Page 30 - The Evolution Impasse 2

28 Liaoningornis

Since ma te ri al ism ne ces si tates
the re jec tion of a Creator, they cling
to the the o ry of ev o lu tion as the on -
ly re main ing al ter na tive. It makes no
dif fer ence how much the sci en tif ic
find ings re fute ev o lu tion, since
the sci en tists in ques tion al -
ready re gard ev o lu tion as a
fact, a pri o ri. This bi ased at ti tude
leads to the be lief that "un con scious
sub stan ces can reg u late them selves,"
which is a vi o la tion of both sci ence
and rea son. A 130-mil lion-year-old Liaoningornis
bird fos sil, iden ti cal to mod ern birds.

LIAONINGORNIS
breast bone to which the flight mus -
The best-known of the claims re - cles are at tached—a struc ture al so
gard ing in ter me di ate forms in the found in present-day birds. The on ly
con text of rep tile-bird ev o lu tion is dif fer ence is that it had teeth in its
the fos sil known as Archaeopteryx. beak. This showed that, in con trast
However, it is now known that to ev o lu tion ist claims, that toothed
Archaeopteryx is not an in ter me di ate birds did not have a prim i tive struc -
form at all, but that it was a fly ing ture. Indeed, in a text pub lished in
20
bird, not much dif fer ent from birds Discover mag a zine, Alan Feduccia
alive to day. (See Archaeopteryx.) says that this fos sil in val i dates the
Archaeopteryx, which has been claim that the or i gin of birds can be
pro posed as "the fore run ner of mod - found in di no saurs. 21
ern birds," lived ap prox i mate ly 150
mil lion years ago. However, the dis -
cov ery in China in November 1996 "LIFE COMES FROM LIFE"
of a fos sil known as Liaoningornis de - THESIS, THE
mol ished ev o lu tion ists' claims con -
—See Biogenesis.
cern ing Archaeopteryx.
This bird, Liaoningornis, is around
130 mil lion years old, pos sessed a

The Evolution Impasse II