Interpreting Dinosaur News
Editor's Note: The following piece used by permission of Chris Truelsen of TheMuseAndTheScribe. Truelsen is an occasional guest contributor to this blog and a regular contributor to the news and information website, MyVoiceNews.com.
A recent Fox News internet article put out by the Associated Press1 details what has been learned recently about a mummified, duckbilled hadrosaur. The find is actually from 1999, but National Geographic has been putting together a special on this particular hadrosaur which will air Dec. 9 on the National Geographic channel. One learns from the article that this is not a “mummy” as in the way we think of King Tut, but that the dinosaur’s soft tissues have been fossilized.
Along with the article was a beautiful artistic rendering of the hadrosaur. Artists do a lot to flesh out our pictures of what dinosaurs must have been like often based on a lot of assumptions. The most common experience is that skeletons are quite incomplete; either because that is all that can be found in a particular vicinity, or all that is actually preserved. In some cases, artists draw a complete rendering of a creature from just a few bones, which can be misleading. There are many things we still don’t know about the dinosaurs. For example, there has been argument for years over whether these creatures were warm-blooded or cold-blooded. We definitely don’t know what their skin color would have been either. Therefore, often, we get ahead of ourselves and think that we know more than we really do about them.
However, this mummified hadrosaur is one of the most complete ever, and so should give us a more fully developed picture of these creatures. Due to our knowledge gap of these animals, there are plenty of things to be learned. What has been determined from the mummified dinosaur we speak of, here, is that hadrosaurs had a great deal more muscle mass than previously thought, allowing them to move quickly to escape predators. Another helpful feature of this fossil is that the texture of the skin tissue was preserved.
Much science-especially the field of paleontology-these days is ruled by the evolutionary paradigm, which according to that story of things requires life to have “evolved” millions of years ago.2 Because evolutionary and geological processes are supposed to be mind-numbingly slow, the article begins by arousing our curiosity with a phrase telling how this “new” dinosaur is “revealing secrets locked away for millions of years.” This cue is to get us thinking that this dinosaur was preserved millions of years ago. Because scientists say that preserved dinosaurs are millions of years old, we should believe them right? At another point in the article it is pointed out that DNA is unlikely to be recovered from this find, because it is millions of years old, and the DNA would break down before then. The big assumption here that is taken for granted is that the dinosaur is obviously “millions of years old.” According to the evolutionary story, we have to believe that dinosaurs are millions of years old.
If DNA actually was recovered (not that it will be) that would be a problem for conventional science. Either the dinosaur would not be millions of years old, which is a possibility that conventional science automatically has to throw out, because it doesn’t fit with the “prevailing” view, or the object is “contaminated” with DNA. Assumptions can cloud our ability to see the truth. In the history of science, at one point, fossilized dinosaurs were thought to be preserved from Noah’s Flood, which happened only a few thousand years ago, not millions of years ago, as is assumed.
I used to believe what I learned in the textbooks, reading the phrase “millions of years ago” hundreds of times. I also believed what the Scriptures said about particular historical events. Many try to reconcile the two worldviews, but one eventually learns that the two are incompatible. Many turn to the story of conventional science, because in our times, it is the most widely-promoted view. Real science doesn’t accept the words “because I said so.” Neither should we accept the term “millions of years” because “scientists” say it and accept it. The idea of “millions of years” is an assumption. True science is compatible with a Christian worldview, and is willing to test even the prevailing evolutionary views which are taken for granted, but are far from infallible.
When I learned that the evolutionary story of things and the scriptural story of things were incompatible, I asked questions of both views, and determined that though the evolutionary view is popular, it is more a kind of faith than it is true empirical science (and you may be surprised to find that science is really a kind of philosophy). Evolution is not a scientifically verifiable truth, and yet the view is a crutch for evolutionists who can come up with no better explanation for the reality we are confronted with.
For years, especially when I was a child, it was explained that “no one knows” what killed the dinosaurs. Probably the most popular contemporary theory for the destruction of the dinosaurs is that a cataclysmic meteor strike was responsible. There is another story that could provide an explanation of what happened to most of the dinosaurs.
One finds that the story of Noah’s Flood fits nicely with what is found in the fossil record, if one is willing to take a second look at the evidence. When examining the evidence, one also learns that it does not take millions of years to form things like canyons, fossils, or particular geological phenomena. IT ONLY TAKES THE RIGHT CONDITIONS. This is a very important point. If the right conditions are not present, even millions of years cannot preserve a fossil. In fact, “millions of years” are MORE likely to destroy evidence of fossils than to preserve them.
When I studied the evidence, I came to the conclusion that the earth is young, rather than millions or billions of years old as the evolutionary/uniformitarian paradigm requires. All of a sudden, I realized that geological history is compressed. After coming to that conclusion I was actually a tad disappointed, because it seemed such a model left fewer mysteries to be solved. But in retrospect, my disappointment has turned to excitement. I have found these conclusions have made learning about life’s history much more colorful and fascinating, than the humdrum, mundane story of Evolution. Are you willing to take a second look at your assumptions? Faith is a matter of understanding where one stands and why one stands that way.
One doesn’t have to discard science to be a Christian. If anything, one’s Christian faith prompts one to more carefully seek out the truth. Science is by no means a cut-and-dry discipline; there are many more exciting mysteries yet to be solved. It’s just that we must be aware that our assumptions will always color how we attempt to solve a problem; that goes for everyone, evolutionists and young-earth creationists alike. –Rev. Chris Truelsen of themuseandthescribe.com
- “Spectacular Mummified Dinosaur Found in
North Dakota .” Released by the Associated Press, Mon. Dec. 3, 2007, on FoxNews.com.
Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314606,00.html
The title of the article is a bit misleading, because one might think the dinosaur was just found, as opposed to its discovery being in 1999.
- Science is incredibly useful in daily life, and though we shouldn’t throw out the baby with bathwater (in this case we’ll call the baby “reason”) we shouldn’t be so hasty to accept what is called science as the end all be all of our understanding of the nature of the world around us. We should be aware that science is always a kind of philosophy and as such is open to investigation and interpretation, and coming from fallible human reason always leaves the possibility that it can be found to be in error. In this case, we are clued in to the nature of science as a kind of philosophy in the name “paleontology.” “Ontology” in philosophy deals with the nature of “being.” The prefix “paleo-” deals with that which is ancient or prehistoric.
God has given us our reason and does want us to use it; we should just be aware that phenomena around us may be open to more than one interpretation; in fact, it may be open to many interpretations. It’s a matter of choosing the BEST interpretation of the phenomena at hand.
“One doesn’t have to discard science to be a Christian. If anything, one’s Christian faith prompts one to more carefully seek out the truth.” — Well said. They NEVER C-14 test dinosour bones, either. Not that C-14 is as accurate as some believe, but even the smallest measurable amount would put the age in thousands rather than millions of years.