Institute for Creation Research
by Tim Clarey, Ph.D.
Evolutionists insist that dinosaurs evolved into birds, despite the strong evidence against it.1 One of the portrayed misconceptions concerns the brains of large predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex that have been depicted as similar to the brains of their bird “descendants.” However, CT scans of T. rex skulls give scientists additional details of its brain cavity, demonstrating its large olfactory lobe (for smell) and an overall shape that is much more similar to modern alligators than birds.
Bird brains have a completely different shape from those of dinosaurs and reptiles, with a larger section for processing data. Birds have to do more than sense a food source; they have to be able to discern one food source from another. Alligators merely smell something and snap at it without thinking. Not only is a bird’s brain shaped differently, but pound for pound relative to body weight, the typical bird brain is much larger than a typical reptile brain by nearly an order of magnitude (or ten times).
To examine this issue more closely, I obtained a full-scale model of a T. rex brain cast, called an endocast (Figure 1). The brain cast was eight inches in length. The encephalic volume (brain size) of the adult T. rex was estimated by submerging the cast in water. I determined the volume of water displaced, and therefore the brain volume, to be 158 cc. By comparing this to the expected value for a typical reptile scaled up to the size of a T. rex, I found …Continue Reading.
Learn more about dinosaur fallacies HERE
