No...There Are No Dinosaurs In Your Backyard

"Well, maybe dinosaurs have more in common with present-day birds that they do with reptiles - Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

"Claiming that birds are dinosaurs is no more radical than saying that humans are mammals." - David Fastovsky, The Evolution and Extinction of Dinosaurs

This Makes No Sense

Anyone who knows me at all also knows that I've always been interested in Dinosaurs. I've tried to keep up on the most recent discoveries, the latest classifications, and specifically - how the current view of dinosaurs is distorted by the baseless theory of evolution. For creatures that were incredibly large and strong in life, in death dinosaurs have been defenseless against the ridiculous and misinformed theories about them.

First, we were told that they may have evolved into birds. This seemed like a revolutionary idea...and it appealed to a lot of the newer paleontologists at the time.

Then, when that idea took hold, we began to be taught that there was no longer any doubt that they evolved into birds. The idea became "common knowledge". Some scientist even began to speculate that there could've been some dinosaurs that had feathers.

Finally, we somehow ended up where we are now - in a position where every one of these statements are supposedly scientific:
 - Many carnivorous dinosaurs - including T-Rex and Velociraptor - most definitely had feathers.
 - In fact, we now know that birds are actually dinosaurs.
 - What were once just called "dinosaurs" are now called "non-avian dinosaurs"
 - Because birds are actually dinosaurs, they can actually classified together with "other" reptiles like lizards, snakes, and crocodiles.
 - In fact, the closest living relatives to birds are now taught to be alligators and crocodiles!

Tell me, how does any of this make sense? How can anyone look at the light-weight, hyperactive, hot-blooded birds and seriously classify them together with turtles and snakes? You couldn't find two groups that are more different than these if you were trying to!

Feathers? Really?

This is by far my biggest pet peeve about modern-day paleontology. There is simply no evidence for feathered dinosaurs...at least not without filtering it through the story of dino-to-bird evolution first. But today you cannot pick up a dinosaur book or watch a documentary without at least one feathered dinosaur showing up!

(Disclaimer: I'm writing this post out of frustration after watching the latest Jurassic World prologue video that was just released, displaying three separate dinosaurs with feathers...including the T-rex itself!) 

With so many examples pictured in modern media now, you'd think the evidence would have to be pretty strong for feathered dinosaurs, right? So what evidence is there for this? Why are paleontologists so confident about it? 

First - they have their story.

Make no mistake about it; this is the number one reason we're being told that some dinosaurs had feathers. "Dinosaurs evolved into birds. Birds are basically dinosaurs. Therefore, some dinosaurs must have had feathers."

Second - there have been many true birds that have been misidentified as dinosaurs.

Caudipteryx, Protarchaeopteryx, and Microraptor are all called "dinosaurs", but are undoubtedly birds. Everything that we see in their fossils clearly indicate that they're birds - unique in their own way, but birds just the same.

Microraptor - Now undoubtedly considered a unique bird.

(We'll see in a minute what makes birds special, and what features are unique to them.)

By calling these fossils "dinosaurs" when they're clearly not, evolutionists have been able to blur the line between the two groups, and cause confusion about what makes them different.

Third - some TRUE dinosaurs have been described as feathered, when they were actually not.

Because they're so eager to find feathers on dinosaurs, many evolutionists have mistakenly misread the fossils that they've studied. 

Velociraptor - as it would've appeared.

Recently, six bumps were found on the forearm of a Velociraptor skeleton. These bumps could've been anything; they may not have even been there while the creature was still alive. The fact is, there isn't any conclusive evidence of what they were or how they got there. But because of the dino-to-bird theory, researchers declared these bumps to be "quill knobs" that held a row of feathers. After this, nearly every illustration of Velociraptor has been shown with wings like a bird.

Bumps on Velociraptor forearm - oddly called "quill knobs"

Velocirapter - as it's pictured now

Another example of misinterpreted fossils are what dinosaur researchers have called "protofeathers". Some dinosaur fossils have been found what looks like a thin coat of "fuzz" covering them. Many scientists - sure that dinosaurs are related to birds - call this fuzz "protofeathers" and claim that it was like peach fuzz halfway to becoming feathers. 

The problem is, there are several other explanations for that fuzz, including fibers in the skin that frayed out as the dead animal decayed. (We've seen this same kind of fraying out on sea snake scales as they decay.)

Dinosaur fossil with so-called "proto-feather" fuzz

An ornithologist (bird expert) named Alan Feduccia had this to say about so-called proto-feathers:
"On the contrary, there is a considerable body of evidence that these fossil traces, known as 'dino-fuzz', have nothing to do with bird feathers...I, and many others, do not find any credible evidence that those structures represent protofeathers."

It's simple, grade-school science: Reptiles have scales and scutes, birds have feathers. There is no crossover between the two; this is a universal fact. In spite of the overwhelming lack of evidence, modern paleontology insists on turning these animals into giant turkeys.

Overwhelming Differences 

The differences between dinosaurs and birds go way beyond what covers their skin. The closer you look and the deeper you study them, the more different they become. Just look at all the things that separate these two groups of animals!

