: how would you tell if you're biased? In other words, how would you know whether you are considering the possibility that scientists are objective, rather than immediately jumping to the conclusion that they are biased? If you don't know how you would tell, then that's interesting in itself, isn't it?

This question is of great interest to me too: if I'm accepting an old Earth simply because I'm biased, I'd really like to know, if only so I can start apologizing to everyone!

 

[philadiddle]

In order to be a real scientist and be taken seriously, you must accept the billion-year model or else you don't have a career.

Why is that? Is it because there is some kind of conspiracy and group mentality that "that's just the way it is" or is there possibly a lot of evidence that you are unaware of?

If it is a conspiracy, isn't it strange that so many thousands of scientists from all different backrounds go along with it without questioning it? (Except for a very few creationists.)

If there is a lot of evidence for an old earth, would you be open to it or would you dismiss it?

 

[gluadys]

That's what interesting...you have feathers from birds and dinosaurs in amber? I thought dinosaurs turned into birds?

How does that prevent feathers from either being preserved in amber?

Here's the thing with me. I used to be an atheist and evolutionist, who later became a Christian and turned creationists and now I'm on the fence. I'm not quite too sure which idea is the best. As long as you don't take God out of the equation, I'm fine with either old or young earth. Neither one effects my salvation.

I am glad you recognize it is not an issue of salvation. I expect you also recognize that evolutionary creationists do believe God created all we see, even though they accept the dating of the earth and the process of evolution as truths about creation.

However, I don't like the phrase "take God out of the equation" (or conversely "keep God in the equation"). It makes it sound as if God is a mechanism of scientific interest rather than the power that sustains all the cosmos.

There are two basic problems with God "in/out of the equation". The first is that in any scientific investigation, you need both the phenomenon you are studying and a control set. No doubt you are familiar with the practice of testing new medicines in which one set of patients is given the drug to be tested and another set of patients is given a placebo. So one can compare the effectiveness of the treatment with or without the drug.

But if God is sustaining the whole cosmos, the only control you could possibly use is a cosmos that is not sustained by God's loving presence and power. Where are you going to find that? So how can you test whether God is or is not "part of the equation"?

The second basic problem is that if God is subject to scientific investigation, then God is subject to human manipulation and control. And we know that is not the case.

But it is certainly true that neither the age of the earth nor evolution is contrary to Christian faith in God as creator.

So when I look at a piece of evidence, I look at it objectively. I have not come across a single piece of evidence that would suggest that the earth is is billions of years old, though I accept it could be.

Well, one that convinced James Hutton back in the 18th century was a geological angular unconformity in which the lower strata was tilted in respect to the horizontal strata above it.

I found one young-earth site on Siccar's Point, but its only argument is that the period of erosion that marks the unconformity could have been brief. That may or may not be: it doesn't take away from the time needed for deposition, consolidation, uplift and tilting and then erosion (however brief) and then a renewed incursion of the sea with more deposition and consolidation. And again uplift and erosion so that is it now visible to terrestrial observers.

Hutton's Unconformity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Revisiting Hutton's Unconformities

I haven't seen one piece of evidence or report that hasn't been swung or can't be swung in either direction. There has been no conclusive proof of either or. I think God could've created everything in six literal days, including all the plants and animals already full grown and mature, Adam and Eve fully mature, the stars already in the sky because mankind needed the stars...giving everything the appearance of age. Could God have done that? Certainly. Nobody can tell me that there's no way God could put the light of the stars already in the sky. At the same time, the universe could've already existed when God put earth in its place. The earth could've been spinning for billions of years before He did anything with it.

Sure, evolutionary creationists agree that in terms of brute power, God COULD have done this. But God has other attributes besides power, and those attributes strongly suggest to us that God DID not do this. We know of no reason why God would present to us a world that appears old and appears to have a history that requires age unless it IS old and that history actually took place.

Those feathers...most of them don't look like feathers. Some look like pine branches or needles to me.

Ah, but you are just looking at pictures. Can you withhold judgment until you see the real thing? Or accept, tentatively, the judgment of those who have personally examined the fossils?

 

[Saucy]

I do want to suggest, however, that perhaps your perception of bias is in fact a bias itself.

