Power question 4: where did the dinosaurs come from?

Wow, question four was anticlimactic (these are AIGs "4 power questions for an evolutionist" I have been reviewing them in the previous few posts). Riddle tells us that he sees a lot about dinosaurs and what they were, but nothing about where they came from. Did he bother to do the most basic research, or just see if it was presented to him when he watched a documentary? The origins of the dinosaurs is no mystery. We know the earliest dinosaurs were creatures like Compsagnathus. These evolved from a group of primitive archasaurs, which evolved from early diapsids. Question answered. There are many books out there that can list specific species and show cladograms of the appearance of dinosaurian traits.

Basically, this question is exactly the same as his previous question, where is the fossil evidence? He says we should have thousands of millions of transitions, which is the same thing he said before, exagerating the completeness of the fossil record. This really isn't a new question at all, just more specific and easier to answer.

Riddle again does a typical quote mine. He quotes several biologists as saying things like the origin of dinosaurs has been debated for decades, etc. Without even looking up the quotes, I can tell that these quotes are just introductory remarks to a detailed discussion of the evidence. The fact that there is some disagreement about exactly which species might be ancestral does not mean there is no evidence for the origin of dinoaurs.

Of course, another answer to this is, so what? If not the dinosaurs, he could find some other group that we are rather uncertain of their ancestry (the turtles come to mind). We will probabliy never have a complete ancestry of every group that has lived. Science doesn't have every answer, which is the basic idea Riddle doesn't seem to get. This question isn't even addressing the evidence for evolution, except indirectly on the issue of fossil intermediates. He again makes no attempt to engage in a discussion of the intermediates in dinosaur evolution or any other group.

Riddle's basic approach throughout his presentation is to point out places where there might be some uncertainty in science and say since they don't have every t crossed, evolution is false. He then says that creationists do have the answers, we know how and when and where things were created--basically God did it. He really does consider that an answer. When it comes to the question of how, he says the Bible tells us--God said it, and it was. That is how. He considers that a complete answer, but is bothered by the incompleteness of the scientific answer. The answer to all four of his questions is the same three words, God did it. Somehow, he doesn't see that this isn't an explanation at all and is simply an argument from ignorance. No attempt is made at all to actually engage or explain the patterns we see. God could have created any pattern for life. The fact that we see these patterns is just because.

Riddle does finish with the inevitable story of his being born again. It seems that every creationist was once an evolutionists before they saw the light. After carefully looking at the evidence, they were convinced by creation (it was an objective look, uncolored by their religious beliefs). And he sees the Bible as all or nothing: if you can't trust the first chapter of the Bible you can't trust any of it (and by trust he means read it litteraly).

I was disappointed by this video. It's not like I expected something new, but I thought if you were to condense it down to the four best questions, there should be something better than a few arguments from ignorance and outright denial of the fossil record.