THE CREATION IS ENGINEERED – NOT EVOLVED!
Let’s take a minute to consider the engineering that has gone into a bird flight feather. Numerous types of feathers in birds have been identified. The major types are: contour feathers, bristle feathers, filoplumes, semiplumes, down feathers, and vaned flight feathers. The most amazing type, and the type with the most advanced engineered features, is the flight feather.
Evolutionists commonly claim that feathers evolved over time from reptile scales. This is nonsense and I’ll tell you why.
Flight feathers in birds are not only examples of great design and contain structures that are tremendously efficient but are irreducibly complex. There are many parts to the flight feather that must be simultaneously present for it to be of any use at all.
Flight feathers consist of many parts. The stem or rachis from which the barbs extend supports the structure. The barbs extend each direction from the rachis and this forms the feather shape. But, that is not all. From the barbs extend two sets of smaller structures called barbules. On one side of each barb the barbules are of a hooked design and on the other side the barbules have no hooks. This design is so that the booked barbules can interlock with the plain barbules on the adjacent barb.
Dr. Stuart Burgess in his book, Hallmarks of Design, has written, “The interlocking mechanism of the the barbules alone shows an amazing level of interdependency because the barbs and barbules must all be in place simultaneously for the feather to function.”
This is what is called irreducible complexity and could never have come about by incremental change processes. That fact is what true science confirms. In each feather there are millions and millions of cells that are exactly organized and engineered to the utmost precision.
This engineered flight feather is extremely lightweight and durable, and this enables the birds wing to flare and hold air as it flies. In addition, the trapped air within the feathers act as insulators against both hot and cold. Finally, a minute coating of oil makes the bird’s feathers waterproof. Birds clearly would have gone extinct long ago if each and every one of these features were not present in the very first flying birds created.
Consider the bird and its feathers and understand how awesome is our great Engineer God.
J.D. Mitchell
For more information on birds and other amazing engineered aspects of life see these books and DVD.
