Tag: transitional forms

Science News Flash: An Old-Earth Perspective on Dinosaur Feathers Preserved in Amber

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BY FAZALE RANA – DECEMBER 9, 2016

Whenever we are in a foreign country, my wife loves to shop at local, out-of-the-way markets. She always finds some of the most interesting souvenirs.

It turns out the same is true for paleontologist Lida Xing who purchased several amber pieces from a market in Myitkyina in the country of Myanmar. The amber sold at the market comes from a nearby mine in the Hukawng Valley. While most buyers are looking for amber to make jewelry, Xing was looking for amber with inclusions of plant and animal remains. The amber from the mine dates to 99 million years. Because of the amber’s age, the well-preserved plant and animal remains entombed by this fossilized tree resin offer a unique glimpse at ancient life on Earth, providing details and insight that far exceed those available from highly compressed fossil remains that typically comprise the fossil record.

As fate would have it, one of the amber pieces Xing purchased contains a piece of a dinosaur tail (perhaps from a maniraptor) with attached feathers! This discovery is described in a paper that will appear in the December 19 issue of Current Biology.1 Yesterday the paper was published online ahead of the publication date and it has already generated headlines both in the popular news and on social media.

This is not the first time researchers have discovered feathers preserved in amber. But it isthe first time they have observed feathers associated with parts of a dinosaur, in this instance a section of the tail (near the middle or end) that includes eight vertebrae. The anatomical features clearly indicates that the preserved tail belongs to a large group of dinosaurs labeled the coelurosaurs.

It goes without saying that this find has already caused quite a bit of a stir because of its important implications for evolutionary and creation models for bird origins.

An Evolutionary Perspective of the Discovery

For many in the scientific community this discovery further affirms the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs, with feathered dinosaurs viewed as transitional intermediates. Along these lines, the researchers describe the dinosaur feathers preserved in amber as transitional, noting that the feather’s central shaft (rachis) is poorly defined. On this basis, the researchers argue that the rachis was a late-appearing feature in feathers, forming when the barbs of the feather fused together.

An Old-Earth Creationist Response

As an old-earth creationist, I’m skeptical about the evolutionary account that has birds evolving from theropods. In fact, this latest discovery only adds to my skepticism.

Paleontologists interpret feathered dinosaurs from the fossil record as transitional intermediates between theropods and birds—including the feathered dinosaur tail found in amber. Yet, each occurrence of feathered dinosaurs in the fossil record appear after the first true bird, Archaeopteryx.2 Based on the fossil record, this ancient bird appeared on Earth around 155 million years ago. Archaeopteryx’s feathers were identical to the feathers of modern birds. In fact, the same research team discovered bird feathers in 99-million-year-old amber from the same source that yielded the amber with the dinosaur feathers. The bird feathers, like those of Archaeopteryx, are identical to those found in modern birds.

It is hard to imagine how the “primitive” feathers associated with the dinosaur tail (again, dated at 99 million years in age) could be transitional if they appear over 50 million years after Archaeopteryx and co-occur with feathers from a bird belonging to enantiornithes.

This problem is not unique to the bird fossil record. There are several instances in which presumed transitional forms appear in the fossil record well after the first appearance of their “evolutionary descendants.” In fact, paleontologist have a name for this phenomenon: a temporal paradox.

For a more complete discussion of the problems I see with the proposed evolutionary link between birds and theropod dinosaurs, see “Birds in the Fossil Record” (listed in the resource section below).

A Young-Earth Creationist Perspective of the Discovery

One exciting aspect of this find is the possibility that soft-tissue remnants associated with the features may be preserved in the amber. The researchers discovered iron (in the ferrous form) associated with the carbonized feather remains. They speculate that this iron derives from hemoglobin originally found in the tail muscle tissue. On this basis, the research team speculates that soft-tissue remnants derived from keratin may be present in the amber-entombed specimen.

In recent years, young-earth creationists have made use of these types of finds to argue that it is impossible for such fossils to be millions of years old. They argue that soft tissues shouldn’t survive that long. These materials should readily degrade in a few thousand years. In their view, these finds challenge the reliability of radiometric dating methods used to determine the age of these fossils, and along with it, Earth’s antiquity. Instead, they argue that these breakthrough discoveries provide compelling scientific evidence for a young Earth and support the idea that the fossil record results from a recent global (worldwide) flood.

