Aerosteon -- dinosaur with bird lungs (Full Version)

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Raptorman -> Aerosteon -- dinosaur with bird lungs (10/4/2008 2:47:55 PM)

Well, it seems that the era of dinosaurs being seen as "overgrown lizards" is coming to an end, and not a moment too soon. In the accelerating highway of scientific inquiry and exploration, we are gaining a more accurate picture of dinosaurs as composites or mosaics between reptiles, birds and mammals.

One of the more interesting recent discoveries is that of Aerosteon, a 30-foot predatory dinosaur now known to have possessed a respiratory system which was only thought to exist beforehand in birds. (For the record, I still am Young-Earth, but if birds and dinos did in fact share certain attributes, they need to be admitted) Traces and indications of this avian breathing system have been found in fossils of other carnivorous dinosaur species, and the sauropods (the long-necked giants, like Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus). The news is reported here:

physorg.com/news141924662.html

I must admit, it is quite fascinating (and challenging to my own views, to be honest) to see so many traits being shared among dinosaurs and birds. There was also another discovery a while back, where some of the soft tissue from a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton turned out to be medullary tissue, which was before thought to occur only in female birds. Medullary tissue forms inside the bones when the bird is ovulating, and provides calcium for the eggshells. So we discovered that this T-rex specimen was a female, who died during ovulation.

I think creationists need to update their views about dinosaurs, which I already mentioned in the Microraptor thread, from a while back. To argue against bird evolution, they keep pointing to differences between modern reptiles and birds, and assume that dinosaurs had those distinctively reptilian traits. But now it is clear that few, if any, of the listed characteristics could be used to describe the dinosaurs (different breathing systems, different metabolisms, different skeletal builds, etc.). A lot of creationist artwork even shows dinos still dragging their tails on the ground, when anatomical data compiled 20-30 years ago proves that they held their tails aloft in a horizontal position. And so, I must honestly ask my own "tribe," When are we going to grow up? When will we realize that God created the dinosaurs to be fast, agile, resilient, sometimes even birdlike wonders of the animal kingdom?

Thanks for your time, everyone.



GHitch -> RE: Aerosteon -- dinosaur with bird lungs (10/5/2008 12:57:43 PM)

You really should not swallow such news so quickly.
see here
and here
Speculation and story telling have been the fine art of evolutionists since day one.
Notice the following :

  • -the original piece isn't nearly as dogmatic as the physorg version and contains a ton of evolutionary assumption-based hypothesizing.
  • -the obligatory Darwinian explanations
  • -National Geographic's presence - NG is one of the most Darwinian fanatical, evo fraud-laden mags in the world.
  • -the imaginary feathers they just had to speculate on
  • -the phrase 'criticized for lack of empirical evidence'
  • -“The fossil evidence for intrathoracic air sacs now closely overlaps that for feathers, which had evolved in coelurosaurian theropods most likely for heat retention.” Say what? Evolution had a goal!?! There was guidance and purpose!?


Darwinists universally claim to be non-biased empiricists - hardly.

Why don't you take a good hard look at the duck-billed platypus and tell us why it is an evolutionary stage between birds and mammals?

Dinos to birds evo is as much a fairy tale as frogs to princes.



GHitch -> RE: Aerosteon -- dinosaur with bird lungs (10/5/2008 1:20:23 PM)

Now for your personal interest check this
and
this
Hoax? Or did dinos really live with men?



Raptorman -> RE: Aerosteon -- dinosaur with bird lungs (10/5/2008 6:23:32 PM)

The lung structure of Aerosteon was discovered by accident, years after they were discovered. National Geographic has been known to jump the gun and publish sensationalistic articles about "important" fossils before they are examined/described in professional journals. Archaeoraptor is the most prominent example in recent memory. This claim about Aerosteon's lungs was not made because evolutionists were "desperate" to find another correlation between dinosaurs and birds. The claim is made because the animal's bones have a feature which matches part of a bird's breathing system.

By the way, GHitch, my point was not that birds and dinosaurs are related. I have already said that I am a creationist. But hopefully one can be mature enough to swallow the meat and spit out the bones, in this case sifting good data out of articles or papers which are written from an evolutionary perspective. And regarding Aerosteon, it is the simple fact that so far, the fossil evidence points to it having a bird-like respiratory system. But if someone can come up with an alternate explanation for the features in Aerosteon's bones which better explains the facts, I will admit that I was mistaken. Just because I point to the article to back up my point, that doesn't mean I must agree with the author's worldview!

The point I'm making in this thread is that dinosaurs are surprising us as we become more adept at gathering data about them from the fossil record. And creationists need to update their views and teachings about dinosaurs if they are to maintain credibility. With creatures like Microraptor or Aerosteon, the problem is not that feathers or avian breathing systems don't "belong" on dinosaurs. The problem is that we still know so little about God's majestic creation that we have only just discovered that feathers and those lungs are present in at least two groups of the animals He created, instead of being "bird" traits only.

And as a side note, the "Angkor Stegosaurus" is intriguing, but skeptics have brought up some valid points about that interpretation (stylized artwork, the "plates" could be leaves, no spikes on the tail, head is too large, its body is in the wrong pose, etc.). I'm not saying it isn't a dinosaur. Let's just proceed with caution.



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