What do we know about DINOSAURS?

1. What do we know about DINOSAURS? How long ago did they live? What were they? Where did they come from ? How did they die? Are any still alive today?

2. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO “KNOW” SOMETHING? 1. Personal Experience through the five senses. I know a bee sting hurts; I know how to ride a bike. 2. Reliance on Authority. I know the sun is 93 million miles away; Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. 3. Logic. I know 2 million + 2 million = 4 million, even though I’ve never counted that high. I know I have a brain, even though I’ve never seen it. 4. Feeling or Intuition. I know she’s the one for me; I know God has called me to the ministry. 6. Bluffing (lying) - you try to persuade others for an ulterior motive. You should buy these tickets from me because I know this team is going to the Super Bowl this year; I know this car will give you years of faithful service! 5. Wishful Thinking (you really want it to be true) I just know I’m going to win the lottery!

3. THE PREHISTORIC PAST: 1. No living person haspersonal experience. 2. There are no eyewitness accounts except theBible, which is unacceptable to skeptics. SO HOW DO WE “KNOW” ABOUT THE BEGINNING? ThroughLOGIC ONLY.

4. Both sides look at the same fossil evidence… - We just interpret it differently.

5. MEANING OF THE ROCK STRATA In general, the earth’s rock layers contain fossils that seem to increase in complexity from bottom to top. However, there are hundreds of exceptions where individual fossils or entire strata are in the wrong order. CREATION SAYS: Suites of fossils represent ecological communities which fit their environment. Those near the bottom of the ocean have shapes appropriate to their habitat and only appear simpler. Misplaced fossils and strata are probably the result of hydraulic flood action moving them out of their normal habitat, or deformation while the sediment was still soft. EVOLUTION SAYS: Suites of fossils represent time periods. Those near the bottom look simpler because they evolved first and are simpler. Misplaced fossils and strata are the result of geologic processes such as faulting and overthrusting, millions of years after the rocks had fully hardened.

6. Ecological Communities Around the World Animals and plants live in interdependent communities, or biomes. These vary with climate, elevation above or below sea level, etc. Shown are two of the ecosystems found in Colorado. The same is true worldwide. (Denver Museum of Natural History – photos by the author)

7. Factors Determining the Success of a Biome In order for a community of animals and plants to survive and thrive, they must fit with their environment. For example, factors determining success on land include: 1. Elevation above or below sea level 2. Average temperature 3. Extremes of temperature 4. Amount and timing of rainfall (e.g., monsoon seasons) 5. Amount of sunlight 6. Wind patterns 7. Natural disasters and so on. Because of all the possible combinations, there are dozens of distinct biomes in the modern world.

8. Where are Dinosaurs on the Geologic Time Scale? ERA PERIOD EPOCH Approx. Beginning (Years Ago) Cenozoic Quaternary Holocene (Recent) 10,000 Pleistocene 1.8 million Tertiary Pliocene 5.3 million Miocene 23.8 million Oligocene 33.7 million Eocene 54.8 million Paleocene 65 million Mesozoic Cretaceous (3 divisions) 144 million Jurassic (3 divisions) 206 million Triassic(upper only) 248 million Paleozoic Permian 290 million Pennsylvanian 323 million } CARBON- Mississippian 354 million } IFEROUS Devonian 417 million Silurian 443 million Ordovician 490 million Cambrian 543 million Archaeozoic Precambrian 4.5 billion (incl. Ediacaran or Vendian, 650 million) Source: Univ. of Calif. Museum of Paleontology

9. IN WHICH LAYERS ARE DINOSAURS FOUND? Most strata are subdivided into lower, middle, and upper. • The lowest layer containing dinosaurs is the Upper Triassic. • There are also distinct dinosaur suites in Lower, Middle, and Upper Jurassic. • The majority of dinosaur types occur in Lower, Middle, and Upper Cretaceous. There is occasional overlapping where a type occurs in two or three adjacent layers, but the broad pattern seems to be that dinosaurs lived in seven distinct ecological communities.

10. WHAT WERE DINOSAURS? Scientists classify animals and plants according to the system shown below. While there are differences between types of reptiles, their bones are easy to identify as reptilian because all of them have asimilar jaw structure. The Biological Classification System Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species Reptiles belong to Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata (Subphylum Vertebrata), and Class Reptilia. Dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles comprised several orders, as shown on the next page.

