A few evolutionist bloggers have been chattering on about the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum’s Archaeopteryx reconstruction. Abyssal’s Web Log makes a number of interesting claims in a posting titled Creationist Museum Lies About Archaeopteryx. First, we’ll point out that there is no evidence that Abyssal was ever at the museum, and thus has not actually seen the Archaeopteryx reconstruction. How so? He states:
“The Creation Museum had a model of a life restoration of Archaeopteryx present in their Garden of Eden exhibit…”
The model is actually in the Dinosaur Den exhibit. There is no Archaeopteryx in the Garden of Eden exhibit. Both exhibit areas are some distance apart from each other. The Dinosaur Den exhibit opened July 4th — 5 weeks after the official Museum opening. Since Abyssal has not had the opportunity to actually see, up close and in person, AiG’s reconstruction, his other points are just typical pajama blogger off-the-cuff comments. But, it seems that Abyssal is just parroting accusations made by Chris over at Duae Quartunciae in Jurassic Pigeon at the Creation Museum!
Back on May 26, 2007, Chris wrote a short but rambling screed about the Creation Museum opening, in which he took exception to the Museum’s Archaeopteryx reconstruction. Of course, like Abyssal, Chris has not been to the Creation Museum. (He lives in Australia.) Chris dug up a March 28th blog posting by Ken Ham, in which Ken posted a picture of a Buddy Davis reconstruction. Hhhmm. March 28th? Is it possible that Chris saw a photo of a reconstruction still being worked on? For an exhibit not opened until a month after the Memorial Day 2007 Museum opening? Is it typical of evolutionists to pontificate about things they’ve never seen? Perhaps all of the above. We shall see…
Both Chris and Abyssal seemed to be obsessed with the idea that Buddy’s reconstruction is missing teeth and that he substituted a beak, rather than a reptile-like jaw. Remember, they’re both looking at a low resolution image of a photo looking up at the model and taken outdoors (notice the pine trees behind the model?) Take the image from Ken’s blog and load it into your favorite image editor. Magnify the image several times. Take a look at the mouth/beak/jaw area. Can you see the teeth?
In case your eyes aren’t any better than mine, click on the image below to see Buddy’s reconstruction as actually displayed at the Creation Museum:
Conspiracy theorists may claim AiG’s blog posting and the above image aren’t of the same reconstruction. Keep in mind the differences in angle, lighting, indoor vs outdoor setting, and the resolution. Look closely at the branch in both pictures. It’s the same branch, and the feet are in the same position — still taking into account camera angle differences. Below is a smaller-sized image of AiG’s March 2007 blog posting with another recent photo of their Archaeopteryx model:
Apparently these guys are not birders. They need to turn off the computer, buy a good pair of binoculars and a bird feeder, then sit out on the back porch. A few hours looking at real birds in the backyard might sober them up a bit!
