Examine dinosaur, fossil 'evidence' carefully

I have read several articles lately about new dinosaur bones coming to Atlanta’s Fernbank Natural History Museum.  What do you think about these?

Much can and needs to be said about fossils and dinosaur bones.  Almost every day we see something in the news about a new fossil discovery.  These discoveries are usually saturated with evolutionary propaganda.

First of all, it is important to understand that when you see dinosaur skeletons in museums like Fernbank, most of the time they are not the fossilized bones, but castings of what scientists think it looked like.  Most of the time the dinosaur skeletons on exhibit are taken from very few and sometimes just one bone.  Yes, that’s right, an entire skeleton taken from just a few bones.  In fact, there are fewer than 1500 dinosaur skeletons that have ever been found with more than sixty percent of the skeleton. 

The bones you are referring to are those of two new finds in Argentina called Giganotosaurus and Argentiniosaurus.  Giganotosaurus is bound for stardom because he (or she) looks like a T. rex, but bigger.  Therefore, his claim to fame is, according to the museum, “the largest meat-eating dinosaur.”  His arrival in the evolutionary halls of Fernbank is scheduled for June.  He will be sure to be ogled and adored by adults and children of all ages.

The discoveries in South America have been a gold mine for the paleontologists because they think these finds are proof that these dinosaurs lived and hunted in packs.  This “evidence” is critical to their claims (whether true or not) because it means more funding.  Honest science is bending over backwards not to bring in preconceived ideas.  Therefore, the integrity of this “scientific method” is questionable, at best. 

If I’m not mistaken, these bones they found are of  “dead” dinosaurs.  That is, when they discover bones of dinosaurs together does it mean they lived together and hunted in packs together or that they died together?  Drawing such strong conclusions as these is an obvious attempt to promote propaganda, not present unbiased facts.  Notice in the articles about these dinosaurs the conclusive words used like “the fact that” and “now we know” instead of words like “the theory that” or “these may indicate that” or “perhaps”, etc.

How do fossils form?  Simply put, the bones are replaced molecule by molecule with rock minerals.  Does this process take millions of years?  Let’s let paleontologist Philip Currie who is head of the Argentina dig answer this question.  In his book “101 Questions About Dinosaurs” he says “The amount of time that it takes for a bone to become completely permineralized is highly variable.  Modern bones that fall into mineral springs can become permineralized within a matter of weeks.”  (An interesting implication is that a bone laying around for just a hundred years or so would certainly decompose; thus millions of years would actually destroy the bones, not fossilize them.)

A fascinating quote from Currie about how these dinosaurs died was “a flash flood.”  The Argentiniosaurs was about 125 feet long and perhaps 100 tons.  By the way, 100 tons means 200,000 pounds!  I realize Argentina has some terrible flash floods but would this account for fossilizing such a huge animal?  Perhaps, we could understand this if it we took the advise of an even more famous dinosaur, Barney, and just “use our im-a-gin-a-tion.”

Another possible and much better explanation would be a catastrophic event like a worldwide flood.  Why is this option not even considered?  Because such catastrophes do not fit with their preconceived, uniformitarian ideas and their evolutionary presuppositions.

Why are they so sure these were meat-eaters?  Because they had serrated teeth?  A panda has razor-sharp, serrated teeth but it eats bamboo.  Because it had such big teeth?  Big teeth could have been used to eat plants too.  Plant-eating camels, for example, have big teeth in relation to their skull.  The point is, paleontologists do not know what these animals ate.  They draw conclusions based on their starting assumptions.  Their conclusions are only as good as their presuppositions.  The presupposition of evolution does not fit with the God of the Bible.  Thus, their conclusions are bound for mistakes.  If we start with the Bible in every area of thinking we can explain even the facts of dinosaur bones better.  For example, the Bible makes it clear in Genesis 1:29-31 that all animals were originally plant-eaters.  More about this later.

I acknowledge the cynical nature of this response.  I don’t mean to offend, but I am weary of seeing this dogma presented unchallenged and risk-free.  How long is the public expected to pay for and swallow such sophistry?

3/25/00
Page 8

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©Tom Carpenter
Originally published in the Rockdale/Newton Citizen