dinosaurs, when did dinosaurs lived on Earth?,devastation of dinosaurs

When did the dinosaurs live?

Learn why dinosaurs lived in the recent past, at the same time as humans. Millions of years are easy to question in light of the evidence

The common belief is that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 100 million years until they became extinct 65 million years ago. This issue has been constantly emphasized through evolution literature and programs, so the idea of dinosaurs living on earth millions of years ago has been strongly etched in most people's minds. It is not considered possible that these huge (Size is relative. Today's blue whales are about twice as heavy as the largest dinosaurs) animals lived in the very recent past and at the same time as humans. According to the theory of evolution, it is assumed that the dinosaurs lived in the Jurassic and Cretaceous period, the animals of the Cambrian period even earlier, and the mammals appeared on Earth last. The evolutionary concept of these groups appearing on this planet at different times is so strong in people's minds that they believe it represents science and is true, even though it is possible to find many facts against this concept.

Next, we will explore this topic in more detail. Many evidences suggest that it is not very long since dinosaurs appeared on earth. We look at these evidences next.

Dinosaur fossils in review. Evidence that dinosaurs have lived on earth is their fossils. Based on them, it is possible to know roughly the size and appearance of the dinosaurs and that they were real animals. There is no reason to doubt their historicity.

The dating of the dinosaurs, however, is a different matter. Although according to a geological time chart drawn up in the 19th century, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, such a conclusion cannot be made based on the actual fossils. Fossils do not have labels about their age and when they became extinct. Instead, the good condition of the fossils suggests that it is a matter of thousands, not millions of years. It is due to the following reasons:

Bones are not always petrified. Petrified fossils have been found from dinosaurs, but also bones that are not petrified. Many people have the idea that all dinosaur fossils are petrified and therefore ancient. Furthermore, they think petrification takes millions of years.

However, petrification can be a rapid process. In laboratory conditions, it has been possible to produce petrified wood in a few days. In suitable conditions, such as in hot mineral-rich springs, bones can also petrify within a couple of weeks. These processes do not require millions of years.

So unpetrified dinosaur bones have been found. Some dinosaur fossils may have most of their original bone left and they may smell rotten. A paleontologist who believes in the theory of evolution stated about one large dinosaur fossil discovery site that "all the bones in Hell Creek stink." How can bones stink after tens of millions of years?

Science publication tells how C. Barreto and his work group have studied the bones of young dinosaurs (Science, 262:2020-2023), which were not petrified. Bones estimated to be 72-84 million years old had the same ratio of calcium to phosphorus content as present-day bones. The original publication reveals the finely preserved microscopic details of the bones.

Only little petrified bones have also been found in northern regions such as Alberta and Alaska in Canada. The Journal of Paleontology (1987, Vol. 61, No 1, pp. 198-200) reports one such discovery:

An even more impressive example was found on the north coast of Alaska, where thousands of bones are almost completely unpetrified. The bones look and feel like old cow bones. The discoverers did not report their discovery for twenty years because they assumed them to be bison-, and not dinosaur bones.

A good question is how would the bones have been preserved for tens of millions of years? At the time of the dinosaurs, the climate was warm, so microbial activity would certainly have destroyed the bones. The fact that the bones are unpetrified, well-preserved and look similar to fresh bones suggests short rather than long periods.

Soft tissues. As stated, fossils do not have tags on their age. No one can say with certainty at what stage the organisms found as fossils have been alive on Earth. This cannot be directly deduced from fossils.

When it comes to dinosaur fossil finds, however, it is a remarkable observation that several of the fossils are well preserved. For example, Yle uutiset reported on December 5, 2007: "Dinosaur muscles and skin were found in the USA." This news is not the only one of its kind, but similar news and observations are numerous. According to one research report, soft tissues have been isolated from about every second dinosaur bone from the Jurassic period (145.5 – 199.6 million evolutionary years ago) (1). Well-preserved dinosaur fossils are indeed a great puzzle if they are from more than 65 million years ago.

