Dinosaurs and Birds

[PurpleLilac]

I went to tiny Christian schools where my science education was mostly garbage. A few months ago,I left Christianity and I’ve been listening to all kinds of YouTube trying to learn science. Paulogia,AronRa,Purple Dan and the Thinking Atheist have been my main places. 

Anyway,I was listening to AronRa today talk about dinosaurs and birds that are indistinguishable from each other in the fossil record. And because I have a couple of decades of Ken ham in my head, he just sounded very stupid to me. I guess because the  delicate  birds of today are nothing like the dinosaurs in movies? This is coming from a person with zero background in science but three decades of brainwashing. 

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to go about learning how all living things came from a common ancestor? And how to grasp this link between dinosaurs and birds that sounds absurd to me? 

[disillusioned]

Here's some stuff. I suggest starting with the video. It's quite accesible, and very interesting.

 

Regarding the bird/dinosaur question:

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06

 

Regarding common ancestry in general:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

 

Regarding the failure of intelligent design/creationism in general, with some discussion of evidence for common ancestry: 

 

[TruthSeeker0]

3 hours ago, PurpleLilac said:

I went to tiny Christian schools where my science education was mostly garbage. A few months ago,I left Christianity and I’ve been listening to all kinds of YouTube trying to learn science. Paulogia,AronRa,Purple Dan and the Thinking Atheist have been my main places. 

Anyway,I was listening to AronRa today talk about dinosaurs and birds that are indistinguishable from each other in the fossil record. And because I have a couple of decades of Ken ham in my head, he just sounded very stupid to me. I guess because the  delicate  birds of today are nothing like the dinosaurs in movies? This is coming from a person with zero background in science but three decades of brainwashing. 

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to go about learning how all living things came from a common ancestor? And how to grasp this link between dinosaurs and birds that sounds absurd to me? 

It only sounds absurd because you've been taught to think it's absurd. When you learn about evolution properly, as some of us were able to do, luckily, in biology class, you realize we are talking millions of years here in terms of development/natural selection. I suggest reading up on natural selection properly, as it's the basis to really understanding how evolution works, and why we see what we see in the fossil record. I'm reading Evolving out of Eden by Robert Price and Ed Suominen, it's a very concise discussion of why exactly creationism is just all wrong.

[pantheory]

Dinosaurs and Birds.

 

Birds could be classified as a type of flying dinosaur, but of course they presently are not classified that way. However there are mounds of evidence supporting the evolution of birds from a type of dinosaur. The transition fossil that is presently classified as the transition form between feathered dinosaurs and birds is called Archaeopteryx. Here is a link to one of their fossils and a description of them based upon the evidence.

 

https://www.livescience.com/24745-archaeopteryx.html

 

There are dozens of feathered fossil forms of dinosaurs in the fossil record. Some of the bigger ones looked something like present day ostriches, and other smaller ones could have glided or flown based upon their fossil remains.

 

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/the-feathered-revolution-how-dinosaurs-became-birds