Did the Tiny Arms of Certain Theropods like T. rex Evolve Five Separate Times?

According to this new study,

Smaller arms were closely linked to the development of large, powerful skulls and jaws, more so than to larger overall body size, indicating that tiny arms were not just a by-product of bodies getting bigger.

These researchers claim that theropods started hunting bigger prey like sauropods (“long-neck” dinosaurs) and this “may have resulted in a shift to hunting using jaws and head instead of claws.”

The head took over from the arms as the method of attack. It’s a case of “use it or lose it” – the arms are no longer useful and reduce in size over time. . . . These adaptations often occurred in areas with gigantic prey. Trying to pull and grab at a 100ft-long sauropod with your claws is not ideal. Attacking and holding on with the jaws might have been more effective.

While our study identifies correlations and so cannot establish cause and effect, it is highly likely that strongly built skulls came before shorter forelimbs. It would not make evolutionary sense for it to occur the other way round, and for these predators to give up their attack mechanism without having a backup.

It’s a good thing evolution had the foresight to give these theropods big heads and massive jaws before it shrank the arms, isn’t it?

What’s even more amazing, from an evolutionary starting point, is that the blind, random process of evolution had this kind of foresight at least five times! Yes, these researchers believe the heads grew and the forelimbs shrank “across five groups” and that it likely didn’t happen the same way every time: “The team concluded that the same outcome (tiny forelimbs) was likely achieved through potentially different developmental pathways in different species.”

This idea of a particular feature evolving multiple times in different species is a frequent theme:

• Anteaters supposedly evolved 12 times.
• Powered flight has supposedly evolved four times in what evolutionists consider very distantly related groups (birds, mammals, insects, and pterosaurs).
• The body plan of a crab has supposedly evolved five times.
• Venom has supposedly evolved over one hundred times.1
• A specific kind of photosynthesis (C4) has supposedly evolved 60 times.2

And the list goes on with the eye, echolocation, and so much more.

Yes, evolutionists really have to believe that something as complex as specialized photosynthesis evolved to work properly 60 times! It certainly takes a lot of faith—blind faith—to be an evolutionist!

It certainly takes a lot of faith—blind faith—to be an evolutionist!

Various theropods didn’t independently stumble upon big heads and tiny arms five times. These kinds were created by God with the information for big heads and small arms, perhaps for taking down large prey in a fallen world, like these researchers suggest. (But keep in mind that just because things are found buried together doesn’t mean they lived together—it just tells us they were buried together, so we don’t even know for sure that theropods and sauropods were living in the same environments.) Or perhaps those little forelimbs were for something entirely different that we don’t know about yet.

So while we don’t yet know for sure what T. rex’s arms were for (we’ve never seen a live one behave), I guarantee when we find the answer . . . the answer will start in Genesis!

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.