Scientific facts or fossil remains; Archaeopteryx the myth

(Archaeopteryx is regarded as a transitional form or bridge form between reptiles and birds because of its co-existing reptile and bird features. In evolution research, it used to be an important proof of the correctness of the theory of evolution . It seems the birds are the only living direct descendants of the dinosaurs??)

  British scientists have decided that the fossil Archaeopteryx is not, after all, the ‘missing link’ between reptiles and birds but was a fully developed bird. The conclusions (published in the scientific journal Nature and reported in theLondon Times on 5 August) stem from a new examination of the creature’s skull.

Using the latest computer tomography techniques, palaeontologists from the Natural History Museum in London ‘reconstructed’ the part of the skull that held the fossil’s brain, ears and eyes. They found that the size and shape of these organs were very similar to those in modern birds and concluded thatArchaeopteryx possessed all the faculties necessary for flight. It could not therefore be an evolutionary link between birds and their supposed precursors.

As recently as 1982, Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr declared that Archaeopteryxwas ‘the almost perfect [evolutionary] link between reptiles and birds’. Creationists pointed out repeatedly that the resemblance to dinosaurs is superficial and the fully developed flight feathers show the fossil to be that of a bird.

But their protests were ridiculed and for over a century Archaeopteryx has been a key icon of evolutionary theory, used to ‘prove’ evolution in text books and the media.

Although the new work sets back the popular idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs, it is unlikely to dampen enthusiasm for the theory among evolutionists. This theory has gained publicity recently from fossil ‘discoveries’ appearing to show that some dinosaurs had rudimentary feathers. In his book Icons of Evolution (Regnery Publishing Inc., 2000) Jonathan Wells gives several examples...

Click the link below to read the whole article.

archaeopteryx

Interesting response to comment of ignoring scientific facts or fossil remains by Dr. Andrews

...No, we do not ignore scientific facts or fossil remains. The debate is not (usually) about the observations themselves but about the interpretation of the observations. In the cases you mention, for example, you interpret phenotopic similarities as evidence of evolutionary descent but the phenomenon of ‘convergence’ is so ubiquitous that great caution is needed in placing this interpretation on the factual evidence. Facts are one thing, interpretations another, and it is in the latter that world-views play such a strong part.