11. One of many ways to divide CLASS REPTILIA (Peter Uetz, 2002) SUBCLASS: ORDERS CONTAINED: ANAPSIDA LEPIDOSAURIA ARCHOSAURIA PARAPSIDA * ARAEOSCELIDA * EURYAPSIDA * SYNAPSIDA * Cotylosauria * - “stem reptiles” Chelonia or Testudinata - turtles Eosuchia * - obscure Permian reptiles, seemingly aquatic Rhynchocephalia – sphenodons (New Zealand lizards) Squamata – modern lizards/snakes, some extinct marine forms Thecodontia * - supposed ancestors of dinos & birds Crocodilia – crocs & gators Saurischia * - dinos w/ lizard-type pelvis Ornithischia * - dinos w/ bird-type pelvis Pterosauria * - flying reptiles Ichthyosauria * - fishlike marine reptiles Trilophosauria * - lizard-like Triassic reptiles Weigeltisauria * - obscure Protorosauria * - obscure lizard-like Permian reptiles Sauropterygia * - marine reptiles w/ paddle-like limbs (plesiosaurs) Pelycosauria * - “mammal-like” reptiles Therapsida * - “advanced” reptiles Mesosauria * - Permian reptile, thought to be aquatic * Forms believed to be extinct

12. LIVING Reptiles Have Certain Features in Common: 1. Jaw structure. 2. Scales. 3. Cold-blooded (match the temperature of their surroundings). 4. Babies are hatched/born as miniature versions of adults. They can immediately start to eat what adults do. 5. Reptiles grow as long as they live, as long as they can move around to get enough food. Also, most reptiles lay eggs, though one ichthyosaur fossil was preserved in the act of giving live birth. Denver Museum of Nat. Hist.

13. A Major Difference Between Living and Extinct Reptiles: In living reptiles (except snakes), the legs are positioned to the side of the body so that the animal rests on its stomach when not moving. This limits the maximum size, because eventually the animal would become too big to move. Dinosaurs and “mammal-like” reptiles had legs directly under the body. This meant they could grow to enormous sizes. Bradysaurus – Permian “mammal-like” reptile Stegosaurus Edmontosaurus T. rex Photos by the author

14. “Mammal-Like Reptiles” Since mammals are considered to be more advanced than any reptiles, those reptiles most similar to them (the mammal-like reptiles) should be the most highly evolved. We would expect to find them in “more recent” rock layers than the more primitive dinosaurs. However, mammal-like reptiles are first found in lower strata than dinosaurs. They are far out of the sequence evolution leads us to expect. Diictodon – Permian (photo by author) Bradysaurus – Permian (by WIKIMEDIA user Baini) Sinokannemeyeria - lower Triassic (WIKIMEDIA)

15. FLYING REPTILES Flying reptiles were not dinosaurs, though they are supposed to have died out at the same time. The first ones appear in the fossil record suddenly and fully formed, with no known ancestry. Flying reptiles belonged to Order Pterosauria, which is divided into two suborders. Pterodactyloids (12 known fami-lies, Jurassic and Creta-ceous), sup-posed to be descendants of rhamphorynch-oids, had short tails. Rhampho-rynchoids (four known families, found in Triassic and Jurassic rocks) had long tails. Image from Wiki- pedia Commons Denver Museum

16. MARINE REPTILES Marine reptiles were also not dinosaurs. They, too, appear in the fossil record suddenly and fully formed, with no known ancestry. Order Saurop- terygia / Plesio- sauria (Jurassic & Cretaceous) had fat bodies, short tails, and paddle-shaped limbs – like the way we imagine the Loch Ness Monster. Order Ichthyosauria (Triassic through Cretaceous) included very fishlike forms. No one believes they were a transition from fish to rep- tile; instead, their ancestors supposedly evolved out of the sea onto the land, then later the ich- thyosaurs evolved back into the sea. Elasmosaurus, a Cretaceous plesiosaur (cars evolved much later!) Ichthyosaur giving live birth Order Squamosa(Mosasaurs) were long and snakelike, with webbed feet. They ranged from about 10 – 50 feet long. photos taken at Denver Museum Platycarpus, a Cretaceous mosasaur

17. The Two Orders of Dinosaurs There are about eighteen living or extinct orders of reptiles. Only two of these orders, Saurischia and Ornithischia, were dinosaurs. It is easy to tell the differ-ence between the two orders, because all mem-bers of Order Ornithischia had a “bird-type” pelvis as shown at left while all mem-bers of Order Saurischia had a “lizard-type” pelvis as shown at right. Ornithischian pelvis Saurischian pelvis Drawings by O. C. Marsh, 1896 Left: fragments of the pelvis of the ornithischian dinosaur Edmontosaurus being exca-vated by the author in Wyo-ming, 2008. Right: complete Edmontosaurus skeleton (Denver Museum of Natural History, 2008). Note the ornithischian pelvis. Photos by the author

18. DINOSAUR SIZE RANGE A few types of dinosaurs grew to enormous sizes. Apatosaurus compared to human (scale in feet) Others never grew much bigger than a chicken! Compsognathus compared to human Even large dinosaurs had small eggs. Shown is a T. rex egg -- about the size of a football. Photo by the author

19. What do we know about DINOSAURS? How long ago did they live? What were they? Where did they come from ? How did they die? Are any still alive today?

