An avialan dinosaur genus - 'dawn bird'

[a_haworthroberts]

Another feathered theropod - what WILL the YECs make of this? Presumably it will be regarded as another case of evolutionist scientist 'lies' and 'fantasies', inspired by Satan, needing to be 'refuted'. Though (2) in this Abstract is interesting.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/va ... 12168.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22695914

[a_haworthroberts]

More information (and context):
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde ... ornis-xui/

[a_haworthroberts]

Behold, a YEC response (quite well researched):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... lelinkedin

And guess what - if you are a hardline young Earth creationist you should be doubting that this was actually a bird rather than a small dinosaur! Why? Because evolution of birds from dinos is a 'fairy tale for grownups', and because: "The real irony of this drama is that the Aurornis fossil doesn’t have any feathers, at least none that even the mass media is ready to exult over, in spite of the glorious plumage painted onto the artistic reconstruction that is making the rounds". All birds were of course created as fully formed feathered friends on day five of 'creation week'.

Though, having reached the end, the article is less dogmatic than I expected. "We don’t claim, on the basis of the material published so far, to know what kind of animal the Aurornis was". Hedging their bets, unlike with previous similar specimens (see footnote 2). And, who knows, perhaps it's a forgery?

"evolutionists, unable to produce actual transitional forms...". They (luckily for them) CAN eg Archaeopteryx itself - but it's not always where on the probable dinosaur-bird continuum a particular species, discovered as a fossil, was (Archaeopteryx being a case in point with its mix of features).

Footnote 2 does reveal how the YEC approach to this kind of scientific enquiry is an exercise in DENIAL and EVASION to protect a narrative and a worldview. Inflexibility in the face of new finds over time. Science can sometimes do flexibility. Fundamentalism almost NEVER can - it's too risky.

This article does not shift AiG's dogma-inspired position on any previous similar kind of fossil. Rather it adopts a 'new' (initial) policy for a 'new' fossil - "we're not convinced this was a bird though we're not going to categorically insist that it must have been a dinosaur instead".

[a_haworthroberts]

AiG have always claimed that Archaeopteryx was a bird, and this article says it was "clearly feathered". This may or may not lie behind their unwillingness to argue that Aurornis must have been a dinosaur due to the lack of well-preserved plumage (in, for them, a 'recent' fossil).

I sense a bit of a YEC contradiction in the article also:
"The public, which is being re-educated to ignore the obvious distinctions between birds and dinosaurs...";
"We don’t claim, on the basis of the material published so far, to know what kind of animal the Aurornis was".

I thought this fossil - assuming it is genuine - was very complete. So why are AiG sitting on the fence over whether it was or was not a bird? Answers on a postcard please.

I suspect that AiG will quietly forget about this one - unless it turns out to have been forged, of course.

[a_haworthroberts]

And if you don't read the AiG article carefully enough you could be forgiven for assuming that the actual scientists whose paper is published in Nature wish to classify Aurornis as a bird not as a dinosaur. At the present time they DON'T. The name means 'dawn bird' - but it has been classed as a 'paravian', and also an 'avialan dinosaur' (yes that last detail is a little bit confusing as most avialans are birds - and all living birds are avialans).
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/va ... 12168.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurornis

But Aurornis is bird-like and earlier than Archaeopteryx (now a bird again).

"Therefore, despite the reptilian tail, dinosaurian skull, and short forelimb noted by Chiappe, Aurornis emerges as a bird." NO. Did she read the Nature paper? They are saying that it is transitional between dinosaurs and birds as far as I can gather.

PS I have renamed this thread, as I think I misread the Abstract and assumed Aurornis was a theropod.

[a_haworthroberts]

https://facebook.com/creationministries (please note the video flagged here entitled 'Transitional Fossils? Where?')
Around 10 minutes' in the pair of CMI charlatans presenting appear to refer to the dawn bird species, but then misleadingly call it a 'true bird' - either they failed to do their homework or else they hoped this would help their argument that Archaeopteryx was not a transitional form (because 'birds' already existed much earlier in 'evolutionary time'). Evolutionary time being something which creationists normally reject but here - and later in this video - they implicitly try to use gaps of 'millions' of years, for 'out of place' fossils, against evolutionists.