Page 107 - The Transitional Form Dilemma
P. 107

HARUN YAHYA





              Not a single fossil represents any transitional form between birds and
              reptiles.

                   The Question of Age and the Cladistic
                   The Question of Age and the Cladistic
                   Error
                   Error
                   In all the evolutionist publications which encourage the dino-bird
              concept, one important fact is insistently ignored, or even concealed:
              The ages of the fossils deceptively put forward as dino-birds or feath-
              ered dinosaurs go back no further than 130 million years. Yet a true bird,
              Archaeopteryx, is at least 20 million years older than the creatures evolu-
              tionists try to describe as “semi-birds.” Archaeopteryx is known as the
              world’s oldest true bird, with perfect flight muscles, flight feathers and
              an authentic bird skeleton, which soared through the skies 150 million
              years ago. That being so, it is nonsensical to portray creatures which
              lived long after Archaeopteryx as the ancestors of birds.
                   However, evolutionists have found a way to defend that nonsensi-
              cality: the so-called cladistic method. This term refers to a new method of
              interpreting fossils, which has been heard frequently in the world of pa-
              leontology over the last 20 to 30 years. Proponents of the cladistic
              method recommend simply ignoring the age of fossils and propose only
              comparing the characteristic features of fossils we already possess—and
              constructing evolutionary trees in the light of the similarities that
              emerge as a result of those comparisons.

                   On one evolutionist website, those who support that view explain
              why it is logical(!) to regard the Velociraptor, a much younger dinosaur
              than Archaeopteryx, as its ancestor:
                   Now we may ask, “How can Velociraptor be ancestral to Archaeopteryx if it
                   came after it?” . . . because of the many gaps in the fossil record, fossils don’t al-
                   ways show up “on time.” For example, a recently discovered partial fossil from
                   the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar, Rahonavis, seems to be a cross between
                   birds and something like Velociraptor, but appears 60 mys too late. No-one,
                   however, says its late appearance is evidence against its being a missing link, it




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