Are Birds a type of Dinosaur?

George, this reminds me of a question I haven’t seen answered. Why for YECism, dinosaurs can’t have feathers?

I would be pretty much fine with the concept of a feathered dinosaur, assuming indisputable proof was found as to the existence of such a thing (I am still skeptical, but evidence does sometimes seem to be piling up). However, a dinosaur having feathers does not at all mean that dinosaurs evolved into birds. The discovery of a feathered dinosaur would not falsify YEC anymore than the discovery of a fish with some sort of lungs (which, in case someone does not know, we have discovered :wink: ).

Note, however, that this position is not generally held by mainstream YEC organizations…

Birds are dinosaurs, and humans are mammals.

There are a vast amount of evolutionary hurdles that a dinosaur would have to overcome in order to become a bird. So many, in fact, that it sometimes appears to strain credibility (at least to me). A statement of belief in dinosaur to bird evolution does not provide any evidence to back up its extravagant claims…

No, I am making the claim that birds are dinosaurs. Just like humans are mammals. Nothing becoming anything. Just classifying sections of the common decent of all land animals.

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Thanks for the clarification!

Anyhow, you still must deal with the problems I referenced in order to get to that point…

That’s easy: common decent under natural selection plus a big asteroid strike 66 million years ago clearing the playing field for the 30% of species that survived.

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Indeed. Natural selection, which kills the dinosaurs attempting to evolve an airborne lifestyle (assuming they got to the point of attempting such a thing anyway) as they fall to their feathery demise (not yet being quite adapted enough to fly off of trees). That’s not even figuring the development of hollow bones, becoming endothermic, and other issues. And then, the asteroid strike which magically kills off very specific sets of organisms and magically spares other very specific sets of organisms.

There were a lot bird dinosaurs at the time of the asteroid strike 66 million years ago and a lot of mammals as well. I believe that bird dinosaurs go back 100 million years or so. So hollow bones and flight predate the K-T boundary. After the K-T boundary the only living dinosaurs were birds. Both birds and mammals diversified greatly in the 66 million years since. Note that at the KT boundary 70% of Earth’s species went extinct. It was a massive discontinuity of the ecology.

Indeed. I was addressing the bird evolution and asteroid points separately. :wink:

Some evolutionists even suspect that birds may have been around by the triassic…But that is based on a somewhat badly preserved fossil. As for the KT boundary, it is not as clean a cutoff as is said…Anomalies exist (such as those found in the Ojo Alamo formation) which seem to indicate that some dinosaurs survived the asteroid strike.

However, this still does not answer the problems I presented for bird evolution…

I[quote=“J.E.S, post:17, topic:310”]
Some evolutionists even suspect that birds may have been around by the triassic…But that is based on a somewhat badly preserved fossil. As for the KT boundary, it is not as clean a cutoff as is said…Anomalies exist (such as those found in the Ojo Alamo formation) which seem to indicate that some dinosaurs survived the asteroid strike.
[/quote]

Yes many may have survived. However, it seems that survival past KT boundary was size related with smaller animal species surviving and larger animal species not. But yes, there is a lot more to learn.

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@J.E.S

You have a simple choice:

Either God intentionally used evolution to make birds from dinosaurs,

Or

God intentionally used special creation to make it look like birds evolved from dinosaurs.

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Or birds are the dinosaurs that remain alive today.

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That seems about right, at least from my view of the data.

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This position is subsumed under the first option I listed.

Isn’t he hinting that they are sister groups, whether here by evolution or special creation?

Why do you say “magically”? In such a disaster, it is to be expected that some “specific sets of organisms” would survive more successfully than others. We would expect that the ecological niches, food supplies, relevant predators, etc. would vary in response to the disaster and so some types of organisms would have new advantages over other types of organisms. I don’t see why any of this would require “magical” explanations.

I too wonder why God would fill his creation with massive piles of evidence for rampant evolutionary processes if (1) such evidence is allegedly “atheistic” and allegedly encouraging evil (as many YEC leaders claim), and (2) would appear to contradict an allegedly “plain and natural reading of the Bible.” Is this truly a “test of faith” as some preachers of my youth liked to claim? Does God deceive people as a test of faith? Does he manipulate us with misleading evidence he “planted” in his creation to play games with us? I don’t believe that that fits the God described in the Bible.

The story of investigating evolutionary biology has been a long series of “problems” getting sorted out. This is true of every field of science. It is how progress is made and new discoveries get published.

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@J.E.S

There was no magic in the kill list of the asteroid. Virtually every creature above a certain size in weight died. They required too much food to survive the conditions.

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However, there are notable exceptions (such as those fossils found in the Ojo Alamo formation).