1. The Guardian: “Giant feathered dinosaur found in China was too big to fly”

Gigantic dinosaur reportedly has fossilized feathers, but don’t look too closely.

China has become the ancestral home of “feathered dinosaurs.” An article in the April 5 issue of Nature adds the first really big one to the collection. Dubbed Yutyrannus huali, which means “beautiful feathered tyrant,” the 9-meter long adult and two juveniles were found in lower Cretaceous rock in northeast China’s Liaoning province. The specimens have some features in common with tyrannosaurids from various layers of the geologic column, prompting evolutionists to wonder where it fits in their evolutionary scheme. Of course, the most exciting finding to the paleontologists studying the specimen is filamentous structures they judge to be feathers.

“Finding a large dinosaur is not very easy, especially a complete skeleton,” said Beijing’s Xu Xing, lead author of the study. “To have a complete skeleton with all the beautiful feathers preserved is a big discovery.”

Identifying the filaments as feathers creates another question for evolutionary scientists—that of determining the purpose for feathers in a creature “too big to fly.” After all, in the evolutionary model, if feathers offered no survival advantage, they should not have evolved and persisted. Xu suggests insulation as the likely purpose with attraction of a mate being a secondary possibility. He says, “We have noticed that primitive feathers in dinosaurs are relatively spaced out, so it's not really the ideal structure for insulation. A limited distribution is more likely to indicate a display function.”

In this case the “feathers” consist of filamentous structures “too densely packed”¹ to determine their structural characteristics and filamentous structures whose “morphological details are not preserved.”¹ Because these filaments are found in a patchy distribution at several locations, the researchers conclude they have “solid evidence for the existence of gigantic feathered dinosaurs and, more significantly, of a gigantic species with an extensive feathery covering.”¹ They write that the discovery provides, “new insights into early feather evolution.”¹

Despite the tendency of the media and many evolutionists to continually refer to the existence of feathered dinosaurs as an established fact, not all evolutionists agree with that claim. For instance, Alan Feduccia, considered an expert on bird evolution, has written, “The major and most worrying problem of the feathered dinosaur hypothesis is that the integumental structures have been homologized with avian feathers on the basis of anatomically and paleontologically unsound and misleading information.”²

Some fossilized creatures—unlike these—do have distinctive feathers. But calling a genuinely feathered fossil a dinosaur does not make that creature a dinosaur. (We discussed that situation with the Microraptor, which Feduccia maintains is a bird, in News to Note, March 17, 2012).

On the other hand, calling dinosaur-associated filamentous structures that lack ordinary feather anatomy feathers does not make them feathers. (Such is this situation.) This convenient identification also does not make those structures “primitive feathers” or “proto-feathers” or any kind of transitional structure. We could call this the “name-it-and-claim-it” tendency on the part of some evolutionists. Or we could just call it creative imagination. But what we should not call it is scientific proof of evolution.

Even the assertion that dinosaur feathers evolved for insulation and were later refined for flight purposes fails to explain how complex feathers with barbs, barbules, and hooks (structures not found on these filaments) evolved from scales. Many experts believe filamentous structures such as those described here are collagen fibrils, a sort of connective tissue commonly found, among other places, in skin. (Feathers are made of keratin, not collagen.).

God created “every winged bird according to its kind” (Genesis 1:21) on the fifth day of Creation week. He said, “Let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens” (Genesis 1:20). The next day, God made each “beast of the earth, each according to its kind” (Genesis 1:24), including dinosaurs. Birds fully equipped to fly were flying the day before dinosaurs were even created.

Dinosaurs did not evolve into birds. And if we find that some dinosaurs had filamentous structures as part of their integumentary covering, such structures would not require an evolutionary explanation and would still not demonstrate that dinosaurs evolved into birds. Many anatomical differences between them, not least of which is the distinctively different avian lung, make such a transition impossible. No genetic mechanism enabling an organism to acquire information to evolve into a completely new kind has ever been found. No evidence of feather evolution has been found in the fossil record or in this study.

2. Wired: “Unusual Dinosaur Eggs Are Shaped Like Easter Eggs”

Orphan eggs in Cretaceous Spain offer ambiguous clues to their missing parents.

Two stashes of fossilized eggs in Late Cretaceous sandstone of the Spanish Pyrenees have paleontologists puzzling about the identity of the parents. Unlike some fossilized eggs found with embryos, juveniles, tracks, or adults, these orphan eggs stand alone. “The size and shape of these eggs . . . are roughly similar to modern hen eggs, which is unusual in the Cretaceous fossil egg record,” write the authors of a study published March 13 in Paleontology. The discoverers have dubbed the missing parents Sankofa pyrenaica, which means “learning from the past.”

