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There are many people who believe quite sincerely that the fossil remains
of archaeopteryx represent a ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds, I
think this fanciful common assumption ought to be weighed against the hard
evidence before such a conclusion is reached.
In 1984, Germany, at the International Archaeopteryx Conference about the
only thing all the scientists generally agreed on was that the fossil
represented a true bird. The members who attended disagreed on just about
everything else. A tiny minority at the conference thought that the fossil
represented a dinosaur – one of the smallest, a coelurosaurian, which means
small and light-framed. But a bird? Yes, definitely a bird.
The fact that the archaeopteryx shares some things with other vertebrates
is not unique. Most reptiles, birds and mammals share some features, but this
does not mean that they evolved from each other. Most creatures have legs or
limb bones, most can see, hear, breath and smell, but the fact that there are
similarities does not prove a common origin.
In the same way we would not think that a motorbike, a car and a jet boat
all come from the same original machine, though they all share some things in
common. It is faulty reasoning to jump from seeing similarities to the
conclusion that similarities prove a common origin.
Archaeopteryx had teeth, there is no doubt about that, but does this mean
that it was once a dinosaur and it has retained the teeth in its evolution? Once
again, faulty reasoning is operating here. If we first of all assume the
direction of evolution, without a shred of proof, and then we add another
assumption to our first assumption, all we have is two assumptions. Neither
assumption proves the other, so nothing has been accomplished. The presence of
teeth does not prove a common origin, or even a link with another creature.
Other fossil birds have been found with teeth too. Most other birds
don’t have teeth. Some reptiles don’t have teeth, some do. Some mammals have
teeth, some don’t. What does the presence or absence of teeth prove? All it
proves is that some birds have teeth and some don’t.
Archaeopteryx had feathers. Feathers are not hairs or scales. Feathers
are incredibly complex 3-dimensional structures. They have tapered shafts,
barbules, hooks and shafts. They have precise curvatures, and a perfect balance
between materials and function.
Feathers appear on archaeopteryx already formed and complete. There are
no fossil archaeopteryx with half-formed feathers, or partially formed wings.
All we have is a bird with feathers and no transitional forms to prove that the
archaeopteryx has evolved from some other animal.
Furthermore, the difference between the three complex forms – feathers,
scales and hairs - is vast when it is expressed it in terms of DNA information.
In order to change from dinosaur scales to bird feathers huge stretches of
complete, useful DNA information have to appear out of nowhere. This has never
been seen in any experiment and there is no mechanism known to science whereby
new DNA can appear.
Some people think that mutations, tiny and accumulative, have added up to
produce wings with feathers, but mutations have often been seen to be harmful,
or disruptive of DNA, and sometimes lethal. Mutations may accumulate but they
never produce masses of useful new information. It is only an assumption that,
some time in a distant past, mutations have worked in the opposite direction to
that which they work today, to produce millions of wonderful new limbs and
senses, organs and external features.
There is no hard evidence to prove that archaeopteryx is a transitional
form, nor is there any evidence to show how flight evolved, how limbs turned
into wings, how bones became hollow for flight, or how skulls became beaks.
People who think the archaeopteryx is a ‘missing link’ assume too much.
Another problem which evolutionists have in the case of birds evolving is
the rule, which evolutionists usually hold: evolution follows the path of
greater efficiency. In other words, if a change occurs in a living creature, it
is usually towards making that creature better able to survive. This means that
a creature may become more agile, faster, better camouflaged, stronger, tougher,
more productive and so on. But logically, if a dinosaur were to evolve into a
bird, it would need to grow useless limbs intended for flight which would be a
great hindrance to it for thousands or millions of years, until finally the
dinosaur’s whole body was adapted for flight. This would mean that, while the
wings were forming, and the feathers growing, the bones would be thinning and
hollowing out, the lungs would be extending into its bones, its legs would be
changing into claws, its whole body preparing for egg-laying, nesting and
feeding chicks, its mouth disappearing and a light beak growing, and a thousand
other major changes. For most of this time the changes would be a hindrance to
the creature, which contradicts the rule held by many evolutionists.
How can ‘survival of the fittest’ work if a half-dinosaur is trying
to move about with two useless limbs? How can natural selection sort out the
less viable from the mutations which-may-be-beneficial in the long run? Once
again the theory that dinosaurs changed into birds falls into a tangle of
unprovable assumptions.
But what may be the most damaging fact of all is the genetics side of
archaeopteryx. Gregor Mendel proved, (and he has been vindicated many times),
that inherited characteristics never blend. In other words, if a certain gene
expresses in one generation, it may ‘submerge’ for a while, but it can
always return. It doesn’t disappear, and it doesn’t blend with other genes.
This means that the genes for feathers, bones, muscles, colours, beaks,
eyes, legs and so on are always present in the fertilised egg. This provides the
possibility for many varieties within a species, but never more than the genes
will allow. This is why we have big horses and little horses, black dogs and
white dogs, long-haired cats and short-haired cats, but in all this variety
there is never any more than the genes will allow. No new genes ever appear, and
no large chunks of new useful information ever appear.
In other words, thanks to discoveries in modern genetics, it is now known
that species are separated and preserved by their genes. Horses will always be
horses, dogs dogs and cats cats. Pigeons may come in all shapes and sizes, but
they will always be pigeons. There are no exceptions. And the only way anything
really new can appear in a creature is by placing a new, complete packet of
information into the DNA – and this is something which has never been seen to
happen. It is the same for any human invention: in order for a car to fly a mass
of new, complete information has to be produced, and then applied as real parts,
and integrated with the car, which would also need to be modified to accommodate
the new parts, but there is no known mechanism whereby a dinosaur can receive a
huge amount of useful information into its DNA to change it into a bird.
So the archaeopteryx appears to be a bird with teeth – proof that there
were once birds with teeth living some time in the past. That is all it proves.
But there is something else that ought to be said about this fossil, and
that is the manner in which it was fossilised. In order to turn a living
creature into a fossil, one needs to kill and preserve it fairly quickly,
because decomposition usually sets in soon after death and the remains
disappear. Even a large creature like a cow will only last a year or so if it
dies on a hillside. Weather and bacteria are very efficient at dismantling even
the largest piles of carcase.
The fact that the fossil archaeopteryx has been found in sedimentary rock
indicates that it was drowned and buried rapidly before it could escape.
Sedimentary rock is made out of once fluid gravel, mud, sand and other
sediments, which subsequently settled and hardened. This fact indicates a
sudden, disastrous flood, which engulfed the birds along with many other living
things, before they could flee the water and alluvium.
This, of course, supports the Biblical account of the world-wide flood. Archaeopteryx therefore best illustrates creation (since there is no evidence to support transitional forms) and the flood (because of the huge amount of fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks around the world).