Dinosaurs Evolve—and Fly 281and in no way resembles the hand of Archaeopteryx. In short, every time Gish, Sarfati, and the
other creationists mention a feature that makes Archaeopteryx a dinosaur, they distort the evi-
dence, show their ignorance of the anatomical details, or fail to mention counterarguments
or details that would discredit their case. Nowhere do the creationists discuss the other
100 or so anatomical characters, including such unique dinosaurian features as the mesotar-
sal joint and the semilunate carpal. On those grounds alone, their arguments are worthless
and only show how poorly creationists understand the anatomy of these creatures.
The creationists are so wedded to the idea of distinct “kinds” that they cannot even
conceive of intermediate forms. Gish was embarrassed during several debates in just this
way. When his opponent put up an image of the forelimb of a modern bird and of a thero-
pod dinosaur (fig. 12.19B) and challenged Gish to sketch the likely intermediate anatomy,
Gish declined (because he knew it was a trap). Sure enough, his opponent then revealed the
forelimb of Archaeopteryx as a perfect intermediate between birds and dinosaurs. Gish then
mumbled something irrelevant and tried to change the subject. Even more dishonestly, he
went on with the same deception at the next debate venue, never correcting mistakes when
he was shown to be lying.
The intelligent design creationist authors are even more subtle and misleading. They use a
few out-of-context quotations that do not apply to this case and fall back on the old misconcep-
tion that evolution must be a smooth gradual “chain of being” within a single lineage. Davis
and Kenyon (2004:106) write that Archaeopteryx “is transitional only if it is part of lineage—one
of series of generations in which in-between stages led gradually from one group to another”
(illustrated clearly in their figs. 4–11, p. 106). In one sentence, they have shown their complete
misunderstanding of the fundamental concepts of evolution. Archaeopteryx does not have to
be part of single, gradually evolving lineage to be a transitional form—those are all misunder-
standings about evolution discredited decades ago. It only needs to be one of many species
that show transitional features on the bushy, branching tree of life. And in this respect, Archae-
opteryx could not be a better intermediate transitional form. Wells (2000) claims that paleon-
tologists have “quietly shelved” Archaeopteryx and that it is not an “ancestor” because modern
birds are not descended from it. This completely misses the point. Archaeopteryx does not have
to be an actual ancestor to show us how birds evolved from dinosaurs. It has all the transitional
features that one might expect from the sister group or “collateral ancestor” of birds (and has
no unique specializations that would preclude it from being the actual ancestor). And nobody
has “quietly shelved” it—it is still being published on and studied and mentioned in the ever-
burgeoning field of Mesozoic bird paleontology.
Finally, Davis and Kenyon, Sarfati, Wells, and Gish all argue that because Archaeopteryx
and its dinosaurian kin are the same age (or some of the dinosaurian sister taxa appear later
than Archaeopteryx), then the dinosaurs cannot be ancestral to the birds. As we have said over
and over, evolution is a bush, not a ladder. Archaeopteryx and other theropods are sister taxa,
and their relationships are supported by shared derived characters. Age relationships are
irrelevant (especially in such rarely fossilized animals as small dinosaurs and birds). They
shared common ancestors back in the Middle Jurassic, when we have a very poor record of
terrestrial vertebrates worldwide, so that by the Late Jurassic, the lineages have just split
apart, and both theropods and Archaeopteryx were living side by side.
But all these arguments of the creationists, as well as the “birds are not dinosaurs”
minority like Martin and Feduccia, are now rendered entirely obsolete by an amazing array
of new discoveries that have occurred in the past 20 years. If Archaeopteryx were still the