December 9, 2015 | David F. Coppedge

Dinosaurs Evolved in the Blink of an Eye

Evolutionists figure that dinosaurs evolved from pre-dinosaurs rapidly, despite no significant change in the environment.

Once again, major science news sites parrot an evolutionary paper uncritically, embellishing the tale with hyped-up headlines:

  • Thunder-Thighed Dinosaurs Arose Quickly from Predecessors (Live Science)
  • Dinosaurs evolved much faster than previously thought (Science Magazine)
  • First dinosaurs arose in an evolutionary eye-blink (Nature)
  • Dinosaur relatives and first dinosaurs more closely connected than previously thought (Science Daily)

“… than previously thought”? Who thought that? Why, evolutionists, of course. They’re the only ones permitted to have a thought on such matters. One might think they would have a thought or two about the soft tissue turning up in dinosaur bones everywhere (12/01/15, 6/10/15), but apparently that thought falls into a black hole in their evolved brains.

The basic idea from a new paper in PNAS is that dinosaurs arose from “dinosauromorphs” (a fancy word for “dinosaur shapes” — alleged predecessors that “arose” after the Permian extinction) in just 10 million years. That’s “an evolutionary eye-blink” to Nature. Evolutionists don’t mind speeding up evolution or slowing it down (see “The Stretch and Squish Theory of Evolution”, 12/14/04), as long as evolution wins the game (which game? Calvinball). This way, they can have modern comb jellies and sea lilies remain virtually unchanged from their Cambrian-explosion ancestors, but believe in eye-blink-fast appearances of whales, flowering plants and dinosaurs by Darwin’s famous “law of nature” known as Natural Selection (see “Stuff Happens Law” in the Darwin Dictionary). Since skeptics of this catch-all explanation are ruled out of court, no wonder dinosaur evolution happened “much faster than previously thought”. One-sided thinking also provides a free pass around falsification:

To discover that these early dinosaur relatives were geologically much younger than previously thought was totally unexpected.

A look into the PNAS paper shows some damning admissions that are actually more surprising than the conclusions. Dinosaurs are icons of evolution; people think they prove evolution. Well, read this. The South American team practically says the Emperor is naked — at least he has been till now. Some sample quotes:

  • Triassic origin and subsequent rise to dominance of dinosaurs and their closest relatives (dinosauromorphs), all lack critical support from a precise biostratigraphically independent temporal framework.
  • BM-EmperorCharlie-smAmong the third group is arguably the most contentious of Mesozoic macroevolutionary events: the origin and rise of dinosaurs.
  • Although dinosaurs have often been cited as a classic case of an evolutionary radiation, many disparate hypotheses have been proposed for their origin and subsequent rapid rise to global dominance.
  • One of the major difficulties with testing these hypotheses has been the lack of precise biostratigraphically independent age constraints for early dinosaur-bearing assemblages, which would provide a firm temporal basis for comparing origin scenarios across time and space.
  • Without precise independent age control (other than vertebrate biostratigraphic correlations), it is impossible to determine if these faunal differences vary across time, space, or a combination of both.
  • Among the many uncertainties regarding dinosaur evolution is the timing of the origin and subsequent radiation of this clade and their closest relatives (early dinosauromorphs).
  • …. the significance of these fossils for understanding the early evolutionary history of the group is unclear as they lack a precise time framework, with the age of the strata based solely on vertebrate correlations among unconnected Gondwanan basins. This problem has been exacerbated by the recent recognition that these vertebrate index taxa may differ in age across Gondwana.
  • Biostratigraphically independent age constraints are essential for robust testing of macroevolutionary and biogeographic hypotheses in the fossil record.

They went scrambling for fig leaves to cover up this shameful situation. And they found some in the form of zircons. A look at the hill where they dug them up, however, the Chañares strata in Argentina, seems unconvincing. None of the layers have dates on them. Oh, but they do, an evolutionist will say: zircons prove how old they are. Do they? Zircons are very cooperative prisoners. They’ll give you any date you want if you torture them enough (see 10/06/04, 4/08/11, 3/25/13).

The new dates, though, are hardly helpful. For one thing, they require evolution with explosive speed. For another, there’s no apparent cause for them to evolve so fast; the Permian extinction was long past, according to their story. Nature explains,

The finding suggests that dinosaurs appeared and spread quickly through the same leafy, humid environment that their ancestors inhabited, says Marsicano. It discredits earlier ideas that dinosaurs did not arise until environments changed and gave them a new ecosystem to move into.

Thirdly, there’s not that much difference between dinosauromorphs (“dinosaur shapes”) and dinosaurs. Science Magazine News says,

The fossils analyzed in the new study are among the earliest of a broad group of creatures called dinosauromorphs. That group includes all dinosaurs but also includes their earlier predecessors and their subsequent kin, which had the same general body plan but didn’t have distinctive anatomical features in their hip bones that all true dinosaurs shared….

