The Adventure Link
DinoMite!
Will the Real Dinosaur Please Stand Up!
How many different dinosaurs were there? Evolutionary books on dinosaurs give the idea there were hundreds of different kinds of dinosaurs. However, when one makes a careful investigation, he finds there are far fewer dinosaurs than we have been led to believe.
Many of the so-called dinosaurs may never have existed; they have been re-created from only a tooth or other small fragment. For example,
• Arctosaurus is known from only one vertebra.
• Colonosaurus is known only from a jaw which could be from a bird or sea lizard.
• Diplotornodon is known only from one tooth.
• Paronychodon was named from a single tooth found in Montana.
• Chienkosaurus is known from just four teeth. Some experts think they came from a prehistoric crocodile.
• Embasaurus is known only from a few pieces of bone.
• Macrodontophion is known from just one round-topped tooth.
• Supersaurus is possibly a diplodocid.
• Dystrophaeus is known only from pieces of bone from an arm, hip, or shoulder. It was a big dinosaur, possibly the same kind as another already named.
• Aepisaurus is from one arm bone found in France.
It seems today, whenever some bone fragments are found in rock, someone names a new dinosaur! Some complete skeletons of dinosaurs and some large deposits of dinosaur bones have been uncovered, but there are far fewer dinosaurs than we have been led to believe. Dinosaurs designated as different types in many instances may just be variations within a “kind”—such as those we see within the dog “kind.”
Were Some Warm-Blooded?
The theory that some dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded has been around for some years. Though there is a great deal of convincing evidence to support it, it is not generally accepted. Why not? Because it destroys the evolutionary myth of “the age of the reptiles,” which does not allow for mammals to have yet evolved.
Mammals are considered to be much more intelligent than the dinosaurs were, and supposedly, at the time of the dinosaurs, intelligence had not yet evolved to the level of the mammals.
Warm-bloodedness is normally associated with mammals and birds, so a warm-blooded reptile seems to be a contradiction in terms. Since birds and mammals are more advanced forms of life than dinosaurs according to evolutionists, for them to admit the great flying reptiles such as the pterosaurs, and possibly other creatures from the time of the dinosaurs, may have been mammals is to do away with the age of reptiles they have proclaimed as fact. Pterosaurses have been found with imprints of fur, and fur or hair is a distinguishing mark of mammals.
You may remember that Michael Chrichton in his Jurassic Park stories suggested as much under the guise of a “theory.” It helped to drive his story lines and of course as is often the case in his books, he draws upon some new thought or discovery as a center piece of the story line.
If in reality birds, reptiles and mammals were all present at the same time, this is excellent scientific evidence in favor of creationism: all the birds, reptiles, mammals and other kinds of creatures were created all at once. Now you can imagine how this might send a critic of creation science into the vapors!
Scientists no longer believe dinosaurs were merely overgrown lizards. Paleontologists (a scientist who studies extinct forms of life through fossils) now believe they were special animals and cannot be stereotyped according to reptiles, birds, or mammals. They were probably much faster, smarter and caring than has been previously thought. Dinosaurs were unique, and must be viewed as such.
Dinosaur Herds.
A remarkable “bone bed” measuring two-and-a-half miles long and a quarter-mile wide has been discovered containing an estimated 53 million dinosaur bones, all broken and jumbled together, (Modern Maturity, “Dinosaur Dynasty,” Oct. Nov. 1986). This evidence suggests there was a time when dinosaurs existed en masse—like the present-day great herds of animals in Africa which can be observed by the tens of thousands.
At one time, dinosaur herds were as common as the herds of the American Bison when they roamed the midwest by the millions. One remarkable fossil of a herd find stretched 2½ miles long and ¼ of a mile wide.
As you can see after only two editions of the A-Link series there is much more than meets the eye in this study of dinosaurs and how they fit into the Bible and God’s creation. So we will continue again..next time…
Our Jurassic Adventure continues…..
