According to young earth extremists, birds are not descendants of dinosaurs, nor are birds considered dinosaurs either because to them, birds will always be birds and dinosaurs will always be dinosaurs. In other words, they believe that both these organisms are literal cloning factories, making carbon copies of each other. They believe there are no evidence for birds descending from dinosaurs and vice versa. When told that there are evidence for dino-bird ancestry and shown proofs of it, they will counter it with the showing of the Archaoraptor hoax, which, to them, concludes that since Archaeoraptor fossil is fake, then all other feathered fossils of dinosaurs are fake, too as demonstrated by dino-bird critics like Alan Feduccia and John Ruben, who made up claims of frayed skin found on top of the Sinosauropteryx fossil that resembles the frill like an iguana lizard (Flat out false as confirmed here) and of dinosaurs having cold-blooded type lungs like a reptile (That's false, too). This is made up in attempt to convince the lay people of their dino-bird objections to be true.
Despite the creationists' assertions, the evidence for dinosaurs evolving into birds is entirely valid— and growing! Much about dinosaurs is uncovered to provide evidence to support the concept of birds being direct descendants of maniraptorian dinosaurs such as Velociraptor for instance. Scientists over the years have come to know the characteristics of dinosaurs that resembled birds in a lot of ways, including, in some cases, saurischian hips that looked more like ornithschian hips than Saurischian hips, bones that are hollow, beaks, legs and feet that resembled birds, and now it is known that so many dinosaurs do have feathers.
Since the mid-1990s', scientists unearthed many traces of dinosaurs with feathered imprints on them in the Yixian Formation that dates to about 121 million years ago in China, including Sinosauropteryx, Microraptor, Sinornithosaurus, and Beipiaosaurus to name a few. Alan Feduccia and other dino-bird critics, who are evolutionists, are among the minority who have objected to the dino-bird claims. Yet, neither of their claims has ever met up with scrutiny, nor do they have any merit or truth in them. When they have demonstrated the claim of frilled skin on Sinosauropteryx, they neglect the part about the fossil have so-called skinned fibers all over their bodies, legs, and feet. Thus, refuting the notion of the Compsognathus relative having lizard like skin, frill on its neck, back, and tail.
Archaeoraptor - not-so phony feathered fossil
Creationists like to take advantage of the mistakes scientists made and used those mistakes, including fake fossils, against them (and yet they whine and gripe like spoiled children when scientists turn the tables on them and expose their own mistakes!). Case in point: The Archaeoraptor fossil. Ironically it's a fake fossil made out of bits and pieces of real, authentic fossil remains of 2 separate dinosaurs, Yanornis Martini, a dinosaur similar to the modern loon and Microraptor zhaoianus, a dromaeosaur with 4 wings, 2 on the arms, 2 on the legs. This dinosaur is known to glide like a bi-plane. Jonathan Sarfati, one of Ham's former cronies, created a article entitled, Archaeoraptor - Phony ‘feathered' fossil (NOT REALLY!) where he fabricates about what really happened and how scientists were able to expose the forgery.
In the article, Sarfati declares,
"The latest ‘feathered dinosaur' claim provokes even some evolutionists to use words like ‘total hoax.'"
Not really, Sarfati! He begins his article by saying that evolutionists, coming from bird-dino critics such as Alan Feduccia and Storrs Olson, heavily criticizing, or more likely scoffing, the scientists who wrote the so-called "shameless sensationalism (as Sarfati falsely puts it)" article known as Feathers for T. Rex?, an article written for the 1999 edition of National Geographic. The article was in fact written by an art editor named Christopher P Sloan, not an actual scientist. Something Sarfati never tells to his gullible followers about.
The article is about an announcement of the discovery of Archaeoraptor, a forgery that was actually unearthed and put together by a Chinese farmer who sold it to an unsuspecting paleo-artist named Stephen Czerkas, who bought the fossil after it was smuggled from China and sold for $80,000 in a Black Market in Tuscon, Arizona. Czerkas decided to promote the fossil despite being warned by Paleontologists Phil Currie and Tim Rowe not to. He should've listened. But instead he pushed his way into having the article published in National Geographic Magazine. It created a sensation that didn't last.