An Old-Earth Creationist Response

These types of claims prompted me to write Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth. In this work (and elsewhere), I explain why the recovery of soft-tissue remnants associated with fossil finds is illegitimate evidence for a young Earth.

Given the structural robustness of keratin, and the preservative effect of ferrous iron, it is completely reasonable to think that keratin remnants associated with the feathers could survive long enough to be completely entombed by the amber and eventually persist for nearly 100 million years.

Though this find will be interpreted by the scientific community from an evolutionary vantage point and, more than likely, opted by young-earth creationists to challenge the antiquity of Earth and life on Earth, the dinosaur feathers entombed in amber can readily be accommodated from an old-earth creationist vantage point.

Resources

Creation vs. Evolution Controversy

“Is There a Controversy about Evolution?” by Fazale Rana (article)
“The Creation-Evolution Controversy in Jurassic World” by Fazale Rana (article)

Age-of-the-Earth Controversy

“Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth” by Fazale Rana (book).
“Can Keratin in Feathers Survive for Millions of Years?” by Fazale Rana (article)

Endnotes

  1. Lida Xing et al., “A Feathered Dinosaur Tail with Primitive Plumage Trapped in Mid-Cretaceous Amber,” Current Biology 26 (December 19, 2016): 1–9, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.10.008.
  2. Some paleontologists claim that the temporal paradox for bird origins was solved based on the discovery of a feathered theropod that dates between 151 and 161 million years in age. (See Dongyu Hu et al., “A Pre-Archaeopteryx Troodontid Theropod from China with Long Feathers on the Metatarsus,” Nature 461 [October 1, 2009]: 640–43, doi:10.1038/nature08322.) However, at best, this find demonstrates the co-occurrence of feathered dinosaurs and the first true bird, when the error bars of the age-date measurements are taken into account.
  3. Lida Xing et al., “Mummified Precocial Bird Wings in Mid-Cretaceous Burmese Amber,” Nature Communications 7 (June 28, 2016): 12089, doi:10.1038/ncomms12089.
Reprinted with permission by the author
Original article at:
https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/the-cells-design/read/the-cells-design/2016/12/09/science-news-flash-an-old-earth-perspective-on-dinosaur-feathers-preserved-in-amber

The Evolution of the Automobile: Evidence for Intelligent Design

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BY FAZALE RANA – AUGUST 3, 2016

“It’s déjà vu all over again.”

As the story goes, baseball player and manager Yogi Berra first uttered this famous yogi-ism sitting in the dugout watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit back-to-back home runs. Something that happened on more than one occasion.

Yogi Berra’s verbal blunders are legendary. But, perhaps none top the blunder made by biologist Tim Berra. Berra’s blunder didn’t have anything to do with what he said, but with what he wrote in his book Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, published in 1990.

Berra’s Blunder

Targeting a nontechnical audience, Berra presented a case for biological evolution and explained why he and so many scientists think evolution is a fact. As part of this project, he described the evidence for human evolution, highlighting the progressive features of the hominid fossil record. Berra argues,

“If the australopithecines, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus were alive today, and if we could parade them before the world, there could be no doubt about our relatedness to them. It would be like attending an auto show. If you look at a 1953 Corvette and compare it to the latest model, only the most general resemblances are evident, but if you compare a 1953 and a 1954 Corvette, side by side, then a 1954 and 1955 model, and so on, the descent with modification is overwhelmingly obvious. This is what paleontologists do with fossils, and the evidence is so solid and comprehensive that it cannot be denied by reasonable people.”1

In comparing Corvette models with “transitional intermediates” in the fossil record, Berra made a significant error that has become known among creationists and ID proponents as Berra’s blunder. It almost goes without saying, Berra’s mistake was to use Corvettes—machines designed by automotive engineers—as an analogy for the hominid fossil record, claiming that sequential anatomical changes among the various hominid species reflect the outworking of an unguided evolutionary process in the same way that sequential design changes to Corvettes reflect the evolution of technology. But, as pointed out at that time by several creationists and intelligent design proponents, the Corvette sequence actually tells us something about how intelligent agents sometimes create: namely, designers can attain their goals by progressively modifying existing designs. To put it another way, the chronological appearance of organisms in the fossil record displaying serial changes to their anatomical, physiological, and behavioral features could be explained as the work of a Creator who was successively producing creatures that displayed modifications of an archetypical design. In this sense, the fossil record doesn’t necessarily compel reasonable people to accept biological evolution any more than does the evolution of the American automobile.

