God’s goodness is a communicative, spreading goodness... If God had not a communicative, spreading goodness, He would never have created the world. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost were happy in themselves and enjoyed one another before the world was. But that God delights to communicate and spread His goodness, there had never been a creation nor a redemption. God uses His creatures not for defect of power, that He can do nothing without them, but for the spreading of His goodness.
Richard Sibbes

The Feather Imprints

The Feather Imprints

The Feather Imprints on the London Specimen of Archaeopteryx

by Gerald Duffett. (From: British Creation Science Earth Sciences Group) June 1985

Archaeoptryx is in the news again. This time there is a ‘flap’ on about it’s feathers. Were they imprinted at the same time as the bony skelton impressions? Or were they fabricated after the fossil was found by man?

That is the issue and a lot more is at stake. In the past, scientists have questioned aspects about the feathers of Archaeoptryx such as their orientation, number and symmetry. They have also commented upon their perfect structure and whether or not the wings displayed aquinto-cubitalism (alternatively termed diastataxy) in their arrangement. But never has the genuineness of the fossil imprints been formally questioned until July of 1980. That was when Dr. Lee M. SPETNER addressed orthodox Jewish scientists meeting in Jerusalem.

The first that I learned about the allegation that the feather imprints on ‘the most impressive evidence of the fact of organic evolution’ was a fake, was in a letter from Dr. Moshe TROP published September 1983 (1). He reported upon the work of Dr. SPETNER who had examined the London specimen very carefully using a magnifying glass and a binocular microscope. Spetner suspected that someone had gouged out a thin layer of the limestone in the tail and wing regions and then filled them in with cement before carefully carving feather marks which were then allowed to harden.

SPETNER’s evidence is two-fold. Firstly, the suspect feather imprints on the main-slab are more sunken than the surrounding rock level, especially in the tail region. Secondly, on the counter-slab there is a small blob of apparently hardened cement. That blob is away from the wing and tail regions and yet bears an imprint of a feather vane. But there is no corresponding dimple in the main-slab.

Next, my attention was drawn to an article by Dr. SPETNER and five other co-authors at the University College in Cardiff (2). They re-iterated some of SPETNER’s evidence which I have already mentioned. But the most telling extra information was that the feathery tail (which they misnamed the ‘tail-feather’) was sunken about two millimetres from the surrounding surface of the main-slab. Also, no corresponding elevation was found on the counter-slab.

The rest of their evidence was at best circumstantial and at worst merely insinuative. For instance, suspicions were raised on the grounds that both feathered specimens of Archaeopteryx were supplied by members of the same family for financial gain.

Dr Karl Haberleing supplied the London museum and his son Dr. Ernst Haberlein supplied the Berlin museum. It was also pointed out that the discovery of the first feathered Archaeopteryx was soon after the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of Species.” Moreover, the timing of the appearance of the first feathered fossil was shortly after its existence had been predicated in a sketch by T.H. Huxley. Furthermore, it was reckoned to be significant that Archaeopteryx represents the only unquestionable case of a fossil showing a transition between two vertebrate classes.

Before assessing SPETNER’s evidence, let us consider the stages necessary to execute the alleged forgery. Perhaps the following list is close to what the forger could have done:

  1. Acquire a fossilised skeleton of an appropriate reptile.
  2. Obtain fresh feathers from an extant bird (leaving the primaries and secondaries in place whilst removing most of the other wing feathers.)
  3. Gouge out the limestone matrix in the region of the desired feathery wings and tail.
  4. Mix the cement.
  5. Emplace the cement on to the prepared sunken areas on the main-slab and also on the corresponding areas on the counter-slab.
  6. Imprint the feathers on the wet cement. 7A. Either: cover the main-slab with the counter-slab whilst the fresh

    feathers were sandwiched between and the cement was firm enough not to drip. 7B. Or: after removing the feathers from the main-slab, imprint their

    other surface on to the counter-slab.

  7. Lift off the fresh feathers from the cemented areas.
  8. Compare the alignment of the feather imprints on the main-slab with those on the counter-slab.
  9. If not satisfied, then try again from stage 6 or an even earlier stage.

In view of the method of the forger as envisaged above, the following questions could provide answers to illuminate the truth about those feather imprints of Archaeopteryx.

(i) Would there have been a perfect fit between the main-slab and the

counter-slab if the feather imprints were genuine?

(ii) Although a tell-tale gap would be inevitable if stage 7A had been implemented, would the mismatch between the slab surfaces have been detectable if stage 7B was the alternative used by the forger.

(iii)Do any of the feathery imprinted regions show extra pressure that could be interpreted as being caused by the fingertips of the forger pressing down on the fresh feathers when the cement was wet?

(iv) What sort of cement was available in Bavaria during the latter half of the Nineteenth Century and how well does it match with the colour and grain size in the regions of the feathers close to where the tips of the third and fourth primaries of the right wing border the original main-slab and the original counter-slab? (An examination in those places with a scanning electron microscope could allay the cement accusation once and for all time, but it would not detect an etching forgery.)

