Feduccia and Martin reject the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs, with good reason. But they are unwilling to abandon evolution, so instead they believe that birds evolved from reptiles called
crocodilomorphs. They propose these small, crocodile-like reptiles lived in trees, and ‘initially leapt, then glided from perch to perch.’18
But a gliding stage is
not intermediate between a land animal and a flier. Gliders either have even longer wings than fliers (compare a glider's wingspan with an airplane's, or the wingspan of birds like the albatross which spend much time gliding), or have a wide membrane which is quite different from a wing (note the shape of a hang-glider or a flying squirrel). Flapping flight also requires highly controlled muscle movements to achieve flight, which in turn requires that the brain has the program for these movements. Ultimately, this requires new genetic information that a non-flying creature lacks.
Another problem is:
Neither their hypothetical ancestor nor transitional forms linking it to known fossil birds have been found. And although they rightly argue that cladistic analyses [comparisons of shared characteristics] are only as good as the data upon which they are based, no cladistic study has yet suggested a non-theropod ancestor.19
In short, Feduccia and Martin provide devastating criticism against the idea that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the
cursorial theory). But the dino-to-bird advocates counter with equally powerful arguments against Feduccia and Martin's ‘trees-down’ (
arboreal) theory. The evidence indicates that the critics are both right—birds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-crocodiles. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all! This is consistent with the biblical account that distinct kinds of birds were created on Day 5 (
Gen. 1:20–23).
The differences between reptiles and birds
All evolutionists believe that birds evolved from some sort of reptile, even if they can't agree on the kind. However, reptiles and birds are very different in many ways. Flying birds have streamlined bodies, with the weight centralized for balance in flight; hollow bones for lightness which are also part of their breathing system; powerful muscles for flight, with specially designed long tendons that run over pulley-like openings in the shoulder bones; and very sharp vision. And birds have two of the most brilliantly designed structures in nature—their feathers and special lungs.
Feathers
Feduccia says ‘Feathers are a near-perfect adaptation for flight’ because they are lightweight, strong, aerodynamically shaped, and have an intricate structure of barbs and hooks. This structure makes them waterproof, and a quick preen with the bill will cause flattened feathers to snap into fully aerodynamic shape again.20
xamine the amazing close-up (left) of the barbules of a feather showing the tiny hooklets and grooves (magnified 200 times).21 The atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins, in a book highly recommended by
Teaching about Evolution, glibly states: ‘
Feathers are modified reptilian scales,’22 a widely held view among evolutionists. But scales are folds in skin; feathers are complex structures with a barb, barbules, and hooks. They also originate in a totally different way, from follicles inside the skin in a manner akin to hair.
In
chapter 2 we showed that every structure or organ must be represented by
information at the genetic level, written in a chemical alphabet on the long molecule DNA. Clearly, the information required to code for the construction of a feather is of a substantially different order from that required for a scale. For scales to have evolved into feathers means that a significant amount of genetic information had to arise in the bird's DNA which was not present in that of its alleged reptile ancestor.
As usual, natural selection would not favor the hypothetical intermediate forms. Many evolutionists claim that dinosaurs developed feathers for insulation and later evolved and refined them for flight purposes. But like all such ‘just-so’ stories, this fails to explain
how the new genetic information arose so it could be selected for.
Another problem is that selection for heat insulation is
quite different from selection for flight. On birds that have lost the ability to fly, the feathers have also lost much of their structure and become hair-like. On flightless birds, mutations degenerating the aerodynamic feather structure would not be as much a handicap as they would be on a flying bird. Therefore, natural selection would not eliminate them, and might even select
for such degeneration. As usual, loss of flight and feather structure are
losses of information, so are irrelevant to evolution, which requires an
increase of information. All that matters is that the feathers provide insulation, and hair-like structures are fine—they work for mammals.23 That is, natural selection would work against the development of a
flight feather if the feathers were needed for insulation. And hairy feathers are adequate.
Downy feathers are also good insulators and are common on flightless birds. Their fluffiness is because they
lack the hooks of flight feathers. Again, natural selection would work to
prevent evolution of aerodynamic feathers from heat insulators.
Finally, feather proteins (Φ-keratins) are biochemically different from skin and scale proteins (α-keratins), as well. One researcher concluded: At the morphological level feathers are traditionally considered homologous with reptilian scales. However, in development, morphogenesis [shape/form generation], gene structure, protein shape and sequence, and filament formation and structure, feathers are different.24