Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 5

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Creation” Day 5" by he_who_is_nobody.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/reason/rebuttal-to-ian-jubys-in-7-days-crash-course-in-creation-day-5/

 

[Vivre]

Re: Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Crea

I really apreciate having you at the side while digesting these incredible lectures
And todays running-egg-layer-theory is priceless.

Most remarkable I find the point where Juby self-reflects his own conclusions to be 'catastrophic interpretation' :lol:

And proceeding to '(remember polystrate fossils ...)' I would have used a hint/link to part one.

I must say I'm really astonished how unbelievably plain inane these creationists gather their knowledge and simply cover it up with scientific term usage ... [sarcasm]just tempting me to tune in[/sarcasm].

 

[Isotelus]

Re: Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Crea

Another great post. Always a treat to read!

Just a couple of things:

Juby claims that Oviraptors laid eggs in pairs yet cites no evidence to support this claim. Based on birds and crocodilians (the closest living relatives to dinosaurs), I highly doubt that Oviraptors would have laid their eggs in pairs.

I assume he got it from Wikipedia. Here's the actual paper, which does indeed suggest they laid eggs in pairs. I will point out that the specimen reviewed in the article is an unnamed Oviraptorid, and not necessarily Oviraptor itself. It's a very minor mistake, but I just wish Ian would be...less wrong.

I also want to further respond to these comments he made:

Oviraptor was originally so named because it was found associated with some dinosaur eggs. The evolutionary assumptions of “Survival of the fittest” and “there has been no global catastrophe” led to the conclusion that it was stealing the eggs for food. This led to the name Ovi-raptor; ovi for egg, raptor for thief.

It wasn't just "some dinosaur eggs"; they were thought to be Protoceratops eggs, which were abundant in the area where the Oviraptor holotype was found, hence the species name philoceratops. It was a perfectly logical conclusion based on what they knew at the time; no "evolutionary assumptions".

The evolutionary assumptions of these finds is still evident, even in the wikipedia article on Oviraptor citipati. This was an Oviraptor found buried alive sitting on its nest:
“This brooding posture is found today only in birds and supports a behavioral link between birds and theropod dinosaurs.”

Wait a minute – was it in a brooding posture, or did it have its arms wrapped around the nest to protect it from the flood that buried it alive while sitting on top of the nest? Even the evolutionists agree it was a flash flood that buried it alive while sitting on its nest. But the evolutionary beliefs (that of dinosaurs evolving into birds) are assumed, whereas the catastrophic interpretation (which is more logical) is ignored.

The photo he has above is of Citipati osmolskae...there's no such thing as Oviraptor citipati. Plus I've never seen it claimed that it was buried by a flash flood. The paper that first reported on the specimen (it wasn't named Citipati until later) said the sediments it was found in were consistent with those produced by big sandstorms.
There's another thing about this that bothers me, both with the Oviraptorid and Hadrosaur (another small mistake he made: only genus and species names are italicised) nests. While I realize Ian doesn't accept that birds are avian theropods, I think this point needs to be made. Birds are certainly protective of their young...to a point. Quite often it's of more interest to them to abandon eggs that are exposed to serious threats of any kind that they cannot effectively defend against, simply because they can go elsewhere and start over. Even if we allow that it was a flood that resulted in their being fossilized, to suggest that these dinosaurs stayed on their nests, despite the inevitable drowning of the embryos, even when the water and mud was at their ankles, is ridiculous to say the least. He might as well say right out that these animals were capable of self-sacrifice, but were complete morons at the same time. Hurr Durr, where's all this water coming from? Oh well!
I guess the "Oviraptor" that decided to run wasn't as stupid as the others. :facepalm:

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Re: Rebuttal to Ian Juby’s “’In 7 Days’ Crash Course in Crea

And proceeding to '(remember polystrate fossils ...)' I would have used a hint/link to part one.

That is a great point. I should have done that.

Thanks Isotelus, great stuff. I knew the stuff about a sandstorm being the far more likely cause for those fossils, but I did not want to make that blog post any longer than it had to be. However, thanks for pointing out that Juby again was unable to identify a fossil specimen. That is classic Juby for you.