The sequential changes seen in the fossil record just as reasonably reflect the work of a mind as mechanism.

Déjà Vu Once More

Recently, researchers from UCLA made the same blunder as Tim Berra—all over again!2 These investigators wanted to understand the principles that influence the tempo and mode for technology development in a society. As a case study, these investigators examined the appearance and disappearance of American car and truck models manufactured between 1896 (when automobiles were first produced) and 2014, using the same approach that paleontologists might use to study the fossil record. Specifically, they monitored the year-by-year diversity of automobile models, paying special attention to the number of new models that were produced (analogous to speciation) each year and the number of discontinued models (analogous to extinction).

These researchers also explored the factors influencing the diversity of automobile models each year. Particularly, they assessed the effects of competition, and the impact of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and oil prices.

Their analysis indicates that the “origination” and “extinction” rates of automobile models displayed highly similar patterns over the course of the last 118 years. In both cases, origination and extinction rates were highest early in the automobile’s history, gradually declining to lower rates over time. The rates of decline dramatically slowed in the 1960s when the Big Three auto manufacturers rose to dominance in the American market place. Since the 1980s, the rate of automobile model extinction has outpaced the appearance rate of new models. However, during this time frame, the lifespan of automobile models has significantly increased.

The UCLA researchers also discovered that completion has had a much greater influence on automobile diversity than GDP and oil prices.

Based on these results, the authors of this study argue that when a technology is in its early stages, manufacturers introduce more experimental designs into the marketplace. But because these designs are experimental, they also disappear more rapidly. They maintain that the appearance and disappearance rates slow as dominant designs emerge. When that happens, it becomes too costly to introduce experimental models into the marketplace. Eventually, cost becomes such a significant factor that it causes the life expectancy of designs to persist for longer time periods.

Based on this study, the UCLA scientists predict that in the near future the number of hybrid and electric car designs will rapidly diversify—a radiation event, of sorts—because these technologies are in their nascent stages.

The Fossil Record and the Case for Creation

The UCLA researchers demonstrated that some of the techniques paleontologists use to study the fossil record—and hence, the history of life on Earth—can yield important insights about the way cultures and technologies change and develop. However, as with Berra’s blunder, they treated designed objects as if they were fossils, which, according to the evolutionary paradigm, are produced by unguided, mechanistic processes. The approach the UCLA research team used to study technology development, once again, highlights the fact that the sequential changes seen in the fossil record just as reasonably reflect the work of a mind as mechanism.

But, it is possible to take the implications of their work one step further. Not only can we argue that the progressive anatomical changes observed in fossilized organisms reflect the Creator’s handiwork, but so do overall patterns in the fossil record. The UCLA study demonstrates that when it comes to technology produced by human designers, the number of design variants and the rate that designs appear and disappear from the marketplace have a rational basis. Though the rationale may be different than what the UCLA researchers discovered for the automobile’s evolution, it becomes all the more reasonable to view changes in biological diversity and origination and extinction rates in the fossil record as reflecting a Creator’s intentional activity.

In other words, the evidence (the fossil record and homology) that biologists insist provides compelling support for the evolutionary paradigm actually finds ready explanation from a creation model perspective.

Resources

“Archetype or Ancestor? Sir Richard Owen and the Case for Design” by Fazale Rana (Article)

Endnotes
  1. Tim Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 117.
  2. Erik Gjesfjeld et al., “Competition and Extinction Explain the Evolution of Diversity in American Automobiles,” Palgrave Communications 2 (May 2016): 16019, doi:10.1057/palcomms.2016.19.
Reprinted with permission by the author
Original article at:
https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/the-cells-design/read/the-cells-design/2016/08/03/the-evolution-of-the-automobile-evidence-for-intelligent-design