Robert sent in a couple of links inspired by an earlier post on the Novellraptor barsholdi news story [see 1th October 2026]. He suggests taking a look at alternative views -which he means by way of Creationist web sites. They do have a take on this bird like dinosaur that was also distinctly unlike a bird in other ways. The claim is that evolutionists are still finding imaginary feathers on dinosaurs – see for example https://crev.info/2026/10/still-finding-imaginary-feathers-on-dinosaurs/ … which I suppose was to be expected as the authors of the study had pointed out the problems. The Creationist claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs is not as clear cut as told by the media. Presumably they prefer birds to have an entirely separate origin with God involved in the process. That does not of course explain the similarity between dinosaur and bird bones. They say that what are sometimes labelled as feathers on a fossil are integumentary structures such as barbs or quills on a tail, or a bit of fuzz on limbs. Calling these so called proto feathers actual feathers gets the idea up and running. However, these proto feathers are nothing like the aerodynamically precise feathers of birds used for long distance flight. I don’t think that was the claim – as after all birds have had a long time to evolve their feathers since the demise of the dinosaurs.
The Creationist author goes on to show the Novellraptor barsholdi fossils fall into a similar dubious categorisation on the basis of feathers – as admitted by the study in the first place. We may wonder if the scientists involved are actively seeking evidence of feathery dinosaurs in order to boost the mantra that birds evolved from certain dinosaurs. Is it an imaginary evolutionary missing link. I suggest reading Trevor Palmer’s book on evolution and catastrophism – available from Amazon as well as this web site. Flight feathers could well have developed in the post dinosaur period. Palmer explains the process. We also have to take into account catastrophism and the rush to refill the niches missing via mass die off. On top of that is that if what has been preserved by geology reflects more on a series of catastrophes rather than a continuous record of the past and then a lot of evolution is actually missing as those periods in which no catastrophic events of note occurred did not preserve a layer that geologists can dig into.
His second link is https://crev.info/2026/10/sbr-mt-vesuvius-dating/ … which is a critique of radiometric dating. A secondary title of the piece is , ‘what Pompei reveals about the assumption behind deep time’. Pompei being overcome by the volcanic explosion of Vesuvius in AD79. It was recorded in detail by Pliny the Younger. It is also a factor in uniting tree ring chronologies with those of ice cores from Greenland. It seems it is now also a calibration point for radiometric dating methodology. The grand tie up. The technique is routinely used to assign ages to volcanic rock formations and to build timelines for the geological column. Naturally, Creationists would not be persuaded. However, it is the nature of their rejection of the methodology that is interesting. The actual published study makes the claim it strengthens the dating of geochronology but they say it also highlights how heavily radiometric dating depends upon calibration, assumptions, corrections, standardisation and historical landmarks. Such as Vesuvius. It also suffers from constant revision. Radiometric dating is not a simple matter of reading ages directly from rocks. In the Vesuvius study the researchers, they claim, did not rely solely on radiometric decay. Instead, they relied heavily on historical documents – and so on. Worth reading if only to dismiss for whatever opinion you might have. One can easily think that radiometric dating is over hyped as a reliable tool.