A good example is an almost complete dinosaur fossil found in Pietraroia limestone deposits in Southern Italy, which according to evolutionary theory was considered to be 110 million years old, but whose liver-, intestine-, muscle- and cartilage tissues were still left. In addition, an amazing detail in the discovery was the preserved intestine, where muscle tissue could still be observed. According to the researchers, the intestine looked just like it had been freshly cut! (TREE, August 1998, Vol. 13, No. 8, pp. 303-304)

Another example is the fossils of pterosaurs (they were large flying lizards) found in Araripe, Brazil, which were unprecedentedly well preserved. University of London palaeontologist Stafford House stated about these fossil finds (Discover 2/1994):

If that creature had died six months ago, been buried and dug up, it would look exactly like this. It is absolutely perfect in every way.

So, well-preserved soft tissue finds have been made from dinosaurs. The findings are very similar to what has been made of mammoths, which are thought to have died out only a few millennia ago.

A good question is, how can dinosaur fossils be defined as many times older than mammoth fossils, if both are equally well preserved? There is no other basis for this than the geological time chart, which has been found to be in conflict with what can be observed in nature many times. It would be time to abandon this time chart. It is very possible that dinosaurs and mammoths lived on earth at the same time.

Proteins such as albumin, collagen and osteocalcin have been found in the remains of dinosaurs. Also very fragile proteins elastin and laminin have been found [Schweitzer, M. and 6 others, Biomolecular characterization and protein sequences of the Campanian hadrosaur B. canadensis, Science 324 (5927): 626-631, 2009]. What makes these discoveries problematic is that these substances are not always found even in animal fossils from modern times. For example, in one mammoth bone sample, which was estimated to be 13,000 years old, all the collagen had already disappeared (Science, 1978, 200, 1275). However, collagen has been isolated from dinosaur fossils. According to the professional magazine Biochemist, collagen cannot be preserved even for three million years at the ideal temperature of zero degrees Celsius ⁽²⁾. The fact that such finds occur repeatedly suggests that dinosaur fossils are at most a few millennia old. The age determination based on the geological time chart does not match the current discoveries.

On the other hand, it is known that biomolecules cannot be preserved for more than 100,000 years (Bada, J et al. 1999. Preservation of key biomolecules in the fossil record: current knowledge and future challenges. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 354, [1379 ]). This is the research result of empirical science. Collagen, which is a biomolecule of animal tissue, i.e. a typical structural protein, can often be isolated from fossils. It is known about the protein in question that it breaks down quickly in the bones, and only its remains can be seen after 30,000 years, except in very dry special conditions. The Hell Creek area is sure to get some rain from time to time. Therefore, collagen should not be found in "68 million" year old bone that has been buried in the soil. (3)

If the observations about proteins isolated from dinosaur bones, such as albumin, collagen and osteocalcin, as well as DNA are correct, and we have no reason to doubt the researchers' carefullness, based on these studies, the bones must be re-dated to no more than 40,000-50,000 years old, because the maximum possible preservation time of the substances in question in nature cannot be exceeded. (4)

Blood cells. One remarkable thing is the discovery of blood cells in the remains of dinosaurs. Nucleated blood cells have been found and it has been found that hemoglobin remains in them as well. One of the most significant blood cell discoveries was already made in the 1990s by Mary Schweitzer. Other similar discoveries have been made since then. A good question is how blood cells can be preserved for tens of millions of years or are they after all of geologically quite recent origin? Numerous discoveries of this type call the geological time chart and its millions of years into question. Based on the good condition of the fossils, there are no justified reasons to believe in millions of years.

When Mary Schweitzer was five years old, she announced that she would become a dinosaur researcher. Her dream came true, and at the age of 38, she was able to study an almost perfectly preserved skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, found in Montana in 1998 (Journal of American Medical Association, 17 Nov. 1993, Vol. 270, No 19, pp. 2376–2377). The age of the skeleton was estimated at "80 million years." As many as 90% of the bones were found, and they were still intact. Schweitzer specializes in tissue research and calls herself a molecular palaeontologist. She selected the thighbones and shinbones of the find and decided to examine the bone marrow. Schweitzer observed that the bone marrow had not been fossilized and that it had been unbelievably well preserved. The bone was completely organic and extremely well preserved. Schweitzer studied it with a microscope and noticed curious structures. They were small and circular and had a nucleus, just like the red blood cells in a blood vessel. But the blood cells should have disappeared from the dinosaur bones ages ago. "My skin got goosebumps, like I was looking at a modern piece of bone," says Schweitzer. "Of course I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I said to the lab technician: 'These bones are 65 million years old, how could the blood cells survive that long?'" (Science, July 1993, Vol. 261, pp. 160–163). What is significant with this find is that not all of the bones had been completely fossilized. Gayle Callis, a specialist researcher of bones, showed the bone samples in a scientific meeting where a pathologist incidentally saw them. The pathologist remarked, "Did you know that there are blood cells in this bone?" This led to a remarkable thriller. Mary Schweitzer showed the sample to Jack Horner, a famous researcher of dinosaurs, who looked at the sample and said, "So you think that there are blood cells in it?", to which Schweitzer replied, "No, I don't." "Well then, just try and prove that they are not blood cells,” Horner replied (EARTH, 1997, June: 55–57, Schweitzer et al., The Real Jurassic Park). Jack Horner presumes that the bones are so thick that water and oxygen have been unable to affect them. (5)

