From: williams@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Tom Williams)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: I need transitional knowledge
Date: 11 Jan 1993 21:55:07 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1993Jan9.045359.13856@panix.com> arandia@panix.com (Joel Arandia) writes:
> Some creationist guy is buggin me and telling me that
>Archeopteryx is a MOSAIC form.  I guess he means that just because something
>has attributes or both bird and reptile doesn't mean that it's related to 
>either.  Yeah, it does sound stupid, but I can't figure out a good rebutt.
>And what are the other 'birds' that he tells me are in the same strata?

  I was curious how this situation came about.  In general when a creationist
has anything to say about geology he's referring to one of a few dozen of
the old chestnuts that were first mangled into a pseudo-logical form by
creation 'scientists' and then used over and over again by creationists
who know little or nothing about geology.

 The 'ammunition' your creationist friend thinks he's found may in 
some way be related to this article.  

TITLE:          Recent debate over Archaeopteryx
AUTHORS:        Clausen, Venus E. (Loma Linda Univ., Geosci. Res. Inst., Loma
                  Linda, CA, USA)
PUBLICATION:    1986.
                IN:  Origins (Loma Linda) ; Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 48-55
THESAURUS:  West Germany, paleontology, Aves, Archaeornithes, Jurassic,
   Archaeopteryx, Solnhofen Limestone, Germany, Central Europe, Europe, Upper
   Jurassic, biologic evolution, creationism, philosophy, bones, feathers,
   fossilization, Eichstatt, Bavaria
NOTES:  GeoRef ID:  87-12551  (GSA 87-08927)
   ISSN  0093-7495
   Coden:  ORIGDU

 I'm very curious what the article says, but our libraries don't carry
this journal.  (I'm itching to make a snide remark here).

 I'm also curious about this journal. I searched the Bibliography and Index
of Geology (GEOREF) for articles referring to creationism.  Many of the
ones that came up are in this journal.  Most seem to have a creationist
bent.

 For further information with which to rebut your friend, you might look up
these:

TITLE:          An examination of the research of creationist Walter Brown
AUTHORS:        Lippard, Jim (Univ. Ariz., Dep. Philos., Tucson, AZ, USA)
PUBLICATION:    1989.
                IN:  Creation/Evolution ; Vol. 9, No. 1(25), p. 23-48
THESAURUS:  paleontology, biologic evolution, creationism, life origin, Brown,
   Walter, Archaeopteryx, Archaeornithes, Aves, fossil man, popular geology,
   hominids, extinction, catastrophism

TITLE:          On creationism; Reviewing the issues and the challenge
AUTHORS:        Thomas, R. D. K. (Franklin and Marshall Coll., Dep. Geol.,
                  Lancaster, PA, USA)
PUBLICATION:    Sept. 1985.
                IN:  Geotimes ; Vol. 30, No. 9, p. 8-9
THESAURUS:  paleontology, biologic evolution, philosophy, Archaeopteryx,
   Archaeornithes, Aves, fossils, book reviews, creationism, Newell, Norman D.


 The last one in particular would probably go a long way to explaining where
creationists came up with the idea that there's something wrong with
Archaeopteryx and where their assumptions came from.


--
Tom Williams                       williams@pangea.stanford.edu
Department of Geology				 
Stanford University School of Earth Sciences