There’s an interesting article online at the Telegraph News site about a group of Christian fundamentalists hunting for dinosaur bones in South Dakota to support their belief in God and the Biblical account of Creation.
Telegraph.co.uk - Christian dinosaur hunters dig for signs of Biblical dragons
To these believers in the Bible’s literal truth, they are not dinosaurs but “missionary lizards”, which are powerful weapons in the battle for young American hearts and minds.
Missionary lizards? What, it’s not enough that they have to try and re-write history to fit their viewpoint, but now they have to rename everything too? This is all part of a growing movement that is trying all manner of new approaches to legitimize and popularize the Creationist viewpoint in hopes of eventually counteracting and eliminating Evolution as is currently taught in most schools.
Those certain that God made all living things, dinosaurs included, on Day Six of the Creation, are deploying ever more imaginative tactics in their struggle against schools and universities teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Boldest of all is a trend for believers, young and old, to dig for fossils and dinosaur remains as witness to God’s handiwork.
Lecturing to a rapt audience of 20 like-minded Christians after a hard day in the field, Russ McGlenn, a self-styled amateur archaeologist and palaeontologist and head of Adventure Safaris, said: “Heavenly Father, we thank You for the evidence of a catastrophic flood event. We thank You for the time to study Your creation. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the evidence of a catastrophic flood event.”
Not much is said about what these folks are using as the basis for their conclusions that these fossils are a result of Noah’s Flood. According to the article, “Just as evident, depending on who is looking, is “proof” that the creatures died in a flood. Evidence is seen in geological strata and the animals’ sudden deaths.” It would be interesting to hear specifically what these folks are making their conclusions on or if they’re just tying the evidence to their beliefs and calling it proof.
The afternoon’s work yielded a rich crop of bones, from a group of Edmontosauruses known to be buried in the hillside. The remains join similar exhibits, including a triceratops skull, at a museum opened by the land’s owner to spread the word that Darwin was wrong.
“Dinosaur fossils are not proof of evolution but rather extinction,” a poster tells visitors to the museum. The war between Darwinian science and Christian fundamentalists has raged for decades but the battleground has lately shifted from courtrooms and lecture halls to small-scale museums, churches and even a Creationist theme park called “Dinosaur Adventure Land”.
Certainly the statement that dinosaur fossils are not proof of Evolution is quite correct, but then that’s never been the claim as far as I’m aware. Most of Darwin’s work involved living species—not fossils—and a lot of the evidence in support of Evolution has little to do with dinosaur fossils. Fossils can be an source of supporting evidence for the theory, but they’re far from conclusive proof and no scientist I’ve heard of has ever claimed otherwise.
Apparently these folks have been listening to our friend “Dr.” Kent Hovind and his theories that dinosaurs were created at the same time as all the other animals and were killed during Noah’s Flood circa 2300 B.C.. We’ve talked about “Dr.” Kent Hovind here before, but that doesn’t remove the amusement factor of the quotes from him the folks at the Telegraph managed to acquire:
Evolution is “the dumbest and most dangerous idea in the history of humanity”, said Kent Hovind, a vocal enthusiast for the cause who also runs the theme park in Florida. Explaining his Creationist creed, he said: “We think dinosaurs were part of the normal Creation and were just big lizards. Noah took some of them on the Ark, probably babies, when the floods came.
“Throughout history, there are stories of people killing the animals that survived but they called them dragons.”
Whew! How can you argue with well reasoned and enlightened statements like those? So, let’s summarize here: Dinosaurs were just big lizards. Noah took some of the dinosaur babies on the ark with him so that they would be around to be wiped out by later generations who called them dragons. So what the folks in South Dakota are really digging for are dragon fossils.
How anyone can listen to that guy and not laugh out loud right in his face is beyond me. For some reason every time I read something he’s said I get the mental picture of a used car salesman in a cheap plaid suit trying to hustle me into buying an obviously steaming pile of crap.
Posted on 10/27/2004 at 05:46 AM 
Posted on 10/25/2006 at 12:55 PM 
I’m sorry… Dragons?