Bones

While it's true that many dinosaurs had hollow pockets in their bones to save weight, birds go way beyond that. Bird bones are nearly completely hollow, but surprisingly strong. They're actually brilliantly engineered to be strong and light - reinforced by a sophisticated system of cross-struts.

Beautifully designed reinforcement struts inside a bird bone.
These structures provide added strength, while remaining lightweight.

But bird bones aren't just hollow, they're actually pneumatic. Believe it or not, there is air that flows through bird skeletons, actually helping them with their respiration. No other group of animals in the world have skeletons like this!

Question: How do you gradually start including airflow through an animal's skeleton in its breathing?

Lungs

Speaking of respiration, bird lungs are also very special and unique.

Reptiles have lungs that extract oxygen when they inhale. But birds need to extract more oxygen, since their flight muscles and high metabolism spend much more energy than other animals. Because of this, their lungs are much more complicated than other animals.

Bird lungs are a complicated series of air sacs (including, like we said before, some air flow through their bones) that constantly extract oxygen. Oxygen extraction occurs both when they inhale and when they exhale. With this setup, birds extract four times as much oxygen from the air as other animals.

Simplified diagram of bird lungs, illustrating the
various air sacs involved in its breathing

Question: what natural process can gradually turn a simple, bellows-type reptile lung into the complicated, multi-factor respiratory system of birds?

Hips and Legs

When you look at a dinosaur hip and legs, you see something completely different than what you find in a bird. You could never confuse the two, if you know what you're looking for.

Theropod dinosaurs (like the Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus) have a heavy hip, stretching down into a powerfully muscled thigh. These dinosaur's legs move freely, using a heavy tail to balance their weight at the hip. 

Theropod hip - Notice the the free movement of the entire leg

Birds walk in a way that is completely different - not just from dinosaurs, but also from any other creature we've ever seen. When you look at a live bird, you cannot see their leg above the thigh. Everything above their knee is actually fixed inside their body. Birds use their thigh bones as additional anchoring inside their body for flight muscles. This means that they walk by moving their legs from the knees down. (What looks like a knee outside their body is actually their ankle joint, explaining why it bends forward.)

 

Bird Skeleton - Notice the upper leg is completely fixed inside the body
and hind limbs only move from the knee.

Because this unique bone arrangement moves their center of balance forward, birds do not need a long heavy tail like theropod dinosaurs. It's true that some extinct birds did have a longer tail than what we see in birds today...but these were nothing like the massive tails that we see dinosaurs using to balance. Long-tailed birds simply had a light, rod-like tail that functioned as a base for their tail feathers.

Question: What would be a halfway point from an external thigh balanced at the hip, to an internal thigh (attached to flight and abdominal muscles) and a leg that basically starts at the knee?

Hands 

Most creatures start their embryonic development with the same five digits (commonly called "fingers") on their hands. Over time, these digits are developed and/or reabsorbed to produce the various hands of various creatures. Everything from the wings of pterodactyls, to the hooves of deer and horses, to the flippers of whales...they all start with the same five fingers.

It's well known that most theropods had three fingers on each hand (reduced down to two in Tyrannosaurs). During development, the outside finger (aka, the "pinky") is reabsorbed, as is the the inside finger (the "thumb"). In Tyrannosaurs, the "index" finger is also missing, leaving only the "middle" and "ring" fingers. On a three-fingered dinosaur, like a velociraptor, the inside finger on each hand is what we would call the "index" finger.

This development is completely different with birds. Instead of a missing pinky fingers (like in dinosaurs), birds actually have one that is very elongated. The entire wing is stretched over the arm, hand and pinky finger, with the finger making up a good portion of the wing's length. Most modern birds do not have any of the other four fingers on the outside of their wing. But there were many extinct birds (as well as one species that is still alive) had clawed ring and middle fingers on their wings. 

Bone structure of bird wing, showing the pinky finger
and ring finger inside the wing

Question: How do you turn a dinosaur hand (that has an index finger, but is missing a pinky) into a bird wing (containing a large a pinky, but never having an index finger at any time)?

No Compromise

Listen to me: Dinosaurs were not bird-like; and birds are not dinosaurs. These reptiles were amazing enough in reality. There's simply no good scientific reason to turn them into some kind of feathery, squawking monstrosities.

Here's the truth of these creatures:
God made them on Day 6, along with all other land creatures (ironically, this was after He created birds on Day 5).
They were originally created "very good" like all other creatures - but then were corrupted when Adam sinned.
Like all other creatures, they had roles to play in the violent and corrupt pre-flood world.
Representatives of each kind of dinosaur went inside the ark with Noah, while all others were drowned and buried outside. (These are the specimens that we dig up and study today.)
Later, after the flood, these amazing animals went extinct, like so many other creatures over the course of history.

Sadly, like so much of this fallen world, dinosaurs fell victim to the curse of sin and death. No doubt some were not able to adapt and survive the post-flood world. Others were not able to repopulate fast enough and were out-competed by other creatures. And there were also some that were simply hunted to extinction; either by predators, or by humans themselves. 

But there is good news though; I'm convinced they will be included in the New Creation - when God restores all of creation back to the way He intended it to be at the beginning!