What Sarfati hides from his gullible followers, before mentioning this in his 2nd supplementary article, is that the fossil was never published in peer review journals and it was an evolutionist by the name of Xu Xing, a Chinese paleontologist, who expose this half fraud, half real forgery, leading Czerkas to apologize to everyone for his "idiot, bone-stupid mistake" he made that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Sarfati, who deliberately misrepresent the dino-bird critics and take advantage of their objections, makes it as if they are world renown, but they are not. These scientists are among the minority who believes that birds evolved from a reptilian ancestor outside of dinosaurs. These men only drew their conclusions on only photographs and x-rays, not the actual fossils. Chances are, these scientists are only scoffing at the scientists who are raving at the spectacular find in China of feathered dinosaur fossil dug up from the Liaoning Province in China.
Also in the article, Sarfati stated that Paleontologist Xu Xing claims that the fossil is not genuine and gives out an out-of-context quote made by him that came from a article from CNN website that's no longer available on the website.
Although Sarfati tells, what he probably made up from his head, about a Chinese farmer who put a faked tail on a pterosaur fossil and fooled scientists with it, Sarfati never bothered to tell his gullible followers that China has a major problem with illegal fossil smuggling operations where forgeries are often made and sold in black markets for huge money by Chinese peasants who is desperate in getting out of poverty.
Ever since the Archaeoraptor incident, scientists became extra careful when examining the fossils, making sure that even the fossils of feathered dinosaurs are real, not fakes, so they won't ever make the same mistake again. Nowadays, scientists don't talk about the Archaeoraptor, piltdown man, and other forgeries anymore. In fact, they don't even want to use the name Archaeoraptor any more, due to the National Geographic incident and the false sense of hype over the fossil it created. Creationists like Sarfati, however, likes to keep it up and use those mistakes against the scientists over and over again in order to cast doubt into the minds of unsuspecting people and make them listen to their stupid lies.
Next, Sarfati shows off more examples of hoaxes in an effort to prove to the reader that science can't be trusted (no more than creationism) by giving out examples of other hoaxes including the piltdown and the 'nutcracker' man while smearing scientists and supporters of evolution for in Sarfati's words,
"…trying to downplay the Archaeoraptor fiasco, by pointing out that it was ‘science' that put it right."
It's true. Science did put it right thanks to Xu Xing the 'evolutionist' who expose the forgery. Sarfati is making it as if creationists are the ones responsible for exposing the hoax, while they're not. This whole article is an example of creationists trying to steal the spotlight from under the noses of scientists who exposed the forgery to the world. Then Sarfati lies to the reader by claiming hypocritically that they 'deceitfully' equate evolution with science, and yet turns around and deceitfully equate creation with science himself and claims,
"…although evolutionary wishful thinking was responsible for the hoax in the first place!"
which is a blatant lie. As mentioned before, it was really a Chinese peasant who's responsible for forging the fossil and selling it in a black market for the purpose of selling it to only gullible fossil collectors, not to scientists.
"And now they tell us that NG is a popular general interest magazine and not a peer-reviewed scientific journal - not a peep from them while NG's shameless evolutionary sensationalizing remained unexposed!"
National Geographic is exactly what it is, a popular general interest magazine and not a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Sarfati is making it as if it is a scientific journal while it's not. The ones that are truly peer review journals are Science and Nature. National Geographic is not.
Later, Sarfati updates his article by putting another article inside the page entitled Archaeoraptor hoax update: National Geographic recants! (Mirrored here.) in which he claims that the magazine 'recants' the report they made about the so-called "phony feathered fossil" and fabricates the story of how the scientists saw through the hoax and mentions the problems China has with the illegal fossil smuggling, while creating a false impression that if the fossil made from a Chinese farmer is fake, then all feathered fossils are fake, while nothing can be further from the truth.