Well, that would answer why I'm on the fence. I simply don't know what was going on in a scientist's mind when he wrote a report or found a discovery. I don't know if he/she was rubbing their hands in glee that they finally found something to support their atheistic beliefs, if they majorly needed a discovery because they were told that funding would be shortened or they wanted to further their career. There have been a lot of fakes put out there that for the longest time was "peer reviewed", accepted into the evidence pool, written into textbooks but it wasn't found out for decades later.

And then there is the evidence that can be explained away. There was in the news a recent discovery made in Australia and the caption of the article was a new find that will rewrite human history. But I listened to Bob Dutkos on the radio tear the find to pieces. Supposedly the find, a woman and her child who fell into a hole in a cave and died there, had a slightly larger frontal lobe and the thumbs were longer.

What Bob Dutkos stated was, "How do you not know that their larger frontal lobe was not from brain swelling that resulted from their fall into the cave?" And if you were to X-Ray every single chimp, ape, human, you would find contrasting results. Some people have larger noses, longer fingers, larger craniums, smaller this, bigger that. Everyone is different in terms of the shape and size of their bodies, bones etc...so what they found really wasn't all the spectacular. They found a monkey with possible brain swelling and longer thumbs and that's automatically proof of ancestry?

There have also been a few shady attempts to create things out of nothing. I saw on the History channel about this large claw that a scientist found and out of that claw an artist created this whole fantastical creature on who they thought the claw belonged to. The same has been done to a lot of specimens. I saw where a single tooth was found and they created Nebraska Man out of it, but it was really a tooth of an extinct pig. A lot of the examples you have are of a few real bones and mostly plaster of paris to fill in what you think it's supposed to look like.

There's enough questionable stuff in science to make me not take it always on face value. Just because a scientist makes a discovery, I'm not on the edge of my seat. I also know mankind is fallible and science constantly changes. Things we accept as truth and fact today will be different in ten years.

 

[philadiddle]

Saucy,

Have you heard arguments about the age of the earth concerning varves, salt deposits, chalk cliffs, karsts, ice cores, tree ring dating, or the dating of igneous rock? I don't want to hijack this thread so if you are interested in any of these let me know and I'll start a new thread on them.

 

[Saucy]

Go ahead and start a new thread. I'd love to look at real evidence as long as you don't get frustrated at my attempts to explain them away. The thing about me is that I'm not blinded by one side or the other and I am actually looking for the truth of things, so if I can't explain something away, then I am willing to accept it as real evidence. I hope I'm the kind of "creationist" you actually enjoy talking with

 

[shernren]

I simply don't know what was going on in a scientist's mind when he wrote a report or found a discovery.

As someone who has personally known and worked with scientists (yes, even evolutionary biologists!), your post presents itself as a painful example of anti-scientific bias.

Does a scientist ever publish a paper simply because he or she actually managed to understand reality better after a successful experiment? Or are they all cackling atheists constantly being threatened with retrenchment or starvation if they don't churn out evolutionary grist for the mill?

But don't take it from me. As someone who has personally known and worked with scientists, if scientists are all really biased, then you shouldn't expect me to tell you anything useful either. I would ask you, though, to evaluate your own beliefs and see whether your conclusions make sense.

You see, there are two possible ways to explain the data you presented:

1. Almost all evolutionary scientists are fraudsters, and only a few genuinely do science.

Or:

2. a) Almost all evolutionary scientists genuinely do science, and only a few are fraudsters; and
b) Many typical American media sources have a vested interest in ensuring that you only remember the few fraudsters and never come across the ones who are genuinely doing science.

You obviously believe in explanation 1; I'm more persuaded by explanation 2. My question for you is: why do you think explanation 1 is better than explanation 2? And how would you discriminate between them?

 

[Saucy]

Oh I'm quite sure that number two is correct. But if you feel duped, even by a small percentage, you aren't quick to jump on any bandwagon. A lot of theistic evolutionists I've talked to quickly disregard creationism and call the leaders of the creationist movement willful liars who care more about making a buck than doing any real research.

I'm just one of the few who might be willing to admit that all it took were a few atheistic scientists to get the ball rolling and before you know it, you have the biggest hoax ever pulled on mankind. Evolution has become like its own religion and it's said that a lot of atheistic evolutionists have more faith than Christians, but it's really their answer for how the world came to be without accepting creation.

To me, there's just as much evidence that God did it way "A" as there is that He did it way "B". We just don't know. We weren't there nor can we conduct any experiments to test the hypothesis to it will always remain a mystery; an ever-changing, evolving (forgive the pun) theory.

