Every feather is a marvel of engineering design. A single pigeon feather is composed of more than a million individual parts. Barbs extend from each side of a center shaft. Smaller barbules grow out of both sides of these barbs, which in turn are made with many tiny barbicels. These barbicels are tiny hooks which interlock with barbules, weaving each feather together like the teeth on a zipper. If the barbs are pulled apart, the bird hooks them back together by simply running its beak through the feathers. For their weight, feathers are stronger than any man-made structures.
If the design itself were not miraculous enough, the functions of the feather are even more astounding. This extremely lightweight, durable, and complex design enables the bird's wing to flare and hold air as it flies. The trapped air within the feathers serve as extremely efficient insulators against both hot and cold temperatures. A minute coating of oil makes feathers waterproof, keeping birds dry and warm.
Evolutionists claim that reptile scales evolved into feathers. Could this have happened? There is virtually no similarlity between scales and feathers, nor is there any fossil evidence showing the transition from scale to feather.
A scale could only become a feather as specific information is added to the DNA molecule. The feather has a much more complex DNA code than a reptile scale. Random mistakes could not produce this complex information.
From A Closer Look at the Evidence by Kleiss, May 28.