The creatures in those two groups looked and behaved pretty much the same, but “dinosaurs were slightly larger overall,” he notes. So, an overall mix of creatures dominated by early dinosaurs didn’t really look that much different from earlier ones where dinosauromorphs were predominant, he notes.

So does this nomenclature signify a distinction without  difference? Except for the contrived dates, one wouldn’t really know. But dinosaurs had to evolve from something, so why not from “dinosaur-shapes”? So there you have it. Problem solved. Darwin spared. Just don’t let any creationists in the door. They might talk about soft tissue and carbon-14, messing up the cute story.

BM-Darwine-sm“The story is that there was a very rapid evolution and a very rapid achievement of dominance in the fauna as they go from [early] dinosauromorphs to dinosaurs,” Lacovara said. It shows that “being a dinosaur is a really good idea. It really works. It allows them to outcompete things that aren’t like dinosaurs. And if you include birds, being a dinosaur is still a pretty good thing.”

Other Dinosaur News

Australia has a new armored dinosaur (PhysOrg). It looks a lot like the well-known ankylosaur, but the discoverers gave it a politically-correct native name.

A new toothed pterosaur was found in Texas (Science Daily). The only other two toothed pterosaurs were also found near Dallas. Must be due to the barbecues there. But something about it is strange; it’s a lot like its relatives in England.

The Texas and English Cimoliopterus cousins are different species, so some evolutionary divergence occurred, indicating the populations were isolated from one another at 94 million years ago, Myers said.

The similarity between the two species, however, implies minimal divergence time, so gene flow between North American and European populations would have been possible at some point shortly before that date.

The Atlantic opened the supercontinent Pangea like a zipper, separating continents and leaving animal populations isolated, so gene flow ceased and we start to see evolutionary divergence,”….

A swimming lizard with binoculars was found in Japan, PhysOrg says — eyes with binocular vision, that is. It’s like the mosasaurs, only smaller. The “unusually well-preserved” fossil allowed the paleontologists to reconstruct the original skull showing “astounding detail and beautiful, undistorted condition.

When the fountains of the great deep burst open, the supercontinent Pangea split open “like a zipper”. That’s what some creation scientists say about the Flood. That idea, if scientists would only give it some thought, answers a number of mysteries: why creatures on different continents are so similar, why so many dead things are buried in sediments, and why many are in a state of astounding preservation. The antecedent event—recent creation—also explains the exquisite design of living things (binocular vision included), their abrupt appearance, and their global distribution. No storytelling required, because we have the word of the most trustworthy Eyewitness in the universe.

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Comments

  • lux113 says:

    It’s all so comedic…

    That list of bullet point quotes you provide from the South American team is priceless. It reads like the disclaimers at the bottom of some popular prescription drug. I’m now imagining a drug called “Darwinism” and the pages of small print “side effects.”

    And “dinosauromorphs to dinosaurs”, things that “looked and behaved pretty much the same” as each other. You just can’t make this stuff up. They actually claim that dinosaurs evolved from some “dino shapes”…. forgive me, but LOL, So what, did nature make some type of giant plastic dino-molds to produce dinosaurs from?

    I feel so sad for the evolutionists. I mean, in a certain sense God really threw them for a loop with creation — there’s just no logical, materialistic, way they can explain it, so they end up saying these ridiculous things.

    Thanks so much for the great article!

  • tjguy says:

    Fast dinosaur evolution? Wow! They will believe/swallow anything to keep their theory afloat.

    Dinosaurs have a long gestation time I would think. The larger the animal, the slower the evolution. After all, they don’t reproduce like fruit flies. So that makes 10 million years extremely short. Evolution believers also have the same thorny problem when it comes to whale evolution. We know their gestation time is VERY SLOW and yet in less than 10 million years, whales evolved? It sure is good – for the – that there is no way for them to actually test their stories, otherwise, I’m afraid they would be very embarrassed. Freedom from accountability allows them to think up whatever story they want, tweak it to make it sound plausible to their ears, and then receive praise from the Darwinian choir for their great discoveries. This is what historical science has evolved into these days.

  • John C says:

    Thinking of the extinction of dinosaurs got me thinking… (Oh, no!)

    Luis Alvarez and his son Walter, et al., first postulated the 65mya extinction event by asteroid in 1980 (per Wikipedia, the Alvarez Hypothesis). So why aren’t we speaking in 2015 of the asteroid that fell 65 million and 35 years ago?

  • rockyway says:

    ‘Evolutionists figure that dinosaurs evolved from pre-dinosaurs rapidly, despite no significant change in the environment.

    – That’s not supposed to happen is it? Don’t Darwinists explain stasis by claiming that no changes in the environment means no change in morphology?

    ‘It shows that “being a dinosaur is a really good idea. It really works.” – Lacovara

    – Well; as a creationist I would agree that it Was a good idea… but I don’t think he meant it in the way I do,

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