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'''Dinosaurs''' were large, reptilian creatures which are extinct. The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i3/dinosaurs.asp Dinosaurs and dragons: stamping on the legends], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>, from the [[Greek]] word δεινόςσαύρα, meaning "terrible lizard".
'''Dinosaurs''' were large, reptilian creatures which are extinct. The word '''dinosaur''' was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i3/dinosaurs.asp Dinosaurs and dragons: stamping on the legends], ''Answers in Genesis''</ref>, from the [[Greek]] word δεινόςσαύρα, meaning "terrible lizard".
==Highlights of the history of dinosaur paleontology==
In the United States during the 1900s, the public imagination was caught by the discoveries of [[Henry Fairfield Osborn]] (1857-1935) and the great competitive dinosaur hunters, [[Edward Drinker Cope]] (1847-1897) and [[Othniel Charles Marsh]] (1831-1899). Exploring in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, they found numerous fossil dinosaurs. Their museums worked out the techniques for mounting and displaying them.
Osborn was a proponent of ''orthogenesis,'' as were many paleontologists up through the middle of the twentieth century. These paleontologists interpreted the fossil record as showing sustained, continuing, unidirectional trends in evolution, which they felt required some kind of driving principle in addition to natural selection. As the author of an encyclopedia article on variation and selection put it in 1911,
:Selection cannot create the materials on which it is supposed to operate... Both sides concur in the position assumed by Darwin, that the word "chance" in such a phrase as "chance variation" does not mean that the occurrences are independent of natural causation and so far undetermined, but covers in the first place our ignorance of the exact causation.... No doubt a large amount of variation is truly indefinite, so that many meaningless or useless variations arise... But there are several directions in which the field of variation appears to be not only limited but defined in a certain direction.... When beetles, or medusae, or cats vary, the range of possible variation is limited and determined by the beetle, medusa or cat constitution, and any possible further differentiation or specialization must be in a sense at least orthogenetic - that is to say, a continuation of the line along which the ancestors of the individual in question have been forced. Darwin himself showed that different species in a genus, or varieties in a species, tended to show parallel variations.<ref>Mitchell, Peter Chalmers (1911), ''Variation and Selection,'' ''Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition,'' volume 27 (TON-VES), p. 906</ref>
[[Roy Chapman Andrews]] (1884–1960), said to be the prototype for the fictional Indiana Jones, is famous for his discovery of fossil dinosaur eggs in Outer Mongolia.
In the 1970, Robert Bakker catalyzed a new era of dinosaur paleontology with evidence that dinosaurs were fully warm-blooded ([[endotherms]]) and fast-moving.<ref>Benton, Michael J. (2000), ''Vertebrate Paleontology'' [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0632056142&id=PQuKO7xqjNQC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217&dq=%22robert+bakker%22&sig=imoHNyurTTCpztNV0Pp2EU7Fj6c p. 217]</ref>
==Creationist Scientists Perspective==
==Creationist Scientists Perspective==