Radiocarbon. The most important method used to measure the age of organic matter is the radiocarbon method. In this method, the official half-life of radiocarbon (C-14) is 5730 years, so there shouldn't be any left after about 100,000 years.

However, the fact is that radiocarbon has repeatedly been found in "hundreds of millions of years old" deposits, oil wells, Cambrian organisms, coal deposits, even diamonds. When the official half-life of radiocarbon is only a few millennia, this should not be possible if the samples are from millions of years ago. The only possibility is that the time of death of organisms was much closer to the present, i.e. thousands, not millions of years away.

Same problem is with dinosaurs. In general, dinosaurs have not even been radiocarbon dated, because dinosaur fossils have been considered too old for radiocarbon dating. However, a few measurements have been made and the surprise has been that the radiocarbon still remains. This, like the previous observations, suggests that it cannot be millions of years since these creatures became extinct.

The following quote tells more about the problem. A German team of researchers reports on radiocarbon remains of dinosaur remains found in several different locations:

Fossils that are assumed to be very old are not usually carbon-14 dated because they should not have any radiocarbon left. The half-life of radioactive carbon is so short that it has practically all decayed in less than 100,000 years.

In August 2012, a group of German researchers reported at a meeting of geophysicists the results of carbon-14 measurements that had been made on many fossilized dinosaur bone samples. According to the results, the bone samples were 22,000-39,000 years old! At least at the time of writing, the presentation is available on YouTube. (6)

How was the result received? Two of the chairmen, who could not accept the measurements, deleted the abstract of the presentation from the conference website without mentioning it to the scientists. The results are available at http://newgeology.us/presentation48.html. The case shows how the naturalistic paradigm affects. It is almost impossible to get results that contradict it published in the scientific community dominated by naturalism. It is more likely that the raisins fly. (7)

DNA. One indication that dinosaur remains cannot be from millions of years ago is the finding of DNA in them. DNA has been isolated from e.g. About Tyrannosaurus Rex bone material (Helsingin Sanomat 26.9.1994) and dinosaur eggs in China (Helsingin Sanomat 17.3.1995). What makes DNA discoveries difficult for the theory of evolution is that even from old human mummies or mammoths that have been studied, DNA samples cannot always be obtained because this material has been spoiled. A good example is when Svante Pääbo studied the tissue samples of 23 human mummies in the Berlin museum in Uppsala. He was able to isolate DNA from only one mummy, indicating that this substance cannot last very long (Nature 314: 644-645). The fact that DNA is still present in dinosaurs shows that the fossils cannot be from millions of years ago.

What makes it even more difficult is that after 10,000 years there should be no DNA left at all (Nature, 1 Aug, 1991, vol 352). Similarly, in a fairly recent study from 2012, it was calculated that the half-life of DNA is only 521 years. This shows that the idea of tens of millions of years old fossils can be rejected. In the related news (yle.fi > Uutiset > Tiede, 13.10.2012) it was said:

The last limit of DNA preservation was found - dreams of cloning dinosaurs ended

Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. DNA does not survive nearly as long, not even in the ideal conditions, according to a recent study…

Enzymes and micro-organism start to break down the DNA of the cells right after an animal dies. However, the primary reason for this is thought to be the reaction caused by water. Because there is groundwater nearly everywhere, DNA should, in theory, decay at a steady rate. To determine this, however, prior to this date we were not able to find large enough amounts of fossils that still had DNA left.

Danish and Australian scientists have now solved the mystery, as they received 158 shinbones of the giant Moa bird in their laboratory, and the bones still had genetic material left in them. The bones are 600 – 8000 years old and originate approximately from the same area, thus they have aged in stable conditions.

