The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible
From EvoWiki
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b18/Crazyharp81602/greatdino.jpg
The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible is a creationist publication that's written by Paul S. Taylor and published by Master Books in 1987 and was rehashed about 2 years later in 1989.
Rebuttal
Young earth charlatans (YEC) have huge problems with dinosaurs and have tried over the years to deal with them in every way they know how. To deal with dinosaurs, they were faced with 3 options,
- Deny their existence and dismiss their fossil remains as carvings of the Devil.
- Acknowledge their existence and accept the scientific fact that dinosaurs lived and died before the dawn of man.
- Lie about them. Say that dinosaurs once lived with man while ignoring the evidence of the opposite.
Unfortunately, many YECs like Paul S. Taylor chose 3 as their option since the late 70s starting with Duane Gish's Dinosaurs those Terrible Lizards (1977) and began actively imposed this heresy upon the lay audience the late 80s and throughout the 90s, while a tad few others chose 1 as their option. Only option 2 gets left out.
If all YECs chose 2 as their option, then they would have been much better off than they are now when it comes to knowing the truth about dinosaurs. Sadly, they will rather lie and deny them in every way and make one idiot book, film with the first one made in 1974 called Dinosaurs -- 4000 years ago! (So entitled despite absence of a mixture of Dinosaurs and man skeletons found in the fossil record and Egypt using dinosaurs to build pyramids found in the historical record.), DVD, video, and other forms of media after another. One of the books they made, which is also the second phony dinosaur book ever made and published by a YE charlatan is entitled The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible (1987, rehashed 1989), written and published by Paul Taylor himself, who operates a Christian fundamentalist organization know as Films for Christ (FFC). He also made a film and a website of the same name; both contains the same trash as seen in the book. The book, just like all YEC books on dinosaurs, denies all aspects on dinosaurs, including the fact that dinosaurs and man have never coexisted at any point in time (except birds). Everything about what the book claims about dinosaurs has NO trace of valid evidence for every claim made in the book.
This book contains outright lies, direct fabrications, distortions, denials, anatomically incorrect drawings and paintings of dinosaurs even possessing wrongful feeding habits in some cases. Lately the book has been revised (Rehashed actually.) and somewhat “updated” with color pictures (?) on every page. (To tell you the truth, I haven't seen the newer rehashed version of the book to know if it has color pictures on every page, yet.) The older one has two pages in color and two pages in gray and white. It doesn't matter. They're both all the same.
Cover Description
On the front cover and the second intro title page of the book, there is a large scene where we see a large bird with pink feathers landing right next to a wrongfully drawn, anotomically incorrect, sickly smiling Brachiosaurus that is incorrectly shown to have a Apatosaurus-like body. Coming into the view on the lower right hand corner of the scene is a head of a billy goat. The lower left hand corner of the cover and the front middle part of the scene, there is a small boy facing the dinosaur and the bird, while on the back cover and the first intro title page of the book, there is an elephant walking into the lake to take a drink. On the lower left hand corner of the scene, there is a Parasaurolophus browsing the treetop branch, while on the bottom foreground shows a Dromiceiomimus foraging around. The upper left hand corner shows a brief review made about the book that boasts that every basic mystery about the dinosaurs easy to solve with God's Word. It won't. Using the Bible to solve scientific mysteries solves nothing. God's Word, the Bible is not intended to be used as any school textbook, including a science book. But YECs don't know better. Instead, they treat the Bible is if it is a science book and falsely claim that the Bible has all the answers to everything there is about dinosaurs, which it doesn't.
Morris' Footnote
On the first page of the book, there is a so-called special note from Henry Morris about this book. On it, it says that this is “a very unique book. Children will find it a fascinating discussion of one of their favorite subjects and parents will appreciate its unusual new insights in the nature of these great animals of the past.” Sure they will, as long as they are totally ignorant and know nothing and know nothing about the real truth behind the book and their minds are far away from scientific reality.
