New creationist study accepts the existence of feathered dinosaurs

Aggie · Jul 30, 2018

This study was presented earlier today at the International Conference on Creationism: Feathered dinosaurs reconsidered: insights from baraminology and enthnotaxonomy

Since the author (Matthew McLain) is a creationist, he can't accept that birds actually are descended from dinosaurs, but I'm impressed by how much of the evidence for that conclusion he's willing to acknowledge. For example, he suggests that creationists should consider birds to be a type of theropod dinosaur despite not being descended from other theropods, in the same way that creationists consider human a type of primate without believing that humans are descended from apes. He also mentions that for someone approaching the topic from an evolutionary perspective, the idea that birds are descended from theropods is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the fossil evidence.

I predicted in my Panda's Thumb article here that there would eventually be a movement among YECs to accept the existence of feathered dinosaurs, along the lines of how they accepted the reality of the geologic column in the 1990s. This creationist study seems to represent the beginning of such a movement. My book (Kane et al. 2016) is one of the sources cited in that study, so I like to think that I've helped contribute to this trend.

SkyWriting · Jul 30, 2018

Aggie said:
This study was presented earlier today at the International Conference on Creationism: Feathered dinosaurs reconsidered: insights from baraminology and enthnotaxonomy

Since the author (Matthew McLain) is a creationist, he can't accept that birds actually are descended from dinosaurs, but I'm impressed by how much of the evidence for that conclusion he's willing to acknowledge. For example, he suggests that creationists should consider birds to be a type of theropod dinosaur despite not being descended from other theropods, in the same way that creationists consider human a type of primate without believing that humans are descended from apes. He also mentions that for someone approaching the topic from an evolutionary perspective, the idea that birds are descended from theropods is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the fossil evidence.

I predicted in my Panda's Thumb article here that there would eventually be a movement among YECs to accept the existence of feathered dinosaurs, along the lines of how they accepted the reality of the geologic column in the 1990s. This creationist study seems to represent the beginning of such a movement. My book (Kane et al. 2016) is one of the sources cited in that study, so I like to think that I've helped contribute to this trend.

Does your book cover that Young Earth Creationists are a smaller subset of all Creationists?

Aggie · Jul 30, 2018

SkyWriting said:
Does your book cover that Young Earth Creationists are a smaller subset of all Creationists?

It mentions that old-earth creationists exists, but the focus is on the YEC movement, since young-earth creationism is the perspective taken by all of the most prominent creationist organizations and journals.

drjean · Jul 30, 2018

Yes? I believe they are called BIRDS!

Speedwell · Jul 30, 2018

SkyWriting said:
Does your book cover that Young Earth Creationists are a smaller subset of all Creationists?

Not a useful distinction. All Christians, all theists, are really creationists in the sense that they believe that God is the author of our being. The real distinction is between those who generally accept the findings of science as to our origins (a category which includes most Christians and other theists as well as atheists) and those who believe that any science which contradicts a literal interpretation is a lie from the pit of Hell.

AV1611VET · Jul 31, 2018

Aggie said:
I predicted in my Panda's Thumb article here that there would eventually be a movement among YECs to accept the existence of feathered dinosaurs,

I'm not a YEC, but I like to field questions put to them.

Two questions:

1. In your opinion, did the fallen angels of Genesis 6 (sons of God) experiment with genetic engineering?

If so, then these things found in the ground ... called fossils ... could be genetically-altered life, could it not?

2. Will you admit that there are animals mentioned in the Bible that blow evolution out of the water? satyrs, unicorns, straw-eating lions, four-legged locusts, bat-birds, and whale fish? or do you consider these things "mistakes in translation"?

Me, personally ... I don't think evolutionists will admit as such, as their pride won't allow it; and it would probably be an embarrassment to their junk science.

AV1611VET · Jul 31, 2018

SkyWriting said:
Does your book cover that Young Earth Creationists are a smaller subset of all Creationists?

Quality over quantity?

SkyWriting · Jul 31, 2018

AV1611VET said:
Quality over quantity?

We all prefer that. And his answer was "Nobody wants to hear that Creationists are anything other than lock step single minded."

grasping the after wind · Jul 31, 2018

SkyWriting said:
We all prefer that. And his answer was "Nobody wants to hear that Creationists are anything other than lock step single minded."

It interferes with the stereotype to consider the diversity of the stereotyped group.

Speedwell · Jul 31, 2018

SkyWriting said:
We all prefer that. And his answer was "Nobody wants to hear that Creationists are anything other than lock step single minded."

They're not anything other than that. Either the Book of Genesis is 100% accurate literal history or it is not. Those who think it is are pretty much lock-step single minded about it.

SkyWriting · Jul 31, 2018

Speedwell said:
They're not anything other than that. Either the Book of Genesis is 100% accurate literal history or it is not. Those who think it is are pretty much lock-step single minded about it.

If "Creationist" was the same word as "Literal" then yes.
But it's not the same word with the same meaning.
Young earth creationists don't take this passage litterally:

Genesis 49:26
Berean Study Bible
The blessings of your father have surpassed the blessings of the ancient mountains and the bounty of the everlasting hills. May they rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince of his brothers.

or

Genesis 49:27
27 Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder.”

Here you can read how God changed man so that nothing could be litteral to somebody else.

9 That is why it was called Babel --because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world.
From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Aggie · Jul 31, 2018

AV1611VET said:
I'm not a YEC, but I like to field questions put to them.

Two questions:

1. In your opinion, did the fallen angels of Genesis 6 (sons of God) experiment with genetic engineering?

If so, then these things found in the ground ... called fossils ... could be genetically-altered life, could it not?

