**Article taken from www.natureofcreation.org

…so states the title of an article in a recent National Geographic magazine in an attempt to persuade us that dinosaurs evolved into birds.  This is one of the “hot” topics in evolution today.

The Nature of the Beast

The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs is not a new theory.  It was first proposed by Thomas Huxley, a friend of Charles Darwin, in 1868, when he noticed that there were certain similarities between the bones of chickens and certain dinosaur fossils. 
 

His idea held until a book was published in 1926 that claimed that both birds and dinosaurs came from a reptile much earlier in time.  In 1977, Huxley’s idea was reintroduced and has been given a “shot in the arm” with the discovery of certain interesting fossils in China, some of which are being hailed as the “discoveries of the century”.  This is evolution’s hot news.

Fierce debating has erupted between the two camps.  On the one side are those who study fossils, the paleontologists (who agree with Huxley), and in the other camp are the ornithologists, the bird experts.  Both are attempting to figure out how we got birds from a reptile in the primordial past. After all, look at their chart.  What’s the next thing in line after the reptile? …the bird!   

The battle is akin to that of arguing whether Santa Claus comes down through the chimney or out through the faucet.  Both sides in such an argument are forgetting that neither is possible, and that Santa doesn’t exist.

Darwinian evolution, which claims that one kind of creature can change to another kind (through huge amounts of time and huge amounts of “positive accident”) also doesn’t exist.  According to the Bible, the exact opposite happened.  God made birds first, on Day #5 of the creation, then land-based creatures, including dinosaurs, on Day #6.

What is a bird, anyway?

The answer to this would depend on who you ask.  We tend to think of a bird as having a beak, hollow bones, a wishbone, feathers, specialized lungs, etc.  However, the important answer comes from the Bible.  The “fowl” that God made on day #5 is defined simply as a creature that has a covering of feathers...that’s all!  Therefore, arguments over why there are several similarities between certain dinosaurs and birds can be simply explained as having a common designer who decided to put similar “parts” in different creatures.

Can a Dinosaur Evolve into a Bird?

In order for any organism to turn into another kind of organism, there would need to be many, many positive, information-adding changes made on the DNA code of the creature doing the changing.  Each part (indeed, each function of each part) of a living organism is determined by genetic information on the DNA molecule.  In nature, mistakes in the copying of genetic information during cell division are called mutations, which normally have a negative effect on the organism.  Mutations never produce more order in an organism.  That is, mutations do not, and cannot, add information that is not already there.  That is called “macroevolution”, or Darwinian evolution, and has never been observed.

 “Microevolution”, on the other hand, is quite well understood as the cause behind minor genetic changes within a kind.  This is what gives us all the varieties of dog “kind” we have in the world.  It acts upon information that is already there.  Therefore, it is possible for a reptile to change slightly as natural selection acts on its genetic code, but it always stays a reptile.  It is impossible for nature to add more information to make all the many, complicated but necessary changes to turn it into a bird.  These creatures are different “kinds” of animals with very unique parts.  One cannot possibly turn into the other.

Are Birds Highly Evolved Dinosaurs?
(A Look at an Evolutionary Chart)

On the face of it, this would seem like an absolutely foolish question to ask.  But, believe it or not, this is a major evolutionary theory that has had new life breathed into it recently because of new fossil discoveries in China.  Perhaps you’ve heard all the hype.  Based on these fossils... (Click here to continue reading)