He goes on to say that the record of the dinosaurs is placed quite naturally in the Biblical account of a recent creation and the worldwide Noah's flood (It doesn't!) and is a significant contribution to Biblical apologetics (It's not!). Next, he tells about the author of the book who made a film of the same name as the book and highly recommends this for Christian schools and churches (Not!) and says that every Christian will profit greatly from both the film and the book....or will they! Morris thinks he will be glad to recommend this to the young and old alike as he said in the note, but I would rather have both the book and the film be recommended to the nearest garbage can, burn barrel, and paper recycling center.
Taylor's Intro
At the very beginning on page 9 in the book as well as in the discovery intro page on Paul's site and in the video, we see Paul introducing (sort of) to the "science" of dinosaurs; claiming that evolutionists (which is a ad hoc term creationists often refer the scientists who accepts scientific reality and evolution as.) are making it all up; all their theories are just made-up assumptions that gets changed around from time to time whenever they are proved wrong. Some of the best examples of Paul displaying of ignorance and making slanderous, false, and hypocritical accusations are on following pages as shown down below.
Taylor doesn't know What is a Dinosaur.
On the "What is a Dinosaur?" page, Taylor claims that dinosaurs are often used incorrectly. He also states that scientists and people are clueless to know which animal should be included in that dinosaur term. He quoted Alan Charig (1938-1997) whom Taylor claims to have says in A New Look at the Dinosaurs (1979,1983, British Museum of Natural History) on page 15,
"The 'Dinosauria' have not yet been shown to form a natural group, and it may well be that they never will -- for the simple reason that the natural group in question may not have existed!"
What Taylor claims in the link is all false.
The quote in Alan's book is nothing more than an out-of-text quote Paul took and twisted to fit his beliefs about it. Here is what Alan actually said when the quote is put in full context with the pieces of it in bold,
"There is, as yet, no evidence to suggest that the common archosaurian ansector of the Saurischia and the Ornithischia - the common ancestor of all dinosaurs - was ancestral to dinosaurs only and not also to those other, non-dinosaurian archosaurs. In other words, the 'Dinosauria' have not yet been shown to form a natural group, and it may well be that they never will -- for the simple reason that the natural group in question may not have existed!"
When put in full context, Alan, in the quote, was actually dealing with certain archosaurian ancestors that were common ancestors to only dinosaurs and their relatives and how the evidence of their existence have yet to be found, which is not at all what Paul wrongly assumes what the quote is actually saying in his "What is a Dinosaur?" page.
NO scientist is clueless in knowing what is and what's not a dinosaur. Any scientist knows exactly what a dinosaur really is and which animal should be in the dinosaur's term. Dinosaurs are a race of special reptilian\avian animals that once ruled the earth for millions of years. He gives out some lists of what Taylor himself believes to be what is and what is not a dinosaur according to scientists' “assumptions” and of some certain techincal characteristics the dinosaurs have that are out-dated by many decades in some cases while in others are what Taylor makes up from his head without checking to see if what he claims is correct or not and throws them in for measure.
Taylor's Dinosaur Definition
His so-called technical characteristics of dinosaurs include (with my rebuttals to them in parentheses),
- underslung legs that gave dinosaurs an erect posture. (A fully erect posture mind you.)
- a large hole in the bottom of their basin-shaped hip-socket (A large Hole in the bottom of their basin-shaped hip-socket? What in the world is he talking about? Does Taylor really know that the hips are made up of 3 parts; the pubis, the ilium, and the ischium? Probably not. Perhaps he's referring to the large hole where it's really where the thighbone is connected to. Otherwise, this is something that's entirely made up from Taylor, the man who has no knowlege of dinosaur morphology .).
- a secondary palate (uncharacteristic of reptiles) that permits dinosaurs to eat and breathe at the same time (In ornithopods like Camptosaurus).
- a fairly straight thigh bone with an in-turned head (The thigh bones in many cases are all curved, not straight. This helps dinosaurs like Struthiomimus to run better.).
- two pairs of holes in the temporal region of the skull (diapsid skull).