Not even amber can provide DNA extra time

By comparing the age of the samples and the decay rates of the DNA, scientists were able to calculate a half-life of 521 years. This means that after 521 years half of the nucleotide joints in the DNA have broken apart. After another 521 years this has also happened to half of the remaining joints and so on.

Researchers noted that even if the bone rested in an ideal temperature, all the joints would have broken apart no later than after 68 million years. Even after one and a half a million years, DNA becomes unreadable: there is too little information left, because all the essential parts are gone.

If DNA still exists in dinosaurs and the half-life of this substance is measured only in hundreds of years, conclusions should be drawn from this. Either the DNA measurements are not reliable, or the ideas about dinosaurs that lived tens of millions of years ago are not true. Certainly the latter option is true, because other measurements also refer to short periods, not to millions of years. This is a science based on measurements, and if it is completely rejected, we are leading ourselves astray.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DINOSAURS. When it comes to the destruction of the dinosaurs, it is often thought to have happened millions of years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period. It is believed that ammonites, belemnites and other plant and animal species were also involved in the same mass destruction. The destruction is supposed to have wiped out a large part of the animals of the Cretaceous period. The main cause of the destruction has usually been considered to be a meteorite, which would have raised a huge cloud of dust. The dust cloud would have covered the sunlight for a long time, when the plants would have died and the animals that eat the plants would also have starved.

However, the meteorite theory and the slow climate change theories have one problem: they do not explain the finding of fossils inside hard rocks and mountains. Dinosaur fossils are found from different parts of the world inside hard rocks, which is remarkable. It is remarkable, because no big animal - maybe 20 meters long - can possibly go inside the hard rock. Time doesn't help matters either, because if you waited millions of years for an animal to be buried in the ground and fossilized, it would rot properly before then or other animals would eat it. In fact, whenever we come across dinosaur and other fossils, they must have been quickly buried under mud. Fossils cannot be born in any other way:

It is evident that if the formation of deposits were to take place at such a slow pace, no fossils might preserve, since they would not be buried in sediments before decomposition by the acids of the water, or before they would be destroyed and shattered into pieces as they rubbed and struck the bottom of the shallow seas. They can only become covered in sediments in an accident, where they are suddenly buried. (Geochronology or the Age of the Earth on grounds of Sediments and Life, Bulletin of the National Research Council No. 80, Washington D. C., 1931, p. 14)

The conclusion is that these dinosaurs found all over the world must have been quickly buried by mudslides. Soft mud has come around them at first and then hardened hard in the same way as cement. Only in this way can the origin of dinosaurs, mammoths and other animal fossils be explained. In the Flood, that could certainly happen.

We look at the description, which gives the right idea about this. It shows dinosaurs being found inside hard rocks, indicating that they must have been covered by soft mud. The mud has then hardened around them. Only in the Flood, but not in the normal cycle of nature, we could expect something like that to happen (the article also refers to how water eddies could have piled up dinosaur bones). Bolds have been added to the text afterwards to make it clearer:

He went to the deserts of South Dakota, where there are brightly colored red, yellow and orange rock walls and boulders. Within a few days he found some bones in the rock wall, which he estimated to be the kind he had set out to find. When he dug rock around the bones, he found that the bones were in the order of the structure of the animal. They weren't in a heap like dinosaur bones often are. Many such heaps were as if made by a powerful whirl of water.

Now these bones were in the blue sandstone, which is very hard. The sandstone had to be removed with a grader and removed by blasting. Brown and his sidekicks made a pit almost seven and a half meters deep to get the bones out. Removing one large skeleton took them two summers. They by no means removed the bones from the stone. They transported the boulders by rail to the museum, where the scientists were able to chip the stone material away and set up the skeleton. This tyrant lizard now stands in the exhibition hall of the museum. (p. 72, Dinosaurs / Ruth Wheeler and Harold G. Coffin)

FURTHER EVIDENCE OF THE FLOOD. So the fact is that the remains of dinosaurs are found inside hard rocks, from which it is difficult to remove them. The only possibility how they got into this state is that soft mud has quickly formed around them and then hardened into rock. In an event like the Flood, this may have happened. However, there are mentions of large animals like this in human history even after the flood, so they didn't all die out then.

What about other evidence of the Flood? Here we highlight only a few of them. What in the geological time chart is explained by millions of years, or perhaps many catastrophes, can all be caused by one and the same catastrophe: the Flood. It can explain the destruction of the dinosaurs as well as many other features observed in the soil.

