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| Dinosaur and Bird... |
David Menton, is still a liar. A report came out today in Nature that may change the thinking of how the early transition from Dinos to birds occurred, but leave it to creationists to lie about it and wet their pants. The Wackos over at World Net Daily, of the "Where's the Birth Certificate" fame interviewed our favorite people at AIG to see how they could manipulate the data and have it fit into their nice little belief system.
The Nature article details, that since the discovery of Archaeopteryx in 1861, many other 'feathered dinosaurs' have been discovered including the most recent Xiaotingia zhengi described by Xing Xu, a palaeontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology in Beijing. With this new discovery, Xu suggests that feathered dinosaurs, such as Archaeopteryx and X. zhengi may not actually be early bird transitions, but more closely related to a Velociraptor, and should be thought as 'bird-like' dinosaurs and not 'dinosaur-like' birds.
This is where our good friends at AIG, Ken Ham and David Menton, begin their cherry-picking quest to have this data somehow disprove evolution. Ham states, "This and other since-discredited assumptions about evolutionary process still are being taught as fact in schools." His evidence for this? By saying that at an evolutionary science meeting he attended that the consensus was that Archaeropteryx is just a bird. You can listen to this in the embedded audio clip in the article. Hand waves, with no evidence. Then Ken's best friend David Menton (of the Liar, liar pants on fire fame) goes on to play Barney to Ham's Fred. "What he's arguing is that … thanks to his new discovery, Archaeopteryx should be classified a dinosaur, not really a bird at all. … We're supposed to forget everything we have known [about] Archaeopteryx." The piece doesn't say whether Menton believes it to be a dino, bird, rock with carvings made by man, but I'm sure there is a creationist consensus somewhere.
The story then continues to talk about how similar birds are to dinosaurs, something either the folks at WND didn't realize they were doing, or are just to blind to notice. Either way, victory science! For the real entertainment, go to the comment section. That is where the real crazy lives. Ken Ham and David Menton are just lairs and con-artists. The blind, dumb, thick-headed people that would actually accept anything at face-value and gladly pay the $20 to enter the creation museum live in that comment section.
I understand, that science is hard sometimes, and that we don't always get it right the first time. Luckily however, there are smart people out there constantly testing and challenging established ways of thinking.
I'm also glad sometimes for Ham, he's very entertaining.
I find Ken's writing very humorous; very entertaining. Is he a comedian or something? No? Oh, well that's just sad.
ReplyDeleteWhat's sad is he would not be in the place he is in if people were smart enough to see through him.
ReplyDeleteUh, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the "He" being referred to in the quote from Menton (i.e. "What he's arguing is that…") is Xing Xu, the author of the paper on Xiaotingia.
ReplyDeleteSo the quote in the WND article is Menton speaking of Xing Xu, saying that Xing Xu is claiming that Archaeopteryx should be classified as dinosaur, but that "...there are too many assumptions in such evaluations to make specific affirmations."
Thus Menton is reaffirming the long running creationist canard that Archeopteryx, despite what Xing Xu is arguing, is "just a bird".
At least that is what I'm getting out of it. Or am I misunderstand what you mean about Ham being discredited by Menton?
I was just saying they contradict each other. Ham calls it a bird in the audio clip, Menton calls it a dino in the piece. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Thanks for the read!
ReplyDeleteOH you're that Tony Britain! Thanks very much for the read! Haha
ReplyDeleteHi Dustin,
ReplyDeleteRight, what I am saying is that I think you might have misread the WND article and that Menton is actually, more or less, agreeing with Ham and poo-pooing Xing Xu's reclassification of Archaeopteryx as a dinosaur.
And it's *Troy* actually (don't worry about it, I get the "Tony" thing a lot).
Either way, they're nuts, liars, con-artists. Sorry Troy, got excited. Thanks again for the read.
ReplyDeleteI changed the article a bit, Im sure if science said its a potato, Ham and Menton would call it a crayon.
Part of this confusion is thanks to the bizarre nomenclatural convention that palaeontologists themselves have chosen here. Not all systematists are in agreement that their particular definition of "bird" is fruitful to discussion either among taxonomists or to the general public at large. What we're seeing here is some of the fallout of sensationalizing what is, in fact, a relatively minor change in the systematics of stem-group birds.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point. I've found that most palaeontologists like to out do each other and argue about everything, so Im sure there is much truth in what you're saying.
ReplyDeletehttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/Dromornis_stirtoni_01.jpg/250px-Dromornis_stirtoni_01.jpg
ReplyDeleteThe similarity is a lot more pronounced if we see non flying birds.
This was a giant carnivorous bird that roamed around with the same body plan as a bird hipped dinosaur.
Many people here seem to have decided that any "fool" who chooses to hold a different worldview to their own is worthy of scorn and disrespect. The main reason people like David Menton keep talking about creation is because of the Creator. Dr Menton and millions of others throughout time and the world today know Jesus and understand that He is our creator. We also know that we separate ourselves from the love of God by rejecting our creator. I guess that's why there is so much hate involved in anticreationist raves. I actually had a guy send me a photo of human excrement in a jar and say that was me. All because I have a different understanding of reality, because I know the Greater Reality. I hope and pray that the Greater Reality will become everyone's reality as I can see no other way for humanity to start treating each other with love and respect.
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