- backward-pointing knees (or elbows) of the front legs (See below.).
- forward-pointing knees of the rear legs (rather than pointing sideways) (Taylor is, in #6 and #7, comparing the leg arrangements of some quadruped dinosaurs with the arrangemnts of the legs of mammals such as a horse. However, some dinosaurs are bipedal. Their legs and feet in both many quadrupeds and all bipedals all resemble the legs and feet of birds, not mammals.).
- front legs shorter and lighter than the rear legs (in almost every case. The exceptions are the Brachiosaurids, with front legs longer than their hind legs, and the Camerasaurids, with both front and hind legs being of the same length.).
- a special bone (predentary) at the chin that capped the front of the bottom jaw in some dinosaurs (the ornithischians) (They're not the only ones that have a predentary bone in their bottom jaw. Saurodon leanus, a fish that lived during the late Cretaceous Period within the Niobrara Sea (an inland sea that once covered the center of North America during the Cretaceous Period. ) in what is now Kansas, also has a predentary bone in its bottom jaw it probably have used to skim the surface of the water for food.)
- land-dwelling creature, rather than marine or airborne (except birds.).
There is much, much more to the list of dinosaur groups than what is and not shown on Taylor's list.
References:
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/faq/dino-faqs/pdq240.html
Taylor's Classifications
Now the classification page shows a list of classification and taxonomy of the dinosaurs. Simplistic, yet out dated. Taylor claims that evolutionists wrongly assumes that all animals are genetically related to each other. Pure strawman.
Evolutionists assumes none of what Paul claims. Taylor then states that since evolution is "only a theory,” all of the classifications of dinosaurs is just simply guesswork and assumptions all made up and changing constantly to fit the assumptions of the paleontologist. A huge lie! The classification and the taxonomy of dinosaurs is NOT made-up from out of the blue. None of the scientists are making this all up. The classification is all based on fossilized evidence, studies of the evidence, and how scientists are comparing the fossils with each other to learn about how dinosaurs are related to each other and what dinosaur belongs to what species that are known out there. Also evolution is FACT, not just a theory. The theory is also there to explain how evolution works based on mammoth mounds of scientific evidence that YECs continuously and deliberately choose to deny.
References:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://www.dinosauria.com/dml/dmlf.htm
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/
http://www.progressivehumanism.com/undevltn.html
How many Species?
On the species page, we see Taylor's view on how many species of dinosaurs are known (all out-dated by decades) and claims that scientists are confused about which dinosaur must be placed in, which is a blatant lie and gives out a much out-of-date-by-multiple-decades example of his claim. He claims that much of the dinosaurs were based on a few scanty remains, sometimes only a tooth or a vertebra and claims that since excavations of fossils are highly expensive to excavate and collect, so relativity very few remains have been obtained by museums and paleontologists, which is a blatant lie. He totally forgets about the major natural history museums out there that possesses a mass treasure trove of dinosaur fossils either stored in their warehouse of shown on display in their halls for all to see. Like the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for instance, that holds the world's record of possessing a huge treasure trove of dinosaur fossils all unearthed and either stored or on displayed for all to see in that place over the years.
What Taylor neglects to mention in his book that scientists don't find just scrappy pieces such as fossil teeth and vertebra. They also find almost complete to complete skeletons of dinosaurs to the point where museums will have far MORE fossils to obtain and study. Even only just one bone can tell scientists so much about its owner. When scientists studied the fragmentary fossils, they compared them to much more complete to complete fossil remains of dinosaurs to determine which species of dinosaur the bones belong to and work on reconstructing the dinosaurs based on those studies up from there. Thus, scientists don't just reach a conclusion based on a single piece of bone, but a lot of bones from almost complete to fully complete fossil skeletons of dinosaurs that fill the museums time and time again.
Sure it is expensive to excavate fossils. However, The Dinosaur Society, a non-profit organization that uses donations that's given to further dinosaur expeditions and research takes care of the problem involving finances. The number of 500,000 species of dinosaurs according to a much outdated source is a little over exaggerating don't you think? With that number, it would be totally impossible for Noah to fit them all into the ark, if there ever was such a scenario. There are actually about 600 known dinosaur genera that's out there and still growing!