Honestly I don't have the time or energy to constantly chase down the newest, latest, greatest theory, nor do I have the intelligence to test that theory for myself. Most people just accept the article in a science journal and don't test it for themselves and that allows hoaxes to take place.

I'm not saying, though, that every evolutionist is dishonest. But I think their experiments could tell them something that isn't really there. Like you mentioned chalk deposits. Well, when God created the earth, He put a certain amount of chalk in the earth. It could have all shown up at once, but have the appearance of age. Like fully grown, mature trees will have the appearance of being older than they really are. Your experiments can't test that. It's like the joke that scientists found the mummified bodies of Adam and Eve in a cave. How did they know it was them? No belly-buttons.

All I'm saying is that if creationism happened the way the bible says it did, then all science is misled. You can't experiment a supernatural act of God. And people have told me then that God is a liar and nothing in His character shows that He would do it in six literal days, but then I think that's a justification. Because God's own word says how it was done. If you choose a scientist's word over the bible, that's your own choice. But God put forth the Sabbath based upon the seven day week He instituted in the bible as well. I don't see where God's character fits with evolution more than creation when everything I've seen of God points towards the seven-day creation.

 

[philadiddle]

Go ahead and start a new thread. I'd love to look at real evidence as long as you don't get frustrated at my attempts to explain them away.

http://www.christianforums.com/t7594269/

 

[artybloke]

"How do you not know that their larger frontal lobe was not from brain swelling that resulted from their fall into the cave?"

Because a fatal fall into a hole wouldn't result in a brain swelling and wouldn't increase the size of the frontal lobe in the skull anyway?

 

[gluadys]

To me, there's just as much evidence that God did it way "A" as there is that He did it way "B". We just don't know. We weren't there nor can we conduct any experiments to test the hypothesis to it will always remain a mystery; an ever-changing, evolving (forgive the pun) theory.

Honestly I don't have the time or energy to constantly chase down the newest, latest, greatest theory, nor do I have the intelligence to test that theory for myself. Most people just accept the article in a science journal and don't test it for themselves and that allows hoaxes to take place.

Would you agree that insofar as the age of the earth is testable and evolution is testable, the tests that have been done support the scientific hypotheses?

I'm not saying, though, that every evolutionist is dishonest. But I think their experiments could tell them something that isn't really there. Like you mentioned chalk deposits. Well, when God created the earth, He put a certain amount of chalk in the earth. It could have all shown up at once, but have the appearance of age. Like fully grown, mature trees will have the appearance of being older than they really are. Your experiments can't test that.

Sure, but then these are ad hoc hypotheses, admittedly untestable, generated not from the evidence, but from belief in young-earth creationism. How can scientists work with this? You either believe it or you don't.

When one needs to depend on unknown, unrecorded, untestable miracles to support one's thesis, that is not science. And it is not based on evidence.

All I'm saying is that if creationism happened the way the bible says it did, then all science is misled.

Well, what the bible says is a point at issue. You are assuming the bible "says" young-earth creationism. Many Christians--and not just in modern times--don't make that assumption.

We need to distinguish between what the bible does affirm (creation) and our particular brand of creationism. No one brand of creationism can claim this is what the bible says.

Young earth creationism, progressive creationism, gap creationism are all anti-evolution, yet they do not agree on what the bible says about the age of the earth.

Ironically, the people most likely to agree with you that the six days of Genesis 1 are intended to be understood literally are evolutionary creationists. The difference is that while we can agree that the meaning is literal, we don't agree that they are historical or even, necessarily, chronological.

If you choose a scientist's word over the bible, that's your own choice.

No one here is doing that. Please listen to what we are really saying. We are all Christians here who love the Lord and treasure the scriptures. That doesn't mean we have to agree on various possible meanings of a text. There is no call to be judgmental about people who read scripture somewhat differently than you do as long as they do so conscientiously and prayerfully.

But God put forth the Sabbath based upon the seven day week He instituted in the bible as well. I don't see where God's character fits with evolution more than creation when everything I've seen of God points towards the seven-day creation.

Do you let yourself see anything else?

I know, you can ask the same question of me.

It is a question we all need to take seriously.

