Understanding Feathered Dinosaurs

Young-earth creationists hold to separate creations of birds and land animals due to a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:20-25, which describes their creations on different days. As such, they oppose the conventional model of theropod-to-bird evolution. For many years, there were few Mesozoic birds known, namely Hesperornis and Icthyornis. Specimens such as Archaeopteryx, found in 1861, seemed to strengthen the argument for the proposed transition. However, even after John Ostrom reinvigorated the idea of dinosaur-to-bird evolution in 1960 with the discovery of Deinonychus, evidence of this transition was still sparse. In the 1990’s, exquisitely-preserved dinosaur fossils began to pour out of Liaoning Province, China sporting feathers and several feather-like filaments. Typical creationist responses to feathered dinosaur fossils include 1) denying that they are real fossils, 2) assuming that “dino-fuzz” is something other than integument, or 3) arbitrarily calling some fossils birds and others dinosaurs. Some creationists believe that no feathered dinosaurs have been found, despite there being evidence of feathers in most families within Theropoda