Analysis of the eggs reveals some characteristics typical of bird eggs and others characteristic of dinosaur eggs. The authors write, “No direct evidence as to the identity of the producers of these eggs has been found.”³ They note that the eggs are similar to a fossilized bird egg from Argentina and have a teardrop shape similar to modern birds. Other features—such as a two-layered shell on microscopic examination—are characteristic of dinosaur shells. Therefore, even though they admit the similarity to the Argentinean bird egg “may suggest an avian identity,” the authors consider the “mosaic distribution of features . . . a combination between that of birds and nonavian theropods.”⁴ They write, “This enhances the arguments supporting the close phylogenetic relationships between both groups.”⁴

These eggs make more exciting news if they are dinosaurian than if they belonged to a bird, and they make even bigger headlines if they can appear to be transitional between dinosaurs and birds. However, the authors make a pretty strong case for a bird-identity when they note the similarity to the egg of a known extinct Argentinean bird. Furthermore, after lining up typical bird and typical dinosaur egg shapes, they note the new egg shape is so strikingly bird-like that “the similar positions of the two late Cretaceous eggs [on the shape chart] could suggest an avian identity for Sankofa in spite of its primitive eggshell microstructure.”⁴ And while the majority of fossilized birds are above the Cretaceous, bird fossils do appear in the that layer.

The sandstone in which these eggs were found is “cemented by calcium carbonate”⁴ and rich in marine fossils. The eggs must therefore have been buried catastrophically in ocean water. While the researchers propose the eggs were located on an island beach, we would point out that the global Flood, when the ocean waters rose to cover all the continents over 4,300 years ago, would have supplied the surging water-borne sand to rapidly bury the eggs with marine fossils, sand, and mineralized water acting like cement.

There is certainly nothing in the study to demonstrate a transitional creature or even a transitional egg between dinosaurs and birds. Birds and dinosaurs were created on the 5th and 6th days of Creation week and did not evolve one into the other. Whether these eggs were bird eggs or dinosaur eggs, they were buried in the global Flood.

3. HuffingtonPost: “‘Monkey Bill’ Becomes Law, Imperils Science In Tennessee”

Tennessee’s new law guarantees teachers’ rights to teach the controversies in science.

Tennessee’s Teacher Protection Academic Freedom Act will go into effect April 20, though without the governor’s signature. The new law will encourage public school teachers to help students become “intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens”⁵ by developing critical thinking skills as they explore areas of scientific controversy. Controversial scientific topics open to discussion include “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”⁵

The law directs that “teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”⁵

The new law does not change the state’s science curriculum or, as some critics such as the HuffingtonPost writer claim, give “teachers carte blanche to discuss whatever crackpot ideas they want.”

The law also does not, contrary to sensationalistic and erroneous reports, introduce “creationism theory into science curriculum,”⁶ nor does it allow teachers to teach intelligent design or any religious belief.

Governor Bill Haslam has decided not to veto the bill but will allow it to become law without his signature. He said, “I do not believe that this legislation changes the scientific standards that are taught in our schools or the curriculum that is used by our teachers. However, I also don’t believe that it accomplishes anything that isn’t already acceptable in our schools.”⁷

Although teachers technically do already have the right to teach students about controversial scientific positions, intimidating voices from organizations claiming to represent all legitimate scientists and educators have been proclaiming since this legislation was introduced that no scientific controversy exists. For example, ACLU director Hedy Weinberg accuses those who advocate “critical thinking” of “seeking to introduce non-scientific ideas,”⁶ and NCSE’s Eugenie Scott says that good science teachers know there is no controversy.⁷ Thus, the so-called freedom to teach students about controversial scientific subjects rings hollow when threatening voices declare no such controversy exists.

The controversy among legitimate scientists is real, however, and those controversies are not limited to the “religious” community. For example, in evolutionary circles, despite the continual mantra that some dinosaurs had feathers and evolved into birds, some evolutionists such as Dr. Alan Feduccia disagree. As mentioned in an earlier item today, Dr. Feduccia has written, “The major and most worrying problem of the feathered dinosaur hypothesis is that the integumental structures have been homologized with avian feathers on the basis of anatomically and paleontologically unsound and misleading information.”⁸

Furthermore, regarding the nature of climate change, Dr. Andrew Snelling, a geologist and director of research at Answers in Genesis, comments, “I am personally aware of several secular professional scientific societies, such as the Geological Society of Australia, whose memberships are very divided on the issue of the cause of climate change, and the continuing debate is heated. Therefore to assert there is no controversy over the cause of climate change is utterly deceitful. Students should be told the truth about this debate among professional scientists.”

The intent of Tennessee’s new law is to improve the way science is taught. Molecular geneticist and creationist Dr. Georgia Purdom explains, “I am glad that the new Tennessee law seems to afford protection to teachers who wish to critique evolution and global warming in the classroom. As a former college professor, I can attest to the importance of critical thinking skills in the science classroom. The ability to analyze the scientific weaknesses of evolution and global warming will ultimately benefit students.”

Answers in Genesis has never suggested public school teachers should be forced to teach creation. Such a policy, besides violating existing law, would be counter-productive. The interpretation of scientific evidence in the area of origins is strongly guided by an individual’s worldview and goes beyond the realm of testable observable science. Therefore, it would not be reasonable to expect an instructor who accepts evolution to accurately and fairly portray the creation science position. We are pleased to see the new law does not promote such an idea.

We encourage Christian parents and church leaders to help students apply their critical thinking skills to creation science also. Only then will they be able to see that the Bible’s account of history is consistent with the facts of science and move forward into the world of their future with the powerful combination of a strong faith and a firm foundation in science.