Genesis 1:24 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.”
The BBC recently reported on its website that scientists from the University of Kent had mapped the genome of a dinosaur. The BBC’s article was not clear on which dinosaur but claimed it was a very early dinosaur – one of the precursors to all dinosaurs.
There was a great deal of excitement when scientists previously mapped the genomes of humans and chimpanzees. This led to the disingenuous and misleading claim that humans and chimps share 98% of their DNA.
But, given that there are no confirmed live dinosaurs in captivity, how was it possible for dinosaur DNA to be mapped? The BBC’s science correspondent reports:
Recently, Prof Darren Griffin’s team used mathematical techniques to identify the possible genetic characteristics of the very first dinosaurs. They did this by working backwards from their closest modern-day relatives – birds and turtles. Did you spot the undefined false presuppositions in that quote? There is a strong presupposition that both birds and turtles are close relatives of early dinosaurs. However, this is a very big assumption and is not based on any reliable experimental data.
Just in case you think this is simply the opinion of a science journalist, this is what the researchers said: It is perhaps not an unreasonable speculation that… both karyotypic and molecular cytogenetic analysis… would reveal little difference from a modern chicken, duck or ostrich species. It is precisely this speculation that creation science finds untenable. Instead of speculation, we build our models on the solid ground of biblical truth.
Author: Paul F. Taylor
Father, we are in awe at the vast number of creatures that You made, including many that are no longer extant on the Earth. We worship You, Lord, for Your greatness and power. Amen.
Ref: Ghosh, P. (August 2018), Dinosaur DNA clues unpicked by researchers at University of Kent, < https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44711974 >, accessed 8/31/2018. Image: Evolutionary view of the origin of dinosaurs, CC By-SA 3.0