2. Will you admit that there are animals mentioned in the Bible that blow evolution out of the water? satyrs, unicorns, straw-eating lions, four-legged locusts, bat-birds, and whale fish? or do you consider these things "mistakes in translation"?

Me, personally ... I don't think evolutionists will admit as such, as their pride won't allow it; and it would probably be an embarrassment to their junk science.

Are these questions for me, or for the study's author? The study's author isn't an evolutionist, so your last line doesn't make sense if it's directed at him. But I also think you know that I'm not a Christian, so this isn't really a meaningful question for me, either.

For me, this is kind of like asking whether the cyclops in Homer's poem The Odyssey is biologically possible or not. The Iliad and The Odyssey are based on historical events--for example the Trojan War definitely was something that happened, and Odysseus was probably based on a real person. But at the time when those poems were written, there wasn't the same distinction between history and fiction that exists in the present, so historically based stories often were embellished with those sorts of fanciful details. I think it's very likely that most of the historical information in the Bible (such as about ancient Israel) has a basis in reality, but because of how common it was for authors of that era to include the sorts of embellishments that Homer included, I think it's very likely that the Bible's authors did the same thing.

I was a Christian theistic evolutionist until I was 19, so if your question was directed at me and you want a Christian TE's perspective about those parts of the Bible, I can try to answer it based on the way I used to think. However, I'll only to go to the trouble of doing that if that really is what you're asking for.

AV1611VET · Jul 31, 2018

Aggie said:
Are these questions for me,

Yes.

Aggie said:
I can try to answer it based on the way I used to think.

I'd rather you please answer them based on what you think today.

I know you don't believe them, but you don't have to.

I don't think Humpty Dumpty was real, but if someone asked me where he sat, I'd say "on a wall."

Aggie · Jul 31, 2018

AV1611VET said:
Yes.I'd rather you please answer them based on what you think today.

I know you don't believe them, but you don't have to.

I don't think Humpty Dumpty was real, but if someone asked me where he sat, I'd say "on a wall."

OK, in that case I think I answered your questions in my previous post.

I do think it's likely that some of the animals you mentioned are ordinary animals whose names haven't been translated clearly. For example, I'm fairly sure that Biblical Hebrew doesn't have a unique word for whale, so when describing the animal that Jonah was swallowed by, "great fish" would have been the best description that was possible for the author. But as a more general point, I also think it's likely that the Bible has some fantasy elements that are mixed in with the historical narrative, for the reason that I described in my Odyssey analogy.

tas8831 · Jul 31, 2018

Aggie said:
This study was presented earlier today at the International Conference on Creationism: Feathered dinosaurs reconsidered: insights from baraminology and enthnotaxonomy

Since the author (Matthew McLain) is a creationist, he can't accept that birds actually are descended from dinosaurs, but I'm impressed by how much of the evidence for that conclusion he's willing to acknowledge. For example, he suggests that creationists should consider birds to be a type of theropod dinosaur despite not being descended from other theropods, in the same way that creationists consider human a type of primate without believing that humans are descended from apes. He also mentions that for someone approaching the topic from an evolutionary perspective, the idea that birds are descended from theropods is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the fossil evidence.

I predicted in my Panda's Thumb article here that there would eventually be a movement among YECs to accept the existence of feathered dinosaurs, along the lines of how they accepted the reality of the geologic column in the 1990s. This creationist study seems to represent the beginning of such a movement. My book (Kane et al. 2016) is one of the sources cited in that study, so I like to think that I've helped contribute to this trend.

What's next?

That little box they put their creator in keeps getting smaller..

pitabread · Jul 31, 2018

On the one hand, it's interesting to watch creationism "evolve" given how adamant creationists have been in the past about feathers = birds.

On the other hand:

Birds could not have evolved from land animal ancestors because Genesis clearly states that birds and land animals were created on separate days. As a result, young-earth creationists have consistently opposed the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

The above perfectly highlights why creationism never was and never will be taken seriously as science.

SkyWriting · Aug 1, 2018

pitabread said:
The above perfectly highlights why creationism never was and never will be taken seriously as science.

God is Spirit...so.....not much science has on that.
I guess they're not qualified.

juvenissun · Aug 1, 2018

Aggie said:
I was a Christian theistic evolutionist until I was 19,

Can't help to say this.

Do you mean you know a lot about Christian theistic evolution or you know very little about Christian theistic evolution?

Aggie · Aug 1, 2018

juvenissun said:
Can't help to say this.

Do you mean you know a lot about Christian theistic evolution or you know very little about Christian theistic evolution?

I mean that I know a lot about it. During the seven years between when I accepted evolution (at age 12) and when I abandoned Christianity (at age 19), I put a lot of lot of thought into how to reconcile those two viewpoints with one another.

Also, in case you were wondering, the reason I stopped being a Christian was for reasons unrelated to my acceptance of evolution. I still think that Christianity is able to be reconciled with evolution, even though I'm no longer a Christian.

Bungle_Bear · Aug 2, 2018

SkyWriting said:
God is Spirit...so.....

So God isn't Love?

I wish you guys would make up your minds and stick to one story.

[EDIT] In this post apparently God is Energy/Mind/Thought. Seriously, do you guys have any idea what your chosen deity really is? Or does it change depending on what you need to argue at any given point?

New creationist study accepts the existence of feathered dinosaurs

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SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE

SCIENCE CAN TAKE A HIKE

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That's grasping after the wind

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... and God saw that it was good.

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Whoot!

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