Are all Pterosaurs Extinct?
Is it really meaningless to the credibility of standard models whether or not all species of pterosaurs are extinct? This is a reply to Glen Kuban’s web page.
No hoax
Not misidentified
Pterosaur sketch (above) by the eyewitness Eskin C. Kuhn
Jonathan Whitcomb          Paul Nation                    Gideon Koro              Brian Hennessy           Mesa Agustin            Duane Hodgkinson         Eskin Kuhn               David Woetzel                     Garth Guessman
The testimonies of the above nine men shoot down the assumption that all species of pterosaurs are extinct.
Science and Change
                      by Jonathan David Whitcomb “Do nothing to refute mainstream geology”—that phrase was used in an earlier version of the web page “Living Pterosaurs,” by Glen J. Kuban. He still says, in his up- dated July 14, 2017, version, “. . . if they were someday verified [extant pterosaurs], it would be a wonderful scientific discovery, but do nothing to undermine mainstream geology.” He refers to a philosophical foundation, or basis for interpreting both geological structures and fossils, a set of assumptions that is not commonly even acknowledged to be philosophical by those who use it. The General Theory of Evolution is a part of that philosophy, and that foundation goes back to Charles Darwin, in the nineteenth century. The phrase “mainstream geology,” by Kuban, however, is a clue that he is actually trying to protect a philosophy, which includes ideas popularized by Darwin, and this involves small simple organisms evolving into large complex ones over very long periods of time. Real science, by its nature, brings about changes in opinion about what we used to think: changes. If many persons consider “mainstream geology” to be a branch of science, however, why does this geologist go to so much trouble to protect it? In his July 14th* version of “Living Pterosaurs (Pterodactyls),” the character count is 223,163, meaning his online article contains about 43,757 words (at 5.1 ch. per word). That is over ten times the length of many blog posts, longer even than some books. Anyone with any reasonable degree of objectivity should be able to see that Mr. Kuban has a passion for trying to persuade people to disbelieve in any species of extant pterosaur. But why have so much concern for protecting old ideas about geology and evolution? Apparently, he does not want any person to doubt those old ideas. I think I have a right to reply to Kuban’s “Living Pterosaurs,” since my name is mentioned, on that online *publication, 413 times. Read his lengthy online page if you like, but then you be the judge of which point of view is more objective.
Introducing Kuban’s Criticism of Modern Pterosaur Investigations
Many years ago, Glen Kuban created a web page devoted to discrediting the idea that pterosaurs have lived in human times. An in-depth response, to an earlier and smaller version of his web page, is found in Chapter 23 of the fourth edition of my nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God. That edition of the book was written in 2014, but major additions were made to “Living Pterosaurs” (by Kuban) in the spring and summer of 2017, and that deserves attention. To the best of my knowledge, the year-2013 version of his web page had about 3500 words, and he did not make any revisions, as far as I am aware, from 2014 through the end of 2016 (or they were minor revisions). So why did Glen Kuban add about 40,000 words to “Living Pterosaurs” within a period of a few weeks in early 2017? Being a writer does not grant me the power to read the minds of other writers, but I have an idea, based upon our email communi- cations right before he began his prolific writing campaign. On January 14, 2017, the physicist Clifford Paiva and I agreed that an old photograph contained a genuine image of a modern pterosaur. That photo is now called “Ptp,” and it should not be confused with an imitation photo which is a hoax. Kuban had, for years, confused the two photos. Soon after I had informed Kuban of some of the early discoveries that Paiva and I had made in our examinations of the Ptp photo, he began major expansions of his web page. Some of his new paragraphs were about Ptp, with his reasonings on why the image of an apparent Pteranodon was not a real animal. I invite objective readers to compare the writings of Glen Kuban (in his “Living Pterosaurs” web page) with my own writings about these wonderful flying creatures. His whole purpose appears to be to convince people that all pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago, although he seems to reveal a deeper purpose: protecting old ideas about geology and about Darwin’s philosophy about the origin of life. You choose for yourself which perspectives are more reasonable.
copyright 2007-2019 Jonathan David Whitcomb
ver-012
Are all Pterosaurs Extinct?