In the article, Sarfati mentions Larry Martin, another dino-bird critic creationists misrepresents from time to time, who claims he won't believe it until he sees an x-ray of the fossil and when he did see the fossil x-ray, he says,
"The farmers do not believe this is wrong, they look at it as restoring an art object to make it more marketable. The whole commercial market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery."
Martin's obviously aware that the Chinese farmers do this because they're poor and they had to have money to support themselves and their families. Still that's no excuse for anyone to poach, forge, and smuggle fossils out of the country. It greatly hurts science and paleontology when someone takes the fossil, screws around with it and sells it at a black market for profit. Chances are when this happens the fossil would be bought and taken to a private collection where it could be mishandled, damaged, or destroyed. When it happens, such data that would have information that tell us more about the ancient past would be lost. So it is a must to preserve and protect the fossils from any type of mismanagement.
Then, Sarfati lies to the reader while concluding the article by saying,
"Archaeoraptor and other Chinese fossils, such as Sinosauropteryx, have been used as ‘proof' of evolution and thus ‘disproof' of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. We must remember that God's Word never changes and must therefore be the basis for all our thinking rather than the ever-changing findings of men."
No fossil disproves the Word of God and he knows it. No fossil discredits the Word of God, either. What it does discredit is young earth creation told by its advocates who deceitfully make it as if young earth creationism and the Word of God are one and the same while they're not. The only thing the fossils does disprove is the young earth creationists' direct distortions of the Word of God. Like everything else, God's word is always changing over time. Look how the Bible has changed over the years when much better translations has been made with much better accurate understanding of what the Bible is really saying. The Bible has everything in it that has zero to do with Young earthism Plus, there's no bases of thinking in creationism. Just ignorance and lies.
Next, Sarfati made up another supplement to the article entitled, Another "Missing Link" takes flight (Mirrored here.), where he fabricates the story more (While never mentioning the fact that the actual author of the article is not a scientist, but an art editor.) and claims haughtily in the end that Answers in Genesis knew it wasn't a missing link before it was exposed because they claim to have an [sic] eyewitness account (a false one) that says birds did not evolved from everything else. The truth is thye don't. They're only fringing it to hide the fact that they never really knew it wasn't a missing link until after scientists exposed the fraud. If this isn't an remark of arrogant hubris creationists have made, then I don't know what it is.
Always in denial of all the rest of the feathered dinosaur fossils that have been shown to be real and valid, Sarfati blatantly claims that they were birds when God created them and they are still birds. In other words, they are clones. In reality, Birds are always still dinosaurs along with avis, vertebrata, chordata, and especially animalia. Finding valid missing links, such as the ones as shown on the talkorigins page, is in no way as Sarfati puts it, "…an exercise in evolutionary futility" but an exercise in young earth futility, instead.
Then, back to the original article, Sarfati asks this question, "What should we think about ‘feathered dino' claims? (Answer: Think of them as authentic because that's what they really are) Here, Sarfati encourages the read to only trust in the Bible, which is worthless to do because it speaks nothing of what creationists claim it speaks of, to which he claims never makes mistakes (and yet, makes it anyway one sees the scientific evidence pointing exactly to the opposite, therefore making the Bible worthless in explaining dinosaurs, the fossil record and everything else of science) when it say that birds were created on the fifth day of Creation and never believe everything you hear in the media because, to him, they are against God and is bias towards evolution. In other words, be just as blind, arrogant, stingy, ignorant, and bull-headed as Sarfati himself who lacks integrity and goes around and blasphemes God and his Holy word by rendering them into a lying, dishonest deity who wrote one big book of distortions cloaked as "truth".
Rather don't we all believe everything we hear in Answers in Genesis, Institute of Creation Research, Creation Evidence Museum, s8int.com, Genesis Park, and other creation organizations and websites because they all are making God into a liar and blaspheming Him and His Word by saying God did this according to His Word while the scientific evidence clearly says He didn't.
