1. pharyngula
  2. An entirely predictable outcome

An entirely predictable outcome

By pharyngula on July 30, 2011.

We all knew this was coming. Xiaotingia, the newly described feathered dinosaur, suggests a reevaluation of the taxonomic status of Archaeopteryx, so the creationists are stumbling all over each other to crow about the failure of science…which doesn't make any sense, since reconsidering hypotheses in the light of new evidence is exactly what science is supposed to do.

David Menton and Ken Ham appear in WhirledNutDaily to say that 1) it's all a lie anyway, so this evidence can't teach us anything new, and 2) forget Archaeopteryx! It's just another dinosaur!

Uncommon Descent, the intelligent design creationist blog, has a couple of posts on Xiaotingia. One claims that a big hole has just been blown in an icon of evolution, but that the "tenured Darwin bores" are all flapping their hands and telling everyone to ignore the damage. Another claims that evolutionary biology was looking for a simple linear trajectory in avian evolution, and now it's shown to be a complex mess, therefore…what? Because creationists have a misconception about what was expected, evolution is wrong?

Ho hum. Science will keep on strengthening our understanding of the past with new evidence avidly sought, creationists will just keep on clamping their eyes even more tightly shut.

Tags
creationism

More like this

Vox Day and the status of Xiaotingia
I told you all the batty creationists were crawling out of the woodwork to crow over Xiaotingia's redefinition of Archaeopteryx's status as a victory for their ideology, when it really isn't. Now another has joined the fray: Vox Day, creationist and right-wing lunatic. He makes a lot of crazy,…
Francis Collins on ID and Evolution
One of the mailing lists I used to be on, and miss being on, is the ASA list. The ASA is the American Scientific Affiliation, a group of Christian scientists who are, for the most part, not creationists. Their listserv has long been home to debates over evolution and creationism that are of a…
Only a bird
Another feathered dinosaur has been found in China, prompting Ken Ham to dig in his heels and issue denials. Yet another supposed “feathered dinosaur” fossil has come to light, again in China. (Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell, AiG–U.S., reported on another Chinese fossil of a supposed feathered dinosaur in…
Xiaotingia zhengi
A lovely new dinosaur fossil from China is described in Nature today: it's named Xiaotingia zhengi, and it was a small chicken-sized, feathered, Archaeopteryx-like beast that lived about 155 million years ago. It shares some features with Archaeopteryx, and also with some other feathered dinosaurs…