20. WHAT TV AND TEXTBOOKS SHOW US...

21. WHAT WE ACTUALLY FIND: a bunch of jumbled up bone fragments That we put together and make up stories about! IF YOU CAN’T OBSERVE, IT’S NOT SCIENCE -- IT’S STORYTELLING!

22. HOW MANY TYPES OF DINOSAURS WERE THERE? • Whoever discovers the first fossil of an extinct creature gets to name it. However, discoveries are often fragmentary – a few teeth, some pieces of bone, etc. • A number of times, someone named what they thought was a new type, only to find later that it had already been named. Some of the multiple names are still around. • For instance, some believe that Tyrannosauruus, Tarbosaurus, and Albertosaurus are the same creature and that Nanotyrannus was just a juvenile Tyrannosaurus. The actual number of dinosaur types is probably far less than the number of names assigned.

23. A Major Difference Between Living Reptiles and Dinosaurs: Modern baby reptiles hatch as miniature versions of adults. They can immediately eat what adults do. Dinosaurs seem to have undergone radical changes as they grew (like mammals do.) For instance, some types had no head frill as babies, but grew them later. Adult Zuniceratops with fully formed head frill -- from Wikimedia user Arthur Weasley In some cases such as Nanotyrannus and Tyranno-saurus, normal changes due to aging have resulted in multiple names being assigned by mistake.

24. Why the Uncertainty in the Number of Extinct Types? To a biologist, a species is a group whose mem-bers cannot breed with any other group. However, it is impos-sible to do breeding experiments on extinct animals. Researchers have to simply guess whether they belong to different species, based on how different the specimens seem to be. If you had only bones to go by, would you guess that Andre the Giant (7 ft 4 in) and Verne Troyer (2 ft 8 in) were the same species? They are! Unless you were there, though, you might even think they belonged to different genera. Pictures from andrethegiant.com and rotttentomatoes.com There is no way to be sure whether differences in extinct creatures mean they belonged to different species, or just showed normal variation within the same species.

25. Where are Dinosaurs on the Geologic Time Scale? ERA PERIOD EPOCH Approx. Beginning (Years Ago) Cenozoic Quaternary Holocene (Recent) 10,000 Pleistocene 1.8 million Tertiary Pliocene 5.3 million Miocene 23.8 million Oligocene 33.7 million Eocene 54.8 million Paleocene 65 million Mesozoic Cretaceous (3 divisions) 144 million Jurassic (3 divisions) 206 million Triassic(upper only) 248 million Paleozoic Permian 290 million Pennsylvanian 323 million } CARBON- Mississippian 354 million } IFEROUS Devonian 417 million Silurian 443 million Ordovician 490 million Cambrian 543 million Archaeozoic Precambrian 4.5 billion (incl. Ediacaran or Vendian, 650 million) Source: Univ. of Calif. Museum of Paleontology

26. HOW MANY TYPES OF DINOSAURS WERE THERE? UPPER TRIASSIC: somewhere around 50 types have been named. Can we be sure there were 50 different genera, or could there have been variations within the Genesis “kinds”? Herrerasaurus – the “oldest” (lowest) dinosaur known. It appears suddenly and fully formed, with nothing leading up to it.(Photo by WIKImedia user Zach Tirrell) Guaibasaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Sergio Kaminski) Turfanosaurus (China) (WIKImedia image)

27. MORE TRIASSIC REPTILES Hupehsuchus - Triassic ichthyosaur (not a dinosaur!) (WIKImedia image) Sinokannemeyeria - “Mammal-like” Lower Triassic reptile, also not a dinosaur. (WIKImedia image) Since mammals are supposed to have evolved after dino-saurs, why are the “more advanced” mammal-like rep-tiles found in lower layers than any of the dinosaurs?