I am satisfied the empirical evidence supports an old earth and evolution. I am also satisfied that we are not bound to consider the Genesis days to be days of history or even a symbolic chronological order.

Further I consider these to be unrelated issues. I moved away from historicist/concordist interpretations of the Genesis creation accounts decades before I paid any attention to evolution. And even if I were convinced the theory of evolution is incorrect, I would probably not go back to a historicist/concordist interpretation of Genesis 1, because I think it is inadequate on theological and literary grounds.

 

[Papias]

Saucy wrote:

I'm just one of the few who might be willing to admit that all it took were a few atheistic scientists to get the ball rolling .....

Except most (nearly all, in fact) of the main scientists who did the work establishing evolution were devout Christians. Ministers & priests, in many cases.

Are you willing to admit that evolution is a theory established mostly by Christians, for a mostly Christian scientific community (at the time), in accordance with Christianity?

but it's really their answer for how the world came to be without accepting creation.

Except, for the practically all of the millions of scientists who are Christians, it is the answer of how God did the creating that is laid out in Genesis, just in greater detail.

To me, there's just as much evidence that God did it way "A" as there is that He did it way "B".

Of course it looks like that to you, you don't know the evidence. To me, it looks just as likely that AIDS is caused by fluoridated water as it is by a virus, but you know what? I have the humility to recognize that I'm not an expert on AIDS, and the sense not to disagree with the experts who are, who practically all agree that AIDS is caused by a virus and not by fluoridated water.

We just don't know. We weren't there nor can we conduct any experiments to test the hypothesis to it will always remain a mystery; an ever-changing, evolving (forgive the pun) theory.

Practically all the experts - including millions of Christians - agree that evolution occured and is the way life on earth diversified from single celled life. In all real senses of the word, yes, we do know that evolution and an old earth are correct. We know that as well as we know that the US Civil War happened, or that eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius have killed people.

Honestly I don't have the time or energy to constantly chase down the newest, latest, greatest theory, nor do I have the intelligence to test that theory for myself.

Right, and neither do I. Neither of us are experts in the field of biology. And yet you think that from a position of ignorance you somehow have a leg to stand on to disagree with the experts about the worldwide consensus in this or any other area? Do you see how that doesn't make sense? However, I don't mean to sound harsh. I know why you think that - because you've seen others do it too, without realizing the absurdity of it.

Most people just accept the article in a science journal and don't test it for themselves and that allows hoaxes to take place.

That statement displays an incredible lack of understanding about the results in scientific journals. Things in scientific journals are indeed tested - by other scientists. Hoaxes are found out, sometimes later but often sooner. If there is one place you can publish something and be assured that it won't just be uncritically accepted, that place is in a science journal.

But I listened to Bob Dutkos on the radio tear the find to pieces. Supposedly the find, a woman and her child who fell into a hole in a cave and died there, had a slightly larger frontal lobe and the thumbs were longer.

Do you think it would be smart of me to ask Howard Stern to remove my appendix, should I get appendicitus? Of course not. Nor would I act on legal advice from my plumber or ask my auto mechanic to drill my kid's tooth cavity. Bob Dutko is a radio personality. He is clueless about biology, and is obviously incompetent to talk about it. The fact that he is talking about it only makes it clear that he doesn't have the sense to keep his mouth shut when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Listening to him talk about biology, or any other field he is clueless about, is like asking your newspaper boy to step inside and perform a C-section delivery on your wife. Very unwise.

That'd be true even if he wasn't so obviously clueless. However, as others have pointed out, he doesn't understand that the brain size was determined by the skull, which wouldn't be affected by "swelling", and so on.

What Bob Dutkos stated was, "How do you not know that their larger frontal lobe was not from brain swelling that resulted from their fall into the cave?" And if you were to X-Ray every single chimp, ape, human, you would find contrasting results. Some people have larger noses, longer fingers, larger craniums, smaller this, bigger that. Everyone is different in terms of the shape and size of their bodies, bones etc...

He's also apparently clueless that the variation of chimp and human brains has been studied extensively, and the normal size ranges don't overlap, as can be seen here:

Saucy, do you understand this graph, especially the red bars for measured chimp brain sizes vs. the blue humans bars?

Before offering any "attempts to explain away" evidence, is it not fair to ask if you have checked with an expert on them, to make sure they are not obviously wrong to anyone even remotely familiar in the field they apply to?

Papias