Page 89 - The Origin of Birds and Flight

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar) 87

Ernst Mayr, one of the founders of neo-Darwinism, made the following
admission many years ago:

It is a considerable strain on one’s credulity to assume that finely bal-
anced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or
the bird'’ feather) could be improved by random mutations. 59

Bird feathers and reptile scales develop very differently:
Feathers do not differ from scales only in structural terms, but in
their developmental paths also. Feather development is an exceedingly
complex process. In contrast to scales, feathers grow out of tiny sacs
called follicles, just like hairs do. Yet a hair has a much simpler structure
than that of a feather. The growing feather is protected by a sheath and
forms around a cone-shaped nucleus. The cells that will constitute the
feather also develop through highly complex physiological processes.
Once the cells have formed, they migrate away from one another so as
to form the complex sequences in the hooks and barbs at the feather’s
edge. 60
Moreover, scales and feathers each grow out of different epidermal
(skin) layers. Feathers, with their basically protein structure, are made of
keratin, a strong, hard substance that forms when old cells in the subder-
mal layers die and are replaced by younger cells. However, feather pro-
teins (b-keratins) are biochemically different from skin and scale pro-
teins (a-keratins).
From these differences, A. H. Brush concludes that:

To survive, birds must constantly keep their feathers clean and groomed. They use oil
glands at the bottom of their tails to maintain their feathers. Taking up some of this oil on
their beaks, they clean and polish their feathers. In swimming birds, this oil prevents water
from soaking the feather when they are under water or in the rain. Birds also prevent their
body temperatures from cooling by puffing up their feathers. In warm temperatures, they
cool their bodies by holding their feathers close to their bodies. The fact that feathers have
been created to have so many functions in response to outside requirements, is another
example of Allah’s mercy toward living things.