For the most part, secular scientists still seem to believe that dinosaurs evolved into birds. For that to happen, however, one change that needed to occur is that dinosaur scales had to evolve into feathers. Surprisingly, creationist Dr. Jerry Bergman says that the current theory is that it was fish scales that evolved into feathers, not reptile scales.
Some evolutionists admit they have a problem on their hands trying to explain the origin of feathers. The National History Museum of London has confessed: “The origin of feathers remains a mystery.” (Ashworth, James, The origin of feathers remains a mystery, Natural History Museum, 19 February 2025.) But, secularists not only have to explain “how” feathers could have evolved, but also “when.”
Professor Ping Wu of the University of Southern California has pointed out the importance of trying to understand the alleged evolution of feathers. He wrote, “The origin of feathers is an important question in Evo-Devo studies, with the eventual evolution of vaned feathers which are aerodynamic.” (Wu, Ping, et al., Multiple regulatory modules are required for scale-to-feather conversion, Molecular Biology and Evolution 35(2):417-430, DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msx295, February 2018.)
Dinosaurs were chosen as the assumed ancestors of birds because the structural similarities between dinosaurs and birds are more alike than that of birds and mammals. But that isn’t saying much. To believe in dinosaur-to-bird evolution one must believe that the largest land animals, the dinosaurs, somehow evolved into the smallest vertebrates today, the birds. According to Bergman, the imagined dinosaur ancestor would have been 11,429 times greater in weight than a hummingbird, one of its alleged descendants!
Evolutionists also must figure out what type of scales evolved into feathers. There are many kinds of reptile scales which can be constructed from either the epidermis or the osteoderms (the bony structure just below the epidermal scale). Osteoderms (the word means “bone skin”) can be a protective armor plating for some reptiles or a means to regulate their body temperature or to regulate their acid-base balance. Scales also vary in size and design, larger stronger scales at the head, tail, and feet of reptiles where stress would be greater and smaller scales around the joints to allow for flexibility.
And then there are the feathers. Feathers have at least 23 functions in addition to helping birds fly. They protect against wind and moisture; they help keep birds warm; they can be used as lining for nests to help keep the eggs warm; and some birds grow feathers on their feet like snowshoes to help them walk on snow without sinking.
Feathers are constructed of a protein called keratin. Reptiles also possess the same protein, but it is in their skin and has a completely different structure. Feathers also are made of various amino acids, lipids and minerals. Feathers are elaborate skin appendages formed from a follicle that is similar to hair follicles.
Evolutionists are challenged in trying to solve the feather evolution problem by several difficulties. First, no primitive, less-evolved feather has ever been discovered. The assumed first feather in the fossil record is from the Archaeopteryx fossil, a feather as complex and modern as the feathers of birds today.
Also, consider the amount of change needed to evolve scales into feathers. Wu et al. estimate that more than 1,000 genetic changes (mutations) were necessary to change a fish scale into a feather. Moreover, only 1 percent of mutations are beneficial. Consider then the difficulty of believing the theory of feather evolution if mutations don’t seem to be the answer.
Irreducible complexity makes this theory unfathomable. This means that the first functional feather had to be very complex from the beginning to make it usable as a feather. There is nothing in the fossil record to show any of the small steps that would have had to be taken to make the huge jump from scale to feather.
Comments: This article points out two of the difficulties in believing the dinosaur-to-bird story–how feathers could have evolved against all the odds and how the giant dinosaurs could have shrunk to the size of birds as small as hummingbirds.
But there are other difficulties too. How did birds evolve wings and learn to fly? A look at a theropod dinosaur skeleton shows the problems involved in changing dinosaur limbs into wings. And how could the first birds have learned to fly with nobody around to teach them?
Although both reptiles and birds have lungs, their respiratory systems are considerably different. Also, almost all reptiles have teeth, but birds don’t. In addition, reptiles are cold-blooded while birds are warm-blooded.
To make matters worse for evolutionists, it has been documented that modern birds were around “millions of years” before dinosaurs went extinct. A SciTechDaily article reports on 100 specimens of fossil birds discovered in China, birds that lived at least “120 million” years ago or “50 million” years before dinosaurs departed this world.
For Christians, this dino-to-bird evolution story is impossible, even ignoring the scientific evidence that makes it impossible. Genesis 1 says birds were created on the fifth day of creation, but land animals, which must have included dinosaurs, were created on the sixth day.
When God finished creating on the sixth day, the Bible says, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” So, dinosaurs didn’t need to evolve wings and feathers. They were perfect just the way they were created.
The first humans were perfect too, before they fell into sin. But Jesus Christ left heaven to come down to Earth to die for our sins so we could regain the perfection Adam and Eve lost for us.
“By only one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10:4
by Warren Krug
Reference: Jerry Bergman, “Feathers Could Not Evolve from Scales,” Creation Evolution Headlines [March 7, 2025].
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
Is drinking diet soda okay?
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has said that an occasional soda sweetened with a non-nutritive sweetener such as aspartame or sucralose is okay as long as one’s diet is generally healthy. But some studies have suggested daily consumption of diet sodas can be linked to higher rates of cancer and heart disease.
Source: “On Your Mind,” Consumer Reports [October, 2024], page 12.
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