Is it really meaningless to the credibility of standard models whether or not all species of pterosaurs are extinct? This is a reply to Glen Kuban’s web page.
No hoax
Not misidentified
Pterosaur sketch (above) by the eyewitness Eskin C. Kuhn
Jonathan Whitcomb         Paul Nation                 Gideon Koro            Brian Hennessy         Mesa Agustin
Duane Hodgkinson          Eskin Kuhn                  David Woetzel                         Garth Guessman
The testimonies of the above nine men shoot down the assumption that all species of pterosaurs are extinct.
Science and Change
                      by Jonathan David Whitcomb “Do nothing to refute mainstream geology”—that phrase was used in an earlier version of the web page “Living Pterosaurs,” by Glen J. Kuban. He still says, in his up- dated July 14, 2017, version, “. . . if they were someday verified [extant pterosaurs], it would be a wonderful scientific discovery, but do nothing to undermine mainstream geology.” He refers to a philosophical foundation, or basis for interpreting both geological structures and fossils, a set of assumptions that is not commonly even acknowledged to be philosophical by those who use it. The General Theory of Evolution is a part of that philosophy, and that foundation goes back to Charles Darwin, in the nineteenth century. The phrase “mainstream geology,” by Kuban, however, is a clue that he is actually trying to protect a philosophy, which includes ideas popularized by Darwin, and this involves small simple organisms evolving into large complex ones over very long periods of time. Real science, by its nature, brings about changes in opinion about what we used to think: changes. If many persons consider “mainstream geology” to be a branch of science, however, why does this geologist go to so much trouble to protect it? In his July 14th* version of “Living Pterosaurs (Pterodactyls),” the character count is 223,163, meaning his online article contains about 43,757 words (at 5.1 ch. per word). That is over ten times the length of many blog posts, longer even than some books. Anyone with any reasonable degree of objectivity should be able to see that Mr. Kuban has a passion for trying to persuade people to disbelieve in any species of extant pterosaur. But why have so much concern for protecting old ideas about geology and evolution? Apparently, he does not want any person to doubt those old ideas. I think I have a right to reply to Kuban’s “Living Pterosaurs,” since my name is mentioned, on that online *publication, 413 times. You be the judge of which point of view is more objective.
Introducing Kuban’s Criticism of Modern Pterosaur Investigations
Many years ago, Glen Kuban created a web page devoted to discrediting the idea that pterosaurs have lived in human times. An in-depth response, to an earlier and smaller version of his web page, is found in Chapter 23 of the fourth edition of my nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God. That edition of the book was written in 2014, but major additions were made to “Living Pterosaurs” (by Kuban) in the spring and summer of 2017, and that deserves attention. To the best of my knowledge, the year-2013 version of his web page had about 3500 words, and he did not make any revisions, as far as I am aware, from 2014 through the end of 2016 (or they were minor revisions). So why did Glen Kuban add about 40,000 words to “Living Pterosaurs” within a period of a few weeks in early 2017? Being a writer does not grant me the power to read the minds of other writers, but I have an idea, based upon our email communi- cations right before he began his prolific writing campaign. On January 14, 2017, the physicist Clifford Paiva and I agreed that an old photograph contained a genuine image of a modern pterosaur. That photo is now called “Ptp,” and it should not be confused with an imitation photo which is a hoax. Kuban had, for years, confused the two photos. Soon after I had informed Kuban of some of the early discoveries that Paiva and I had made in our examinations of the Ptp photo, he began major expansions of his web page. Some of his new paragraphs were about Ptp, with his reasonings on why the image of an apparent Pteranodon was not a real animal. I invite objective readers to compare the writings of Glen Kuban (in his “Living Pterosaurs” web page) with my own writings about these wonderful flying creatures. His whole purpose appears to be to convince people that all pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago, although he seems to reveal a deeper purpose: protecting old ideas about geology and about Darwin’s philosophy about the origin of life. You choose for yourself which perspectives are more reasonable.
copyright 2007-2019 Jonathan David Whitcomb
ver-012