One strong proof of the Flood is e.g. that marine sediments are common throughout the world, as the following quotations show. The first of the comments is from a book by James Hutton, the father of geology, from more than 200 years ago:

We have to conclude that all the layers of earth (...) were formed by sand and gravel that piled up on the seabed, crustacean shells and coral matter, soil and clay. (J. Hutton, The Theory of the Earth l, 26. 1785)

J.S. Shelton: On the continents, marine sedimentary rocks are far more common and widespread than all other sedimentary rocks combined. This is one of those simple facts that demands explanation, being at the heart of everything related to man's continuing efforts to understand the changing geography of the geological past. (8)

Another indication of the Flood is the coal deposits around the world, which are known to have been stratified by water. In addition, the presence of marine fossils and fish indicates that the deposits cannot be the result of slow peating in some particular marsh. Instead, a better explanation is that the water transported the plants to the places where the coal was formed. The water has uprooted plants and trees, piled them up in large mounds, and brought sea animals among the land plants. This is only possible in a large catastrophe, such as the Flood mentioned in the Bible.

When the forests were buried in the sludge for some reason, coal deposits were create. Our current machine culture is partially based on these strata. (Mattila Rauno, Teuvo Nyberg & Olavi Vestelin, Koulun biologia 9, p. 91)

Under and above the mineral coal seams there are, as has been said, regular layers of clay stone, and from their structure we can see that they have been stratified from water. (9)

The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that mineral coal was generated quickly when large forests were destroyed, layered and then quickly buried. There are huge lignite strata in Yallourn, Victoria (Australia) that contain plenty of pine tree trunks – trees that do not currently grow on marsh land.

The sorted, thick strata that contain up to 50% of pure pollen and that are spread over a huge area clearly prove that the lignite strata were formed by water. (10)

It is taught in schools that carbon is gradually created from peat, although nowhere can it be observed that this is happening. Considering the extent of the coalfields, the different plant types, and the upright multi-layered trunks, it appears that the coal deposits were formed by huge drifting rafts of vegetation, during a very large flood. Corridors carved by marine organisms are also found in these carbonized plant fossils. Fossils of marine animals have also been found in coal deposits ("A note on the Occurrence of Marine Animal Remains in a Lancashire Coal Ball", Geological Magazine, 118:307,1981)... Considerable sea animal shell deposits and fossils of Spirorbis, which lived in the sea, can also be found in coal deposits. (Weir, J., ”Recent Studies of Shells of the Carbon Measures”, Science Progress, 38:445, 1950). (11)

Prof. Price presents cases where 50- to100 mineral coal layers are one top of each other and between them there are layers including fossils from deep sea. He deems this piece of evidence so strong and convincing that he has never tried to explain these facts on grounds of Lyell’s uniformity theory. (12)

A third indication of the Flood is the presence of marine fossils in high mountains such as the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes. Here are some examples from scientists' and geologists' own books:

While travelling on the Beagle Darwin himself found fossilized seashells from high up on the Andean Mountains. It shows that, what is now a mountain was once under water. (Jerry A. Coyne: Miksi evoluutio on totta [Why evolution is true], p. 127)

There is a reason to look closely at the original nature of the rocks in mountain ranges. It is best seen in the Alps, in the lime Alps of the northern, so-called Helvetian zone. Limestone is the main rock material. When we look at the rock here on the steep slopes or at the top of a mountain - if we had the energy to climb up there - we will eventually find fossilized animal remains, animal fossils, in it. They are often badly damaged but it is possible to find recognizable pieces. All those fossils are lime shells or skeletons of sea creatures. Among them there are spiral-threaded ammonites, and especially a lot of double-shelled clams. (…) The reader might wonder at this point what it means that mountain ranges hold so many sediments, which can also be found stratified in the bottom of the sea. (p. 236,237 "Muuttuva maa", Pentti Eskola)

Harutaka Sakai from the Japanese University in Kyushu has for many years researched these marine fossils in the Himalayan Mountains. He and his group have listed a whole aquarium from the Mesozoic period. Fragile sea lilies, relatives to the current sea urchins and starfishes, are found in rock walls more than three kilometers above sea level. Ammonites, belemnites, corals and plankton are found as fossils in the rocks of the mountains (…)

