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Bulverism and Pterosaurs

I’ve touched on the subject of bulverism previously, but I feel it deserves more attention. Since other blog pages contain more about this I’ll focus on one of them.

Bulverism and Extant Pterosaurs

C. S. Lewis, in the mid-20th Century, noticed an unfortunate trend becoming popular: Avoid reasoning, on whatever subject, by talking about how your opponent is silly in a mistake. . . . Lewis gave this habit a name: “bulverism.”

Some critics of the idea of extant pterosaurs have stooped to the lowest form of bulverism. . . . the remark by a commentor that information about the Kor of Papua New Guinea ”comes from a creationist blog (though they hide it quite well) so we need to take everything on it with a truck load of salt. Creaionists [read Creationists] will fabricate all kinds of rubbish to back up their fairy tales.”

How many ropen expeditions have creationists (by whatever definition of that label) led in Papua New Guinea over the past 17 years! How often has a creationist trudged along a jungle trail, hoping to learn about (or even see) a living pterosaur! Yet when did one of us report observing the clear form of a living pterosaur in Papua New Guinea during those 17 years? Never. We had too little time, too little money, and too few resources to mount any major expedition. The point? If even just one of us had any desire to deceive, how easy it would have been to lie about observing a living pterosaur!

Accusing ones opponents of fabricating “all kinds of rubbish to back up their fairy tales” appears to me to be the worst form of bulverism, for it insinuates that a whole group of investigators lie. Perhaps an evidence against that accusation becomes obvious when the accuser has ample opportunity to give specifics and then gives . . . nothing.

Truly it is sad when blog commenters reject everything from persons they disagree with, then label those with whom they disagree “liar.” What a sad state of human affairs!

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Fossils and Pterosaurs

Much has been written, in blog posts and in direct comments, about this page by Darren Naish: “Pterosaurs alive in, like, the modern day.” I will not give any more attention to his one-sided coverage of the issue, for he is a well-known paleontologist and has received attention enough. Most of his page involves the straw-man argument, for serious researchers use recent eyewitness account-testimony rather than most of the old reports Naish has listed and blasted.

I bring up a point he and other paleontologists have avoided or have been oblivious to: If an absence of pterosaur fossils in certain strata (or apparent absence, depending on origins philosophy) seems to say, “No pterosaurs are expected to be presently living,” what about the absence of fossils of ancestors of pterosaurs? That absence would have to say, “No pterosaur ancestors preceded the pterosaurs that left fossils.” Would Naish deny that there is an apparent lack of fossils of pterosaur ancestors? Compared to how many fossils we have of pterosaurs, how rare the fossil fragments that might have been from a pterosaur ancestor and shows evidence for being so!

I bring up that point because there are serious weaknesses in the idea that fossils can be used as evidence for widespread extinctions of general classes of organisms. Why not choose the less-popular road, and think reasonably and openly about real possibilities, rather than ridicule old reports of living pterosaurs and ignore the recent reports?

One way to support at least one of the investigations is to purchase the non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America. This deserved public attention.

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Two Modern Pterosaurs in State of Washington

The eyewitness described a pair of long-tailed “ropens” in Southwest Washington state, in a rural area that he desires to keep secret. Here is part of his testimony, and more is expected in the upcoming second-edition of the book Live Pterosaurs in America.

I was riding my bike home from a friends house around 5 pm . . . I heard a strange noise . . . looked to my left, and on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird like creatures I could ever imagine! . . . the first thing I noticed was their heads . . . could they be dinasours? . . . They were Huge! There ft wrapped around a 2″x6″ plank . . . they’re heads I would have to say it was maybe 4ft long with the beak.

Additional information is available from a source of whom I have complete confidence (I don’t refer to the eyewitness himself, although he seems OK). What follows, I believe, is a secondary sighting of the same two flying creatures, in the same general area, by the same eyewitness, some time later.

When they took flight they both still kept an eye back onto me. They only flew far enough to where I wouldn’t see them.  They have slow head movements, as if they were rotating there heads with the heads in the downwards position.

Dinosaur bird (by name) or “flying creature”

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