This just in: dinosaurs of a feather don't always flock together

This just in from the AP [excerpted]:

New fossil complicates picture of feather evolution
MATT CRENSON Associated Press

New York — A 150-million-year-old fossil from southern Germany has paleontologists ruffled over how feathers arose in the line of dinosaurs that eventually produced birds.

The fossil's exceptionally well-preserved bone structure clearly puts it among feathered kin on the dinosaur family tree. Because its closest relatives are feathered, paleontologists would expect Juravenator to follow suit.

A small patch of skin on Juravenator's tail, however, shows no sign of feathers....

“It has a typical scaly dinosaurian skin,” Mr. Chiappe said....

.... most experts do not see it as a challenge to the widely accepted view that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs.

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The bottom line of the matter is this: materialistic scientists WANT to believe in non-directed evolution, and they interpret the evidence according to their beliefs.

Christians, who believe that we are the products of design (and it certainly looks that way!) interpret the same evidence differently.

A good book on the subject of Origins is Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator. He covers darwinian evolution vs. design, the Big Bang, the universality of moral sense, consciousness, etc. A good read.

One of the philosophical constructs I recall contained in his book goes as follows:

a) Anything that begins to exist has a cause;

b) The universe began to exist,

c) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Once we understand that there is a cause outside of the universe that caused the universe to come into existence, the "threat" of darwinian evolution is greatly diminished. Because, regardless of how we got to this point, there still stands a powerful force behind the universe (who must be a person because surely he cannot be something less than his creation) that deserves respect, and to whom we are presumably accountable.

It is precisely these conclusions that materialistic evolutionists desperately want to avoid, and will go to almost any intellectual lengths to do so. To cede to them would not only make these scientists morally accountable, it would de-throne them from the god-like role they currently enjoy -- defining reality for the rest of us lesser mortals and having complete sufficiency and control over explanations of life and origins. As soon as a non-materialistic factor is added to the equation, they cease to be masters of their domain.

So, you might say that the scientists have a vested personal interest in maintaining a belief in materialistic darwinian evolution. And that amounts to bias.

Increasingly, as the scientific evidence for a moment of creation mounts, the arguments of some materialists are becoming increasingly far-fetched -- reflecting an ABC - Anything But a Creator - desperation.

Another argument that bolsters the scientific evidence for creation comes from philosophy. It goes like this:

a) If the past is infinite, this means there are an infinite number of moments preceding the present

b) If there are infinite moments preceding the present moment, we can never arrive at the present moment

c) Because the present moment exists, the past cannot be infinite

d) Therefore the past is finite and time had a beginning

I find this pretty convincing.

The Christian faith in a powerful Creator possessing personal attributes such as personality, consciousness, and moral sense is not unreasonable. In fact, I would say just the opposite.

And that's the way the ball bounces.