Harkening back to a post during January 2015, in an article titled “Feathered Dinosaurs Drive Creationists Crazy” on Slate, the assertion is made, “…The mountain of evidence that birds are living dinosaurs, and that many ‘bird’…”
…”Most scientists…”
'zat so? “Most…Scientists…”
Today, whilst reading an article by a progressive Agnostic, I came across the following statement aimed at “religious-minded” folks. How poignantly stated too!
Comments such as “all” or even “‘most’ scientists believe birds evolved from dinosaurs.…” is an absurd assertion. How they conducted their poll and statistics on “most scientists” is a mystery in itself however,
Even if it were so, what does that prove?
Nothing. Let's take it straight from the mouth of the most vehement anti-religious among Darwinists:
“I noticed your reliance upon phrases such as, “modern scholarship is virtually unanimous,” “on this score scholarship is united,” “almost all scholars are agreed,“ and finally, “this seems to be the conclusion of most modern scholars, even critical ones.” I take exception to such a method of argument. A man's opinions are not logically strengthened by the number of men who agree with him (unless his logic functions like that of an evangelist).”
*Ouch.*
Personally, I could care no less about “opinions” so much as I care about fossils and actual geological dating methods.
The “empirical evidence” stands on the side of the minority of scientists who actually adhere to valid time-tested scientific principals and their counterparts who have enough knowledge to actually know to avoid “pop science” which is virtually the same as mainstream pseudo-scientific garbage. Were these elusive statistics culled from a peer reviewed journal, or perhaps like the dinosaur-to-bird hypothesis, plucked from thin air? Legitimacy of theories comes solely by being based upon the “clear fossil evidence” that birds existed before cretaceous theropod dinosaurs, whether the conclusions are the ones desired or not. Whimsical myths and fantasies cooked up by some renegade scientist seeking to stir up controversy of “70 million year old cretaceous theropod dinosaurs evolving into 160 million year old birds that lived 25 million to 80 million years BEFORE said theropod dinosaurs…” get some controversies started … sell some books. Naturally, some scientists who are actual bird experts reject this silly hypothetical nonsense.
If your hypothesis contradicts the fossil record, above, your hypothesis is wrong and your hypothesis needs tweaking.
As one Google hit of Wikipedia so eloquently puts it: “Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
Oh those darn evangelical dinosaur-to-bird hypothesizers! What shall modern science do with them?
Punchline
“…creationists deny the clear fossil record…”
and what do these fools do, every time they suggest that a 70 million year old velociraptor evolved into a 160 million year old Archaeopteryx?