At an altitude of two kilometers, geologists found a trace left by the sea itself. Its wave-like rock surface corresponds to the forms that remain in the sand from low-water waves. Even from the top of Everest, yellow strips of limestone are found, which arose under water from the remains of countless marine animals. ("Maapallo ihmeiden planeetta", p. 55)

The fourth indication of the Flood is the flood stories, which according to some estimates, there are nearly 500 of them. The universal nature of these stories can be considered the best evidence for this event:

Around 500 cultures – including indigenous peoples of Greece, China, Peru and North America – are known in the world where the legends and myths describe a compelling story of a large flood that changed the history of the tribe. In many stories, only a few people survived the flood, just like in the case of Noah. Many of the peoples considered the flood to have been caused by gods who, for one reason or another, got bored with the human kind. Perhaps the people were corrupt, like in Noah’s times and in a legend by the Native American Hopi tribe of North America, or perhaps there were too many and too noisy people, like in the Gilgamesh epic. (13)

If the world-wide Flood was not real, some nations would have explained that frightening volcanic eruptions, large snow storms, droughts (...) have destroyed their evil ancestors. The universality of the story of the Flood is therefore one of the best pieces of evidence of its truthfulness. We could dismiss any of these tales as individual legends and think it was only imagination, but together, from a global perspective, they are almost indisputable. (The Earth)

Dinosaurs and mammals. When we read biology books and evolution literature, we repeatedly come across the idea of how all life evolved from a simple primitive cell to the current forms. Evolution included that fish had to become frogs, frogs into reptiles and dinosaurs into mammals. However, an important observation is that dinosaur bones have been found among bones resembling horse, cow and sheep bones (Anderson, A., Tourism falls victim to tyrannosaurus, Nature, 1989, 338, 289 / Dinosaurus may have died quietly after all, 1984, New Scientist, 104, 9.), so dinosaurs and mammals must have lived at the same time.

The following quotation refers to the same. It tells how Carl Werner decided to test Darwin's theory in practice. He did 14 years of research and took thousands of photographs. Studies showed that mammals and birds lived in abundance and at the same time as dinosaurs:

Without any specific prior knowledge about living fossils, American paramedic doctor Carl Werner decided to put Darwin’s theory under a practical test… He conducted extensive 14-year research on fossils of the dinosaur era and the possible species that might have coexisted with them… Werner familiarized himself with professional paleontology literature and visited 60 natural history museums around the world, where he took 60 000 photographs. He only focused on fossils that were dug up from the same strata, where dinosaur fossils can be found (Triassic -, Jurassic -, and Cretaceous periods 250-65 million years ago). He then compared the thousands of equally old fossils he had found in museums and seen in the literature with current species and interviewed many experts in the field of paleontology and other professionals. His result was that the museums and paleontology-based literature displayed fossils of every group of species that currently exist…

We have been told that mammals began to slowly develop during the “prime era” of dinosaurs, that the first mammals were “small shrew-like creatures living in hiding and only moving during the night in fear of the dinosaurs.” In the professional literature, however, Werner discovered reports of squirrels, opossums, beavers, primates and platypuses that had been dug up from dinosaur strata. He also referred to a work published in 2004, according to which 432 mammal creatures have been found in the Triassic -, Jurassic -, and Cretaceous strata, and almost a hundred of them are complete skeletons…

In Werner’s video interview the administrator of Utah’s prehistoric museum, Dr Donald Burge, explains: “We find mammal fossils in almost all of our dinosaur excavations. We have ten tons of bentonite clay containing mammal fossils, and we are in a process of giving them to other researchers. Not because we wouldn’t find them important, but because life is short, and I am not specialized in mammals: I have specialized in reptiles and dinosaurs”. Paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh) stated in Werner’s video interview in May, 2004: “The term ‘dinosaur era’ is misnomer. Mammals constitute a significant group that coexisted with dinosaurs and also survived”. (These comments are from the book: Werner C. Living Fossils, p. 172 –173). (14)

Based on the fossil finds, the term dinosaur era is therefore misleading. Common modern mammals have lived at the same time as dinosaurs, i.e. at least 432 species of mammals.

