Question 76: Is Archaeopteryx a transitional form between reptiles and birds?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Answer: A fossil discovered by the museum director Widword in 1861 was named Archaeopteryx and it was proposed as a transitional form between reptiles and birds. It was claimed as a result of the detailed studies done afterwards that the feather marks of this fossil on the stone were made manually, that is, they were fake, and that the fossil itself belonged to a lizard.

It is stated that this archaeopteryx fossil lived about 140 million years ago. However, a fossil called Protoavis (the first bird) that lived 225 million years ago was discovered by Sankar Chatterjee in the West Texas Desert.¹.

This fossil, which is understood to have lived on the earth 85 million years ago before the Archeopteryx, has the structure of a bird and is regarded as the ancestor of birds. In that case, Archaepteryx cannot be a transitional form.

Alan Feduccia, who is an expert on birds, states the following regarding the issue:

I have studied bird skulls for twenty-five years. I do not see any similarities whatsoever between them and dinosaurs. The theropod origins of birds, in my opinion, will be the greatest embarrassment of paleontology of the 20th century.²

When an expert talks about an issue, the others need to keep silent. There is something about which I am curious. Are the friends who are asked these questions and who express them and deal with these kinds of issues experts on birds, or are they the ones who want to satisfy their curiosity and get information and benefit from the evolution studies on this issue? I have nothing to say to those in the first group. They examine the evidences that are put forward as a necessity of their profession, evaluate them and express their opinions.

If they are from the second group, I will give them the following advice: If you expect to get information and findings that will enlighten you and offer you rich and vast knowledge and benefit from here, I can definitely say that you are wrong. This field of evolution philosophy will batter you. It will destroy your eye and mind and sound ideas in you because people who do not have sufficient expertise and investigative belief related to these issues have always fallen into confusion spiritually and mentally. Something like that is definitely awaiting you.

I may explain what I mean here with an example: Suppose that one researcher found a fossil with the features of half a bird and half a reptile. Evolutionists who defend atheism will put forward this fossil as evidence for their claim that birds evolved from reptiles by chance. What will you do in that case? Will you accept that living beings emerged from one another by chance as evolutionists claim and exclude the creator? If you do so, it is inevitable for you to go mad in this field.

“Just as Allah creates every living being from a single cell today so too did He create such a living being in the past. Such abnormal structures cannot be the beginning and origin of a systematic chain.” If you can say that, there is no problem. Then, you will be safe from confusion and madness.

State the same thing in order to eliminate your hesitations and expectations regarding the issue and say, “The control of everything is in the hands of Allah. Even an atom is not free from His knowledge, will and power. Just as He creates the living and non-living beings of today so too did He create the beings in the past; He will create the beings in the future in the same way. Our duty is to examine those works of art and thank and praise Him for all the beings He bestowed upon us in this universe.”

If you try to test whether Allah exists or not based on the evidence for the existence or non-existence of a number of fossils in the past, you will lose at the beginning. For, none of those who entered this field with such an expectation was able to survive. You cannot be an exception. Therefore, do not dive blindly into the quagmire whose depth you do not know. Your regret will be too late.

1.Time, 25  August, 1986, p.36.
2.Shipman, S. Birds do it. Did Dinosaurs? New Scientist, 1 February, 1997, p.28.

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