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"The Top 10 Claims Made by Creationists to Counter Scientific Theories"

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Hmmm... just read that Crocodylia are actually more closely related to bird than they are to snakes and lizards. Closed the link, I'll see if I can find it again...

Did crocodiles descend from dinosaurs?

They are a bit inconsistent, popular stories often make errors. But they are correct in this:

" But if you've read How Dinosaurs Work, you know that many scientists agree that birds, not crocodiles, descended from dinosaurs. "

By cladistics that makes birds also dinosaurs.
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
They are a bit inconsistent, popular stories often make errors. But they are correct in this:

" But if you've read How Dinosaurs Work, you know that many scientists agree that birds, not crocodiles, descended from dinosaurs. "

By cladistics that makes birds also dinosaurs.

The way I read the link Thermos posted is that Dinosaurs, Crocodylia and Birds share a common ancestor.
 

Thermos aquaticus

Well-Known Member
The way I read the link Thermos posted is that Dinosaurs, Crocodylia and Birds share a common ancestor.

Just as you, your siblings, and your cousins share a common ancestor which is your shared grandparents. However, you and your siblings share a more recent common ancestor which is your parents. In this arrangement, dinosaurs and birds are the siblings while crocodiles are the cousins.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The way I read the link Thermos posted is that Dinosaurs, Crocodylia and Birds share a common ancestor.

That is not quite correct. Birds are directly descended from dinosaurs so of course they have a common ancestor. And all life has a common ancestor, it is merely how far back on has to go.

One has to go back a bit further before dinosaurs appeared to find the common ancestor between dinosaurs and crocodylia.

For example we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. One would have to go a bit further back in time to find the common ancestor we share with gorillas, and even further back to find the common ancestor we share with orangutans.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Just as you, your siblings, and your cousins share a common ancestor which is your shared grandparents. However, you and your siblings share a more recent common ancestor which is your parents. In this arrangement, dinosaurs and birds are the siblings while crocodiles are the cousins.
I would not even say "siblings" since the first bird was also clearly a dinosaur. There is no change in kinds in evolution, there are merely speciation events. One does not become a member of a different clade through speciation. Since birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs they still are dinosaurs. The speciation event that led to the two different clades that led to dinosaurs and crocodylia would have been where one would find the common ancestor of those groups and both of those are still members of that original group.

The traditional biological classification system has a partial hangover from before the theory of evolution. That is why until recently men were not considered apes. But now that it is clear that chimps are more closely related to us than they are to other apes it is clear that if they are apes, then we are too.
 

Faithofchristian

Well-Known Member
Yes this fits what I told you in post 54 about the first evidence of man being about 3m yrs ago. This case goes back a bit earlier to 3.7m yrs.

The dinosaurs (other than bird lineages) stopped appearing in the Cretaceous, over 60 million yrs before that.


Like I said, human beings of flesh and blood, were not there at the time of the dinosaurs, But the Spirit man was there at the time of the dinosaurs.
Of course you have no clue or idea what I'm talking about.
Do you know the difference between the human man of flesh and blood.
And the Spirit man ?
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
Like I said, human beings of flesh and blood, were not there at the time of the dinosaurs, But the Spirit man was there at the time of the dinosaurs.
Of course you have no clue or idea what I'm talking about.
Do you know the difference between the human man of flesh and blood.
And the Spirit man ?

I don't. I have no idea what a spirit man is.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Birds are still here, so they're partially right. They're just completely ignorant of real biology.

Birds are not dinosaurs, but birds did evolve from some specific groups of dinosaurs that were bird-like.

They shared some of the same characteristics, but birds didn’t come from other dinosaurs. Dinosaurs themselves are not all the same, and they diverge into different groupings, and birds are descendants of very specific group of dinosaurs, the theropod dinosaurs.

The theropod dinosaurs does belong to the saurischian dinosaurs, but not all saurischians are theropods.

All I am saying that the birds may have come dinosaurs, but dinosaurs were never contemporaries to humans, since they have all died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years before human arrival.

Today, living birds (and extinct ones) and living reptiles (and extinct ones) all belonged to the same groupings of dinosaurs, the
sauropsida tetrapods, where as all mammals, including the extinct ones, belonged to a different type of tetrapods, the synapsids.

