But ChatGPT says this
Short answer: no, it isn’t accurate, at least not in the way the phrase is usually understood.
Here’s the careful breakdown.
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What is accurate
• Birds are dinosaurs.
In modern cladistics, birds (Aves) are nested within Theropoda, which is within Dinosauria. That makes birds avian dinosaurs, and dinosaurs as a broader group are not fully extinct.
That part is solid and widely accepted.
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What is not accurate
• “Non-avian dinosaurs exist today” is false by definition.
“Non-avian dinosaurs” is a term created specifically to refer to dinosaurs that are not birds—i.e., Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, etc. That group went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous (~66 million years ago).
If a dinosaur lineage survived into the present, it is, by definition, avian.
So saying “non-avian dinosaurs exist today” is like saying “bachelors who are married exist today.” It collapses its own categories.
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Where the confusion comes from
This claim usually arises from one of three things:
1. Rhetorical oversimplification
People mean:
“Dinosaurs didn’t all go extinct; birds are their descendants.”
But they phrase it sloppily.
2. Equivocation on ‘dinosaur’
Some people shift between:
• Phylogenetic meaning (birds are dinosaurs)
• Colloquial meaning (dinosaurs = big extinct reptiles)
Switching meanings mid-sentence creates the illusion of a paradox.
3. Anti-creationist or pop-science rhetoric
The phrase is sometimes used as a “gotcha” to sound counterintuitive or clever, rather than precise.
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The precise, correct way to say it
Any of these are accurate:
• “Dinosaurs are not entirely extinct; birds are living dinosaurs.”
• “All living dinosaurs are birds.”
• “Non-avian dinosaurs are extinct; avian dinosaurs survived.”
And this is not accurate:
• “Non-avian dinosaurs exist today.”
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Bottom line
You’re right to be skeptical. The statement is technically incorrect, even though it’s often gesturing toward a real scientific insight. Precision matters here, and the common phrasing fails that test.
This is the least accurate bot I've ever used!!!