Changing the way we look at the world
Anomalous dinosaurs
Dinosaurs are favourite creatures of many people of all ages and are used by the main-stream media to promote the theory of evolution. Every new dinosaur find is reported with great enthusiasm as yet more evidence for evolution.
However, there are many unanswered questions which are never mentioned by the press and which are only known to those working at the forefront of evolutionary research and publishing in the scientific journals. In fact, when reading the published scientific reports on dinosaurs it become obvious that there are many unknowns and even evidence which shows that the case for evolution is far from proven.
For example, the origin of dinosaurs as a group is far from clear. Evolutionists believe that dinosaurs arose during the Triassic era (which we are told was more than 200 million years ago).
The evidence for this are ‘basal’ dinosaurs (which are representative ancestors). However, close reading of the research reveals a few surprises.
One such ‘basal’ dinosaur is Coelophysis bauri found in New Mexico, which is considered to be an ancestral theropod. Over a thousand well-preserved fossilized skeletons of this small Triassic dinosaur were found in a quarry at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. C. bauri and other members of the family to which it belongs is noteworthy because of the numerous complete fossil skeletons (which is unusual for dinosaurs). So we know a lot about these creatures. C. bauri was a relatively small (3 metres long) bipedal and probably agile carnivore. There is nothing primitive about this animal!
The remarkable thing about this dinosaur is that even though it is Triassic and is supposed to be a representative of the animals from which other dinosaurs evolved, it had many ‘derived‘ features which are unexpected for a ‘basal’ dinosaur. For example, it had a wishbone and a kink in its upper jaw (the premaxilla-maxilla articulation is flexible with a deep gap between the teeth in the two bones). The origin of these ‘advanced’ or ‘derived’ features is never explained.
Coelophysis is not the only Triassic dinosaur with unexpected features. Many of them were also bipedal and this would seem to be an advanced feature. It seems reasonable to think that, from an evolutionary point of view, tetrapods would have evolved into bipeds.
Heterodontosaurus found in South African lower Jurassic rocks is another ‘basal’ dinosaur. It too was a small bipedal creature. The really surprising thing is that it has mammal-like teeth and other advanced features which are not consistent with the claim that this was a ‘basal’ ornithischian dinosaur.
The fact that there are ‘derived’ features in “basal” dinosaurs, highlights something which I wrote about earlier in a blog post on the problem with cladistics. Cladistics depends on the analysis of characters which are ‘primitive’ or ‘derived’. The problem is who decides which are primitive or derived? This is perhaps the reason why cladists like to avoid those terms and prefer to call the ‘original’ state of the characteristic plesiomorphic and the ‘changed’ state apomorphic. But this hardly helps when the original state is functionally more complex, as in the examples mentioned here. Another question is; how many derived features can a basal creature have and still be considered to be an ancestor of later animals which can be missing some of the derived features of basal animals?
One could argue that animals with derived features should not be considered to be basal at all. However, this is not going to happen as the evolutionists cladograms would become useless.
Dinosaurs are favourite creatures of many people of all ages and are used by the main-stream media to promote the theory of evolution. Every new dinosaur find is reported with great enthusiasm as yet more evidence for evolution.
However, there are many unanswered questions which are never mentioned by the press and which are only known to those working at the forefront of evolutionary research and publishing in the scientific journals. In fact, when reading the published scientific reports on dinosaurs it become obvious that there are many unknowns and even evidence which shows that the case for evolution is far from proven.
For example, the origin of dinosaurs as a group is far from clear. Evolutionists believe that dinosaurs arose during the Triassic era (which we are told was more than 200 million years ago).
The evidence for this are ‘basal’ dinosaurs (which are representative ancestors). However, close reading of the research reveals a few surprises.
One such ‘basal’ dinosaur is Coelophysis bauri found in New Mexico, which is considered to be an ancestral theropod. Over a thousand well-preserved fossilized skeletons of this small Triassic dinosaur were found in a quarry at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. C. bauri and other members of the family to which it belongs is noteworthy because of the numerous complete fossil skeletons (which is unusual for dinosaurs). So we know a lot about these creatures. C. bauri was a relatively small (3 metres long) bipedal and probably agile carnivore. There is nothing primitive about this animal!
The remarkable thing about this dinosaur is that even though it is Triassic and is supposed to be a representative of the animals from which other dinosaurs evolved, it had many ‘derived‘ features which are unexpected for a ‘basal’ dinosaur. For example, it had a wishbone and a kink in its upper jaw (the premaxilla-maxilla articulation is flexible with a deep gap between the teeth in the two bones). The origin of these ‘advanced’ or ‘derived’ features is never explained.
Coelophysis is not the only Triassic dinosaur with unexpected features. Many of them were also bipedal and this would seem to be an advanced feature. It seems reasonable to think that, from an evolutionary point of view, tetrapods would have evolved into bipeds.
Heterodontosaurus found in South African lower Jurassic rocks is another ‘basal’ dinosaur. It too was a small bipedal creature. The really surprising thing is that it has mammal-like teeth and other advanced features which are not consistent with the claim that this was a ‘basal’ ornithischian dinosaur.
The fact that there are ‘derived’ features in “basal” dinosaurs, highlights something which I wrote about earlier in a blog post on the problem with cladistics. Cladistics depends on the analysis of characters which are ‘primitive’ or ‘derived’. The problem is who decides which are primitive or derived? This is perhaps the reason why cladists like to avoid those terms and prefer to call the ‘original’ state of the characteristic plesiomorphic and the ‘changed’ state apomorphic. But this hardly helps when the original state is functionally more complex, as in the examples mentioned here. Another question is; how many derived features can a basal creature have and still be considered to be an ancestor of later animals which can be missing some of the derived features of basal animals?
One could argue that animals with derived features should not be considered to be basal at all. However, this is not going to happen as the evolutionists cladograms would become useless.
