Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were large, reptilian creatures which are extinct. The word dinosaur was coined in 1841 by Richard Owen, 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.

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.

Creationist Scientists Perspective

Creationist scientists believe that dinosaurs and man coexisted which they claim is based on a number of pieces of evidence. They reject the evolutionary view that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago.

They also reject the "Great Impact Theory" that a meteor struck the earth and caused climatic changes which caused the extinction of dinosaurs and claim there are multiple problems evidentially with this theory.

Creationist scientists also contend that birds being descendants of dinosaurs is unreasonable and is also not scientifically supported with any evidence.

Creationist scientists Dr. Jonathon Safarti wrote regarding dinosaurs being descendants of birds:

The same logic applies to the dinosaur-bird debate. It is perfectly in order for creationists to cite Feduccia’s devastating criticism against the idea that birds evolved ‘ground up’ from running dinosaurs (the cursorial theory). But the dino-to-bird advocates counter with equally powerful arguments against Feduccia’s ‘trees-down’ (arboreal) theory. The evidence indicates that the critics are both right — birds did not evolve either from running dinos or from tree-living mini-crocodiles. In fact, birds did not evolve from non-birds at all!

Creationists also cite the evolutionist Ernst Mayr who in 1942 stated the following:

“It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one’s credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird’s feather) could be improved by random mutations."

Creationist scientists also cite the March 2003 issue of Scientific American which stated:

"Of all the body coverings nature has designed, feathers are the most various and the most mysterious...The origin of feathers is a specific instance of the much more general question of the origin of evolutionary novelties--structures that have no clear antecedents in ancestral animals and no clear related structures (homologues) in contemporary relatives. Although evolutionary theory provides a robust explanation for the appearance of minor variations in the size and shape of creatures and their component parts, it does not yet give as much guidance for understanding the emergence of entirely new structures, including digits, limbs, eyes and feathers...."

Creationist scientists also assert that the comparative anatomy analysis done by evolutionists comparing bird bones and dinosaur bones is flawed.

Creationists assert that evolutionists are frequently coming out with a "New Theory of Dinosaur Extinction" theories and that their theories are laden with false assumptions. It is worth noting, however, that more and more of these theories are being harmonized with one another.

Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisting

According to creationists, there are a number of lines of evidence that point to dinosaurs and man coexisting. For example, explorers have reported seeing a live dinosaur. A thousand people reported seeing a dinosaur-like monster in two sightings around Sayram Lake in Xinjiang according to the Chinese publication, China Today. An expedition which included Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology with the United States National Museum, examined an ancient pictograph which is claimed to portray dinosaurs and man coexisting.. The World Book Encyclopedia states that: "The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles [dinosaurs] which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology." The Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, a second century piece of art, is said to appear to be a piece of artwork that shows a dinosaur and man coexisting. Creationist scientist also see the recent dinosaur soft tissue find as a strong rebuttal of the claim that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

Among those who believe in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, one popular theory is that it is a living plesiosaur.

An alternate theory for the inclusion of dinosaurs within many cultures is the existence of fossils. Ancient people, unaware that the ancient fossils uncovered by erosion were of extinct animals, attributed the bones to living, magical creatures. This would explain the importance of dragons in Chinese culture - there are a large number of dinosaur (as well as non-dinosaur) fossils to be found in China .

Dinosaurs and Creationism

Some Christians reject the Theory of Evolution and the current science community consensus of the age of the earth. Of those Christians who reject evolution, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical sources, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week as a final addendum to the wonders God created, approximately 6,000 years ago; that they lived in the Garden of Eden in harmony with other animals, eating only plants; that pairs of various dinosaurs were taken onto Noah's Ark during the Great Flood and were preserved from drowning; that fossilized dinosaur bones originated during the mass killing of the Flood; and that some descendants of those dinosaurs taken aboard the Ark still roam the earth today.

Because the term only came into use in the 19th century, the Bible obviously does not use the word "dinosaur." However, they are alleged to be mentioned in numerous places throughout the biblical account. For example, the behemoth in Job and the leviathan in Isaiah are sometimes said to be references to dinosaurs, , although some reject this view, saying that behemoth was a hippopotamus and leviathan was a crocodile. There is a problem with this view, however, such as the fact that a hippo doesn't have a "tail like a cedar" and a crocodile does not accurately match the description of leviathan.

Evolutionary Scientists Perspective

According to evolution science interpretations of fossil records, dinosaurs existed on earth from 230 million years ago to 65 million years ago. The entire population of dinosaurs were supposedly wiped out by a mass extinction event (usually thought to be an asteroid) about 65 million years ago. Young earth creationists hotly contest this view, because it contradicts the creation story in Genesis.

Extinction

According to evolutionary scientists, close to 65 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, and the beginning of what is called the Tertiary period, an event occurred which has come to be known as the K-T Event. These scientists claim this event obliterated most life on Earth, plunging the world into something that would now be likened to global nuclear winter, through which few extant species could survive. Although scientists dispute the nature of the K-T Event (selecting among any number of catastrophes that could have caused the significant global cooling that resulted), most find that the claimed K-T Event was caused by the collision of a massive asteroid with the Earth, the dust and debris from which shrouded the sky for thousands of years, cooling Earth considerably. According to evolutionary scientists, the dinosaurs did not survive this cataclysm. Evolutionary scientists claim that evidence of the dust that caused this long winter is still visible, though, as a line of metal of extraterrestrial origin is often visible in sediment worldwide, occurring as a result of the vaporization and then fall of dust from the meteorite's impact, and its compression within the subsequent geological record. The crater is also visible.

Cambrian Life Explosion

According to evolutionary scientists, the extinction of the dinosaurs removed a major food competitor, and predator, of smaller animals. These scientists claim that as a result of a new "vacancy" in the food chain, following the K-T Event, vast speciation occurred, as the evolutionary pressure of a new cold age propelled animal species to adapt or die out. According to these scientists, what we now know as mammals were some of the main beneficiaries of this explosion: their fur allowed them to adapt to the cold, and their small size allowed them to conserve energy relative to the huge dinosaurs of the previous age.

Dinosaurs and Birds

As a number of feathered dinosaur fossils have been discovered, and evolutionary scientists claim the similarity in the bone structure between birds and dinosaurs show that modern birds are a descendants of dinosaurs. This is often cited as an example of macroevolution.

Dinosaur Speciation

Dinosaur species were immensely varied, from herbivores to carnivores. Although many have been found in the fossil record, paleontologists expect that they have barely scratched the surface of the vast genus that the dinosaurs encompassed.