What about the birds that are thought to have evolved from dinosaurs? They have also been found in the same strata together with dinosaurs. These are exactly the same species as today: parrot, penguin, eagle owl, sandpiper, albatross, flamingo, loon, duck, cormorant, avocet...Dr Werner has stated that ""Museums don’t showcase these modern-day bird fossils, nor draw them in images depicting dinosaur environments. It is wrong. Basically, whenever a T. Rex or Triceratops is depicted in a museum exhibit, ducks, loons, flamingos, or some of these other modern birds that have been found in the same strata with dinosaurs should also be depicted. But that doesn't happen. I've never seen a duck with a dinosaur in a natural history museum, have you? An owl? A parrot?”

Dinosaurs and humans. In the theory of evolution, it is considered impossible that man lived on earth as early as the dinosaurs. It is not accepted, even though it is known that other mammals appeared at the same time as dinosaurs, and even though other discoveries even suggest that humans should have appeared before dinosaurs (items and human fossils in coal deposits etc.).

However, there is some clear evidence that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. E.g. dragon descriptions are like that. In the past, people talked about dragons, but not about dinosaurs, the name of which was invented by Richard Owen only in the 19th century.

Stories. One piece of evidence that dinosaurs lived in the recent past is the many stories and descriptions of large dragons and flying lizards. The older these descriptions are, the truer they are. These descriptions, which may be based on old memory information, can be found among many different peoples, so that they are mentioned e.g. in English, Irish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Babylonian literature. The following quotes tell about the prevalence of dragon depictions.

The dragons in legends are, strangely enough, just like real animals that lived in the past. They resemble large reptiles (dinosaurs) that ruled the land long before man is supposed to have appeared. Dragons were generally regarded as bad and destructive. Each nation referred to them in their mythology. (The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, 1973, s. 265)

Since the beginning of recorded history, dragons have appeared everywhere: in the earliest Assyrian and Babylonian accounts of the development of civilization, in the Jewish history of the Old Testament, in the old texts of China and Japan, in the mythology of Greece, Rome and early Christians, in the metaphors of ancient America, in the myths of Africa and India. It is hard to find a society that did not include dragons in its legendary history…Aristotle, Pliny and other writers of the classical period claimed that dragon stories were based on fact and not imagination. (15)

Finnish geologist Pentti Eskola already told decades ago in his book Muuttuva maa how the depictions of dragons resemble dinosaurs:

The varying forms of lizard-like animals seem so funny to us because many of them resemble – in a distant and often caricature-like way – modern mammals living under similar conditions. However, most dinosaurs were so very different from the modern life forms that the nearest analogues can be found in the depictions of dragons in legends. Strangely enough, the authors of the legends had naturally not studied petrifactions or even knew of them. (16)

A good example of how dinosaurs may have actually been dragons is the Chinese lunar calendar and horoscope, which is known to be centuries old. So when the Chinese zodiac is based on 12 animal signs that repeat in 12-year cycles, there are 12 animals involved. 11 of them are familiar even in modern times: rat, ox, tiger, hare, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Instead, the 12th animal is a dragon, which does not exist today. A good question is that if the 11 animals have been real animals, why would the dragon be an exception and a mythical creature? Isn't it more reasonable to assume that it once lived at the same time as humans, but has become extinct like countless other animals? It is good to remember again that the term dinosaur was only invented in the 19th century by Richard Owen. Before that, the name dragon was used for centuries:

In addition, the following observations can be mentioned:

• Marco Polo has told about the huge animals he saw in India, which were considered gods. What were these animals? If they were elephants, he would surely have known that.

Interestingly, in an 800-year-old temple in the Cambodian jungle, a carving has been found that looks like a stegosaurus. It is a type of dinosaur. (From Ta Prohm Temple. Maier, C., The Fantastic Creatures of Angkor, www.unexplainedearth.com/angkor.php, 9 February 2006.)

• In China, descriptions and stories about dragons are very common; thousands of them are known. They tell how dragons lay eggs, how some of them had wings and how scales covered them. A Chinese story tells of a man named Yu who encountered dragons while he was draining a swamp. This happened after the great global flood.

In China, dinosaur bones have been used for centuries as traditional medicines and poultices for burns. The Chinese name for dinosaurs (kong long) simply means "dragon bones" (Don Lessem, Dinosaurs rediscovered p. 128-129. Touchstone 1992.). The Chinese are also said to have used dragons as pets and in imperial parades (Molen G, Forntidens vidunder, Genesis 4, 1990, pp. 23-26.)