And all tetrapods had evolved from the originally aquatic tetrapods, and these were all descendants of the lobe-finned fishes.

Birds are contemporary to humans, not dinosaurs.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Birds are not dinosaurs, but birds did evolve from some specific groups of dinosaurs that were bird-like.

They shared some of the same characteristics, but birds didn’t come from other dinosaurs. Dinosaurs themselves are not all the same, and they diverge into different groupings, and birds are descendants of very specific group of dinosaurs, the theropod dinosaurs.

The theropod dinosaurs does belong to the saurischian dinosaurs, but not all saurischians are theropods.

All I am saying that the birds may have come dinosaurs, but dinosaurs were never contemporaries to humans, since they have all died out at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years before human arrival.

Today, living birds (and extinct ones) and living reptiles (and extinct ones) all belonged to the same groupings of dinosaurs, the
sauropsida tetrapods, where as all mammals, including the extinct ones, belonged to a different type of tetrapods, the synapsids.

And all tetrapods had evolved from the originally aquatic tetrapods, and these were all descendants of the lobe-finned fishes.

Birds are contemporary to humans, not dinosaurs.
If one goes by cladistics birds are dinosaurs. And cladistics make much more sense than that the older Linnaean system of classification.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Hmmm... just read that Crocodylia are actually more closely related to bird than they are to snakes and lizards. Closed the link, I'll see if I can find it again...

Did crocodiles descend from dinosaurs?
Here's a simplistic, but informative clarification.

27f63eb12f4d2be2256a1982101f0f51.jpg

.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Ah yes, Dr. K Wise.

The guy who says that even if all the evidence in the universe were to
turn against yec, he would still be a yec because that is what the bible seems to say.

Total intellectual dishonesty.

What a thing for you to admire.

Indeed...what I meant is that their faith in a Creator is so blind...that any scientific evidence loses meaning in their eyes. That's shocking and beautiful at the same time.

Because I wonder how those people were brought up...given that, my upbringing was so rationalist that my mind is not able to conceive the concept of a Creator-God. It excludes it a priori
 

gnostic

The Lost One
If one goes by cladistics birds are dinosaurs. And cladistics make much more sense than that the older Linnaean system of classification.
“Clade”-wise, yes, they are definitely linked, and birds are descendants of dinosaurs, just as crocodiles are also descendants and evolved from dinosaurs, but birds and crocodile are contemporaries to the Homo sapiens humans, dinosaurs are not.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
“Clade”-wise, yes, they are definitely linked, and birds are descendants of dinosaurs, just as crocodiles are also descendants and evolved from dinosaurs, but birds and crocodile are contemporaries to the Homo sapiens humans, dinosaurs are not.
Crocodiles are not descended from dinosaurs. They share an earlier common ancestor with them. Birds and crocodiles both belong to the larger group Archosaurs:

Archosaur - Wikipedia

Interesting enough the Wiki article on dinosaurs has their time range going from 231.4 million years ago to present:

"Dinosaurs
Temporal range: Late TriassicPresent, 231.4 – 0 Mya"

Dinosaur - Wikipedia
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Crocodiles are not descended from dinosaurs. They share an earlier common ancestor with them. Birds and crocodiles both belong to the larger group Archosaurs:

Archosaur - Wikipedia

Interesting enough the Wiki article on dinosaurs has their time range going from 231.4 million years ago to present:

"Dinosaurs
Temporal range: Late TriassicPresent, 231.4 – 0 Mya"

Dinosaur - Wikipedia
Thanks, SZ.

I am still learning, and I do get turn around with clade taxonomy of earlier creatures.

Actually perhaps you can help me out. I am glad that you have brought up Archosaurs.

I am still confused as to the differences between archosaurs and dinosaurs. I hope that you can clarify.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Thanks, SZ.

I am still learning, and I do get turn around with clade taxonomy of earlier creatures.

Actually perhaps you can help me out. I am glad that you have brought up Archosaurs.

I am still confused as to the differences between archosaurs and dinosaurs. I hope that you can clarify.
No problem. We are all learning here. I have made more than my share of mistakes.