28. JURASSIC DINOSAURS All the Jurassic dinosaurs appear suddenly and fully formed, with nothing leading up to them. Once they arrive, they don’t evolve. There are supposed to have been around 220 types of Jurassic dinosaurs: some Lower, some Middle, some Upper. This is an average of about 70 types in each biome. However, the actual number could have been less because of duplicate names. Big mistake in “Jurassic Park”: T. rex was aCreta-ceous dinosaur, not Jurassic. Above: Diloph- osaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Farley Katz) Right: Yangchu-anosaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user “Phreakster”) Sinraptor (Photo by WIKImedia user Farley Katz) Kentrosaurus(WIKImedia image) Dryosaurus(WIKImedia image)

29. MORE JURASSIC REPTILES Europasaurus skull (Photo by WIKImedia user Nils Knotschke) Flipper of Macroplata - plesiosaur, not a dinosaur (Photo by the author) Camarasaurus skull (WIKImedia image) Mamenchisaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Farley Katz) Brachiosaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Axel Mauruszat)

30. CRETACEOUS DINOSAURS Like all the others, Creta-ceous dinosaurs appear suddenly and fully formed, with nothing leading up to them. Once they arrive, they don’t evolve. Over 500 types of dinosaurs have been named in Lower, Middle, and Upper Cre-taceous rocks. Taking into ac-count the pos-sibility of dupli-cate names, each of these fossil communities may have averaged a hundred or more types of dinosaur. Ankylosaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Douggers) Deinonychus (WIKImedia image) Gallimimus (WIKImedia image) Gigantosaurus (Photo by WIKImedia user Cas Liber) Triceratops (Photo by WIKImedia user Michael Gray)

31. Because of duplication and uncertainty, the number of types of dinosaurs is probably much less than a thousand. Even if there really were hundreds of types of dinosaurs, it wouldn’t prove anything about evolution. Let’s use birds for comparison. There are over 2800 genera of birds living in the world today, divided into well over ten thousand species. The large number of types does not indicate that they are evolving. Likewise, a large number of types of dinosaurs has nothing to do with evolution.

32. DINOSAURS: NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTION Every single type of dinosaur appears in the fossil record suddenly and fully formed with all its identifying characteristics intact. The “last” representatives of each type are easily recognizable as the same type as the “first.” Evolution is nowhere to be seen.

33. Saurolophus - crested head (1877 photo) Elasmosaurus (plesiosaur) (Author photo) MORE CRETACEOUS REPTILES Tarbosaurus - similar to T. rex (Photo by WIKImedia user Thomas Ihle) The author excavating Edmontosaurus bones in Wyoming - 2008 (Author photo) Tsintaosaurus (WIKImedia image) Edmontosaurus - found in vast herds

34. WHY WOULD ANYTHING EVOLVE? Every living thing gets its physical characteristics from the information in its DNA. Mutations are random copying mistakes during DNA reproduction. In order for anything to evolve, there would have to be a series of perhaps millions of beneficial mutations in DNA, building up generation after generation. Mutations would have to be the source of new structures (bones, eyes, wings, feathers, etc.) However, though some mutations benefit individuals, we have never seen asingle onethat helped the affected species, or that added any genetic information.

35. MAJOR TYPES OF DINOSAURS: IMPORTANT TYPES OF ORNITHISCIANS: Ceratopsia - Long horns on the face (Triceratops, etc.) Armored dinosaurs (Ankyosaurus, etc.) Thick skulls (Pachycephalosaurus, etc.) Duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs, e.g., Edmontosaurus) IMPORTANT TYPES OF SAURISCIANS: Sauropods (“lizard-foot”) – largest plant eaters Theropods (“beast-foot”) – thought to eat meat. Included several groups: Carnosaurs, e.g., T. rex Coelosaurs – included “bird-mimics” Ceratosaurs – short horns on face, like a horned toad Birds are supposed to have evolved from some sort of theropod, though no one has a specific candidate.

36. Are Birds Just Feathered Dinosaurs? Archaeopteryx - dated about 225 million years old. 1. It had a long bony tail. So do swans. 2. It had claws on its wings.So do the living ostrich, ho- atzin, and touraco. 3. It had teeth.So did two undispu- ted fossil birds, Hesperornis and Ichthyornis. 4. It had a shallow breastbone.So does the hoatzin. 5. It had hollow bones typical of all birds. 6. It had feathers typical of all birds. 7. Since its discov- ery, other true birds have been found in rocks dated even older. ALSO: Photo by the author (1) Birds have tube-type lungs as compared to the sacs on mammals and reptiles; (2) They are warm-blooded; (3) They have a highly developed cerebellum and cerebral hemisphere to control fine motor activities; (4) Flapping uses the opposite motion from walking and grasping; (5) They occur in the earliest dinosaur-bearing strata, not the latest.