Taylor then claims that the number of species may fluctuate as scientists completed more research and as they find more fossils. Taylor tries to give a few example of how scientists are “fluctuating” the species list by telling about how scientists are “confused” about how to classify and name fossils and shows some examples of their “struggles” of trying to relate certain dinosaurs to other similarities, only to find that these dinosaurs are one and the same. In truth, scientists are not at all confused about it. They are just trying to learn how dinosaurs are related to each other based on studies of fossil evidence. The more they do this through careful studies, the more they learn much about dinosaurs. Because of this, the number of species will continue to increase even more as new exciting discoveries are made in both the laboratories and in the fields. No decreasing or fluctuations here.
Outdated List of dinosaur Names
On the next page here, we see a highly inaccurate list of dinosaur names Paul gives out. Some of them are in the nomen nudum and nomen dubium categories and others are not really dinosaur names at all. Aachenosaurus is actually a piece of petrified wood and Rhamphorynchus is a pterosaur, not a dinosaur. The rest are all valid names. To really know the real updated classification and the taxonomy of dinosaur check out these sites.
http://www.zoomschool.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinoclassification/Genera.shtml
Fossil Fallacy
On the fossil page and on page 10-11 in the book, we are asked the question "Why is so little known about dinosaurs?" Taylor tries to explain that the reason of this is because we only have bones and footprints that are left behind by the dinosaurs to tell us. Then he goes on to explain what a fossil is, which is something like a plant and animal or an imprint of it that was buried in mud or sand that has turned to rock. He then explains that after thousands of years, they will then be found buried in many layers of earth. Obviously, Paul no doubt knows zilch about how fossils are formed. Fossils are actually remains of plants and animals that have been preserved for MILLIONS, not thousands of years. The next page here gives a list of what kinds of fossils are there, However, there is more to the fossils than what is on the list. We now have feather imprints added to the list and in extremely rare cases, imprints of body organs like in Scipionyx for instance.
Fresh Fossil Fallacy
Taylor also claims that not every dinosaur bone are all fossils. There are "fresh,” “frozen,” and “unfossilized” dinosaur bones found in Alaska according to Buddy Davis, a sculptor and a musician...or so it is claimed in this article. Buddy Davis, a musician and sculpture artisan, claims he allegedly found “frozen,” “fresh," “unfossilized” dinosaur bones with ligaments still attach to them in Alaska. The claim is nothing but a fraud. He must have mistaken the remains of ice age mammals, bison, or caribou as dinosaurs since the so-called fossils were found to have ligaments still attached to them like I said before. Davis says that they were found in the very top layer of where he dug the fossils at. He also claims to have found a jawbone of crested hadrosaur called Lambeosaurus, a plant-eating hadrosaurid dinosaur whose remains have been found in Alberta (Canada), Montana (USA), and Baja California (Mexico), but not in Alaska despite what Davis claims to have seen.
He never demonstrated his claim and nor did he have any actual and or valid photographs taken of the fossils (His online version of his book right here.). According to the Talk Origins Nov, 2001 feedback page, he actually saw a piece of rotting driftwood he mistaken as a hadrosaur jawbone. If he really did found the fossils of hadrosaurs, he would have found them at the Liscomb formation in Alaska. This is where all the bones recovered from the site are highly mineralized and discolored by iron oxide with light and dark differences between the fossils, which means the fossils found over there were all fossilized all along. Chances are, the alleged fossil of Lambeosaurus will be fossilized too if the jawbone fossil is really what Davis claims to be.
NOT one of these so-called "fresh" fossils has ever been published in peer-review journals, validly photographed, and fully described on paper. Obviously Buddy and his comrades when inquired about it, refused to publish them all in papers and in peer science journals. It is much likely that the story told by Davis is all a publicity stunt to fool the gullible and to vainly defend the falsehood of YECism. If those alleged 'fossils' were real and authentic, scientists would be more than excited to behold the evidence first hand and publish them on papers and scientific journals. But since they are not, then they are nothing more than either phony bones made up by Davis himself back in his own studio, ice age mammal remains, or bison and caribou that have recently died.