Like you I learn form my mistakes. Creationists, not so much.

Here is a much more detailed article that explains what Archosaurs are:

https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/what-are-archosaurs/

It tells you the traits that make up archosaurs and has a nice illustration of the family tree:

archosaurs-tree1.jpg


Weird, it appears that images are not posting correctly again. When I wrote this I could see my image but it will not post I guess you need to click on the link.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
"Crocodiles are the closest living relatives of the birds, sharing a common ancestor that lived around 240 million years ago and also gave rise to the dinosaurs."
Scientists reconstruct genome of common ancestor of crocodiles, birds, dinosaurs

Crocs share a common ancestor with dinosaurs but no species in the crocodile lineage was a dinosaur. The two lineages split with birds/dinosaurs on one side and crocs on the other.

I am always amazed at how scientists can make claims that sound so positive, when they have so little real evidence.

In reference to the diagram from your link.....(which will not post for some reason) it says.....

figure-425.jpg

This phylogenetic diagram shows the inferred evolutionary relationships among birds, reptiles, and mammals. Colors indicate the estimated rates of evolution, with cooler colors corresponding to lower rates of molecular evolution. (Image credit: Richard E. Green et al.)

What does it say about this diagram exactly?

I see the words "inferred evolutionary relationships". If there is solid evidence, what need is there for "inference"?

Just suppose....
"You are on a remote, uninhabited island. While walking along the beach, you see “John 1800” engraved on a boulder. Do you assume that because the island is isolated and uninhabited, the marks must be the result of wind or water erosion? Of course not! You rightly conclude that someone made that inscription. Why? For one thing, a string of well-defined letters and numbers—even if they are in a foreign language—does not occur naturally. Second, the statement contains meaningful information, indicating an intelligent source.

In everyday life, we encounter information encoded in many forms—such as Braille or letters of the alphabet, as well as diagrams, musical notes, spoken words, hand signs, radio signals, and computer programs involving the binary code, using zeros and ones. The information-conveying medium can be virtually anything, from light to radio waves to paper and ink. Whatever the case, people always associate meaningful information with an intelligent mind—unless such information is contained in a living cell. That information, say evolutionists, just happened or wrote itself somehow. But did it?

The basic units that make up DNA are called nucleotides. These units are called A, C, G, and T, depending on which chemical base they contain. Like letters of the alphabet, these four characters can be combined in many ways to form “sentences”—instructions that direct replication and other processes within the cell.

The entire package of information stored in your DNA is called your genome. Some sequences of letters in your DNA are unique to you, for DNA contains your hereditary information—your eye color, skin color, the shape of your nose, and so on. Simply put, your genome can be compared to a vast library of recipes for every part of your body, and the end product is you.

How large is this “library”? It is about three billion “letters,” or nucleotides (bases), long. If it were transcribed onto paper, the book would fill 200 volumes the size of a 1,000-page telephone book, according to the Human Genome Project.

If reason tells us that “John 1800” engraved into a rock must have an intelligent mind as its source, should not also the infinitely more complex and meaningful information found in DNA? After all, information is information no matter where it is found or what the medium may be.

To attribute the complex library of information in DNA to blind, unguided processes conflicts with both reason and human experience. Such belief also stretches faith to the breaking point."

"Stretched out, the DNA in one cell of your body is about six feet (2 m) long. If you were to extract the DNA from all your body’s trillions of cells and put the strands end to end, the total length according to some estimates would be nearly 670 times the distance from the earth to the sun and back. To travel that distance at the speed of light would take about 185 hours."

Excerpts from https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102011402?q=genome&p=par#h=13

How many 'libraries' do you know of that built themselves and provided all the information in all the books on the shelves with no intelligent direction?
confused0082.gif
I can't think of any either.....
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
The basic units that make up DNA are called nucleotides. These units are called A, C, G, and T, depending on which chemical base they contain. Like letters of the alphabet, these four characters can be combined in many ways to form “sentences”—instructions that direct replication and other processes within the cell.

That's how humans express it. Other than that the letters are meaningless. I don't get your point.
 
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