37. The Pelvis: Major Diagnostic Feature of Dinosaurs Model of Struthio-mimus, a typical “bird-like” dinosaur that was very un-birdlike on the inside. (Utah State Museum, Vernal, Utah) Order Ornithischia (the other major type of dinosaur) had a “bird- type” pelvis with three protru- sions. Since this order is not considered to be the ancestor of birds, evolutionists believe the bird-type pelvis had to evolve independently two separate times -- once in Saurischia, and again in true birds. There is no explanation for how either group could have walked while their pelvis was mutating. Photo by the author All the dinosaurs that had a some- what birdlike ex- ternal appearance were very unbirdlike on the inside, with the typi- cal “lizard-type” pel- vis with four protru- sions characteristic of Order Saur- ischia.

38. Were Dinosaurs Ferocious Hunters? The teeth of T. rex were up to about 7 inches long. Only about half of the tooth was embedded in the jaw. If it bit a large animal, there would be a great deal of leverage pull-ing against the roots of its teeth. A T. rex fool-ish enough to bite a large dinosaur that was trying to get away would probably have lost some teeth. If T. rex ate meat at all, it was probably small or dead animals. Photo by the author

39. How Fast Could a T. rex Run? A 1991 analysis of T. rex leg bones in Scientific American shows that based on known bone measurements, a large T. rex could not have run faster than about 15 miles per hour without breaking its legs! Any time you take a step, you put a certain amount of impact on your leg bones. The heavier you are and the faster you move, the more the stress due to the impact. Photo by the author

40. WHAT KILLED OFF THE DINOSAURS? EVOLUTION: Asteroid impact, or Volcanos, or Global cooling, or Extinction of plants that served as natural laxatives (death by constipation!), or Disease? CREATION: The Flood.

41. Could Dinosaurs or Other Large Reptiles be Mentioned in the Bible? 15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. 16 Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. 18 His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. 19 He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him. 20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play. 21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens. 22 The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. 23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. 24 He taketh it with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares. Job 40:15-24 (KJV)

42. BEHEMOTH WAS NO ELEPHANT. An elephant has a tail like a rope, not a cedar tree.

43. Could Dinosaurs or Other Large Reptiles be Mentioned in the Bible? 1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? 2 Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn? 3 Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee? 4 Will he make a covenant with thee? wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? 5 Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? 6 Shall the companions make a banquet of him? shall they part him among the merchants? 7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears? 8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more. 9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him? 10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? 15 His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. 16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. 17 They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered. 18 By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. 19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. 20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron. 21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. Job 41:1-10, 15-21 (KJV)

44. Could Dinosaurs or Other Large Reptiles be Mentioned in the Bible? Nine times the Old Testament mentions the “Unicorn” (Hebrew re’ēm). When the Hebrew text was translated into the Greek Septuagint, the translators chose the Greek word “monocera,” meaning “one horn.” Here’s a one-horned creature! Monoclonius (WIKImedia image)

45. HAVE HUMANS EVER SEEN LIVING DINOSAURS? Most probably drowned in Noah’s Flood. However, there have been reports of “dragons” throughout recorded history. The Book of Job describes Behemoth and Leviathan; ancient Chinese, Roman, and Irish legends tell of dragons. There have also been reports of dinosaurs (Mokele M’bembe) in central Africa as recently as 2003, and flying reptiles around the world within the last 10 years! Want to see a picture of a dinosaur made by somebody that must have seen it?

46. Dinosaurs were discovered in the 1800s. We recently concluded they had stripes and fat bodies and did not drag their tails. Photo by the author Mosaic floor at Zippori in North Israel – ca. 300 A.D. – a striped, fat bodied reptile with its tail raised. Sure looks like some sort of dinosaur!

47. Other than the lack of a frill at the back of the skull, there is not much difference between the Zippori mosaic and ceratopsian dinosaurs such as this one. Artist’s conception of the two-horned dinosaur Zuniceratops by Arthur Weasley (Wikimedia Commons)

48. Same mosaic floor in Zippori. What in the world is this creature? Photo by the author It has a crested head, and something coming out of its mouth. Could it be fire?

49. HAVE HUMANS EVER BEEN WITH DINOSAURS? Paluxy River track on the “Taylor Trail” in Glenrose, Texas – courtesy of Don Patton. 5-toed human footprint is preserved inside a much larger 3-toed dinosaur print.

50. HAVE HUMANS EVER SEEN LIVING DINOSAURS? Carving at Ta Promh Temple in the jun-gle of Cambodia, dating to the late 1100s --seems to be an unknown dinosaur similar to Stegosaurus Desert carving in Arizona Carvings over a thousand years old in Mexico Pictures on left courtesy of Dr. Don Patton