Scientific Mistakes
On pages 12-13, and on this page here, he goes on to explain how scientists make mistakes by using an Apatosaurus story as an example. Sure, they make mistakes like Paul says. But, once the mistake is known, scientists quickly corrects them and makes sure that the mistake is not repeated again; unlike YECs who live in denial and hide their mistakes from the public view. It doesn't matter if it is exposed. They just cover them up and stupidly repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Interpreting Fossils
Then, on pages 14-15 as well as on this page, he goes to explain how it is difficult to interpret fossils. That really all depends on fossil preservation and whether the fossil is fragmentary, partially complete or fully complete. Scientists may sometimes interpret the fossils, skeletal reconstructions, and the restorations wrong, but creationists have been known to interpret them wrong too. Taylor claims that the images of dinosaurs; how they look and behave; the grand stories that scientists tell about them was all the result of guesswork; the imaginations of all those who never saw a living dinosaur, which is half-true. Although in some cases the images and the stories made of dinosaurs are highly conjectural (like what is depicted in Walking with Dinosaurs), the so-called grand-stories of dinosaurs are still the result of finding clues in the fossil reocrd that scientists unearthed, piece together, and finally come up with a full reasonable explaination based on what they found. We many never know everything about dinosaurs. Skin color and voice larynx is among the dinosaurs' features that never fossilize. Even so, we do know much about them. He then states that no one today has ever saw a living dinosaur. Neither did humans of ancient and prehistoric times. Except birds, the last dinosaur died out 60 million years before the first humans came about 4 million years ago.
Paul also claims that no one also has ever found a fossil of a dinosaur with photographs and labels showing what the dinosaur is like, which is a stupid claim. Dinosaur fossils have, in some cases, radioisotopes, not labels like store price tags, paintings, and photographs to help us figure out what were they really like and when did they lived. He even states that every dinosaur painting is sure to contain some wrongful information (So do all the dinosaur paintings made up by YECs themselves. Only the difference is that the information YECs put into all of their paintings is completely ALL wrong and none right!) and gives a unmerited example of an imaginative examination of finding remains of a poodle and a peacock that has been unearthed if, at the time, no one has ever saw those 2 animals alive. The bones, he claims, do not tell the whole story. He states that even if you are a good artist, it will be a miracle if you can draw an accurate picture of the 2 animals just by using just the 2 skeletons and your imagination.
Paul is saying all of this as if to say that all scientists are wrong in everything they say and depicted in paintings about dinosaurs, which is not so. Scientists have been known to be right in a lot of ways, even in their paintings, including the fact that some dinosaurs have feathers despite YECs' vainly attempts to discredit them. He then claims that if scientists are able to invent a time machine, they could go back in time and observe the dinosaurs and know really what they are like and be surprised by what they saw. We would be surprised if we have a time machine to take us back to the time of the dinosaurs, but unfortunately we don't. Even if we do, we won't be surprised at the fact the evidence clearly tells us that the universe is 4.5 billion years old, not 6,000 and dinosaurs lived, flourished, and died millions of years ago long before there were any people on earth.
References,
http://www.fieldadventures.org/alaska/colville1.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov01.html
http://www.vertpaleo.org/education/faqs.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/index.html
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/isgshome/iso-geochem.html
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/isotope/isotopehome.html
Contridicting Bible Verses
On page 16 and on this page, the question is asked, 'Where do dinosaurs come from?' To answer this, Taylor invokes the Bible and claims that there are Dinosaurs found in the Bible (other than birds) and that dinosaurs were created alongside of man, which is both a blatant lie. He lies even more by claiming they were made from the dust of the earth like man as told in Genesis 2;19. Thus, man and dinosaurs lived at the same time, which is pure falsehood.