(v) How could the forger have gouged out the boundary around the caudal vertebrae and later skillfully matched the lower quill ends to convincingly simulate the connecting ligaments as reported by Sir Gavin De BEER? (3)

(vi) Being set into lithographic limestone, was there a better and more sophisticated method known to the forger so that he either etched on to the rock without spoiling the bony impressions or had he a method that etched on to cement.?

But suppose for one moment that the feathery imprints on the fossil were artificial, where does that leave the genus Archaeopteryx? Could it easily slip back into the reptile class when it has the following bird-like features in its non-feathery skeletal parts?

(i) The brain is definitely bird-like. (ii) The furcula is hypertrophied.
(iii) The pubes are long and backwardly directed. (iv) The 3rd metacarpal is fused with the carpus. (v) The hallux is opposable to the other toe digits.

Also, with which order of the subclass of archosaurian reptiles could Archaeopteryx be classified if it was proved to be no longer a bird? The most favoured option is for Archaeopteryx to be derived from Coelursaurian theropods belonging to the subclass Saurishia. However, there are several objections to this evolutionary link.

(a) The pelvic girdles of Archaeopteryx and birds are opisthopubic,

whereas those of ceolurosaurian saurischian reptiles are pro-pubic. (b) Archaeopteryx possesses a reflexed opposable hallux, whereas the

proposed ancestors do not.
(c) The pretibial bones of Archaeopteryx and birds are not homologous with

the astragalus bones of theropods. (d) The brain of Archeaopteryx resembles that of birds and only

crocodilian reptiles.
(e) Experts such as Ostrom maintain that theropods possess only digits 1,2 and 3 in each hand, whereas bird embryos have only 2,3 and 4 in each wing.

Finally, in my monograph (4), it was pointed out that Ornithorhynchus anatinus (better known as the Duck-billed Platypus) has elements of not two vertebrate classes like Archaeopteryx, but three vertebrate classed.

Yet Platypus made scientists distrust that extant species in the same way that doubt is falling on Archaeopteryx. Whereas the feathers of Archaeopteryx have been reckoned by some orthodox Jews to be GRAVEN IMAGES, the first stuffed specimen of a Platypus that was examined in Europe was decalred a taxidermist’s fraud’!

REFERENCES CITED.

  1. TROP, M. Is the Archaeopteryx a fake? Creation Research Society Quarterly. 183, 20(2), 121-2.
  2. WATKINS, R.S., F. HOYLE, N.C. WICKRAMASINGHE, J. WATKINS, R.

    RABILIZIROV and L. SPETNER. Archaeopteryx – a photographic study. British Journal of Photography. 1985, 132(8 March), 264-266.

  3. De BEER, G. Archaeopteryx lithographica.

    British Museum (Natural History). 1954.

  4. DUFFET,G.H. Archaeopteryx lithographica reconsidered.

    Biblical Creation Society. 1983.

FOR FURTHER READING

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY 1985, 132(29 March).

Editorial comment, page 347. “The Journal at this stage can only adopt the position that the weight of evidence so far available seems to balance the matter toward’s the accuser’s view, but more refined testing is clearly essential to put the matter to rest, one way or another.”

Letter of M. Howgate, p. 348. “The incredible detail which can be seen on Fig. 3 of the paper published on 8 March should rule out the cement carving theory of Dr. Spetner (circa 1980) as a creationist fantasy.”

Watkins, R.S. et al. ARCHAEOPTERYX – A FURTHER COMMENT. pages 358-9, 367. “The telling point emerges that, whereas the main slab shows ‘incredible detail,’ the counterslab shows nothing, aside from the ‘chewing gum,’ which does indeed carry markings of a similar complexity to the main slab. While it would doubtless be possible to invent all manner of vacuous hypotheses to preserve the fiction of Archaeopteryx, the sensible view of this matter is that the ‘chewing gum’ is a small fragment of a layer of material once artificially attached to the underlying rock, originally criss-crossed by presumtive feather vanes, a material which, judging from the ‘chewing gum,’ had the appearance of a low-glaze porcelain.”

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY, 1985, 132(26 April).

Letter of T. Parmenter and F. Greenaway, page 458. “As professional photomacrographers, we have studied the fossil under various combinations of light sources, emulsions, ultraviolet reflectance and fluorescence, filtered UV fluorescence, intensive scanning by infrared TV, and high photomacrography. These studies have taken place over a number of years. Any conclusions about the authenticity of the fossil should be based upon the best possible evidence. Photographs are just one ingredient of such evidence. Palaeontologists from this Museum have based their judgements upon a number of factors, and are confident that the feather imprints are genuine. The cursory examination and poor photographs of the authors of the articles bear no comparison with the close scrutiny and exacting standards of the Museum. Their wild conclusions based on the thinnest of evidence have probably grossly mislead your readers.”

Comment by Editor, pages 458-9. “Having heard the explanations of the group, the Journal felt that sufficient doubts were raised to bring the matter to public attention. The points of doubt made do require explanation and have not been brought to light before, despite over a century of expert study.”

Watkins, R.S. et al. ARCHAEOPTERYX – FURTHER EVIDENCE. pages 468-470. “A crucial question remains to be answered . . . Whatever the answer might be, the (evidence presented here) would in our opinion seem now to point unambiguously to a forgery.”