It is really the creationists, including Sarfati, who are absolutely everything Sarfati accuses evolutionists of— all for the love of money! They abuse and blaspheme the Bible, God, and Christianity, and make people turn away from God and follow the ways of the world once they found out they've been lied to by the likes of Ham, Chick, Hovind, and Sarfati, who claims that evolution is to be blamed for all of the world's evils while being in denial of their own teachings doing just that.
He claims he and other creationists like him are not surprised that,
"…they splash supposedly pro-evolution ‘evidence' on the front pages, but when this ‘evidence' is refuted, even by other evolutionists, this is either buried in an obscure place, or not reported at all."
The very same way creationists splash "evidence" on the front pages themselves. When this ‘evidence' is refuted, even by other creationists, it is either buried in an obscure place, or not reported at all— a strong example of creationists being bold-faced lying hypocrites, doing, saying, and being everything they accuse evolutionists of themselves.
Sarfati doesn't want his gullible followers to hear the truth about science being self-correcting unlike creationism that buries mistakes in obscure places and repeat them over and over again. As mentioned before, science corrects themselves when the mistakes is exposed. Once the mistakes are corrected, scientists take great care to make sure that the mistakes not get repeated again.
He tries to prove his point by giving out examples of so-called 'alleged hoaxes' that are not, involving a Martian meteor found in Antarctica with fossil life forms coming from Mars and Pakicetus, an early Eocene mammal that are among the missing links between land mammals and whales, in which Sarfati claims are being used to "indoctrinate" teachers. One must wonder how teachers and students are being indoctrinated while it is really the creationists doing all the indoctrinating themselves (i.e. constantly repeating lie after lie and bold untruthful statement after bold untruthful statement over and over again non-stop, flashing distorted images and sounds shown repeatedly, messing people's minds with emotional-charged cheerleading, music, sob stories, etc.), something never seen and done in public schools and college classrooms all over the world.
Then Sarfati contradicts himself by saying there is nothing in (sic) creationist theory forbidding dinosaurs from have feathers. Yet, he's sure contradicting himself by making it as if it does forbid such a concept. A direct example of creationists like Sarfati living in denial of transitional forms, including those between dinosaurs and birds such as Eoaluavis, Confuciusornis, and Protachaeopteryx as well as in denial of feather evolution. Sarfati here is displaying his ignorance of feathered evolution by claiming,
"And even if they existed, it would not prove they evolved from scales - feathers are completely different from scales in just about every respect."
Feathers evolve from scutes. They are in fact modified versions of scutes that had evolved to do many purposes for the bird, whether its for insulation, making displays, or even assist in flight.
And finally Sarfati quotes Feduccia, the dino-bird critic creationists like Sarfati likes to takes advantage of, who scoffs at scientists and ignorantly claims, "All in all, I find the whole dino-bird business a total hoax." which I find a total blatant lie.
Only one fossil, which is the Archaoraptor fossil, have been shown to be a hoax while all of the rest of the feathered dinosaur fossils have been shown to be real and authentic, including the ones that made up the hoax, ironically.
National Geographic did apologize to the readers in an article from the October, 2000 issue entitled, Archaeoraptor fossil trail, where they said they were sorry about the article they put in the issue about the Archaeoraptor and were quite honest in admitting their mistakes. Creationists like Sarfati, on the other hand, would dishonestly like to make it as if their opponents, the "evolutionists", are dishonest and untrustworthy in everything, while it is really the creationists themselves who are dishonest and untrustworthy themselves in everything they say, including the fossil hoaxes they took, fabricate, and used against the "evolutionists" while unapologetically hide the truth about their own hoaxes they parade in front of the public, such as the Taylor site, the Burdick Print, the Ica stones, the meister print, and the Coso artifact. And that's a shame….on them at least.