• The Egyptians have depicted the Apophis dragon as an enemy of the King Re. Similarly, descriptions of dragons circulate in Babylonian literature. The well-known Gilgamesh is said to have killed a dragon, a huge reptile-like creature, in a cedar forest. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1962, Vol. 10, p. 359)

• The Greek Apollo is said to have killed the Python dragon at the Delfin fountain. The most notable of the ancient Greek and Roman dragon slayers was a person named Perseus.

• Narrative recorded in poetic form from 500-600 AD. tells the story of a brave man named Beowulf, who was tasked with clearing the straits of Denmark from both flying and aquatic monsters. His heroic act was killing of the Grendel monster. This animal was said to have had large hind limbs and small forelimbs, was able to withstand sword blows, and was somewhat larger than a human. It moved vertically very quickly.

• Roman author Lucanus has also talked about dragons. He directed his words to an Ethiopian dragon: “You gold shimmering dragon, you make the air soar high and you kill great bulls.

• Descriptions of flying snakes in Arabia by Greek Herodotos (ca. 484–425 B.C.) have been preserved. He quite aptly describes some pterosaurs. (Rein, E., The III-VI Book of Herodotos , p. 58 and Book VII-IX , p. 239, WSOY, 1910)

• Pliny mentioned (Natural History) in the first century BC how the dragon is "in constant war with the elephant, and it is itself so enormous in size that it wraps the elephant in its folds and wraps it inside its cocoon."

• An old encyclopedia History Animalium mentions that there still were "dragons" in the 1500s, but that they had diminished considerably in size and were rare.

• An English chronicle from 1405 refers to a dragon: "Near the town of Bures, in the vicinity of Sudbury, there has lately been seen a dragon that has done great damage to the countryside. It is of enormous size, with a crest on the top of its head, its teeth are like saw-blades, and its tail is exceedingly long. After slaughtering the shepherd of the flock, he devoured many sheep in his mouth." (Cooper, B., After the Flood-The early post-Flood histort of Europe traced back to Noah, New Wine Press, West Sussex, UK, pp. 130-161)

• In the 16th century, the Italian scientist Ulysses Aldrovanus has accurately described a small dragon in one of his publications. Edward Topsell wrote as late as 1608: “There are many kinds of dragons. The different types are separated based partly on their country, partly on the basis of their size, partly on the basis of their distinguishing marks."

• Dragon insignia were common among many military forces. It was used by e.g. Eastern Roman emperors and English kings (Uther Pendragon, King Arthur's father, Richard I during the 1191 war and Henry III during his war against the Welsh in 1245) as well as in China, the dragon was a national symbol in the coat of arms of the royal family.

• Dinosaurs and dragons are a part of the folklore of many nations. In addition to China, this has been common among the nations of South America.

• Johannes Damascene, the last of the Greek Church Fathers, who was born in 676 A.D., describes dragons (The Works of St. John Damascene, Martis Publishing House, Moscow, 1997) in the following way:

Roman Dio Cassius (155–236 A.D.), who wrote the history of the Roman Empire and Republic, depicts the fights of Roman consul Regulus in Carthage. A dragon was slain in the battle. It was skinned and the skin was sent to the Senate. By order of the Senate, the skin was measured and it was 120 feet in length (ca. 37 meters). The skin was kept in a temple on the hills of Rome up to the year 133 B.C., when it disappeared as the Celts occupied Rome. (Plinius, Natural History. Book 8, Chapter 14. Plinius himself says to have seen the trophy in question in Rome). (17)

• Drawings. Drawings, paintings and statues of dragons have also been preserved, which are almost identical in anatomical detail all over the world. They are found in almost all cultures and religions, just as stories about them are common. Pictures of dragons have been recorded in e.g. military shields (Sutton Hoo) and church wall ornaments (eg SS Mary and Hardulph, England). In addition to bulls and lions, dragons are depicted on the Ishtar Gate of the ancient city of Babylon. Early Mesopotamian cylinder seals show dragons necking each other with tails almost as long as their necks (Moortgat, A., The art of ancient Mesopotamia, Phaidon Press, London 1969, pp. 1,9,10 and Plate A.). More dragon-dinosaur themed pictures can be seen, e.g. on www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Dinosauruslegendat.htm.

Interestingly, there are drawings of these animals even on the walls of caves and canyons. These discoveries have been made at least in Arizona and the area of former Rhodesia (Wysong. R.L., The Creation-evolution controversy, pp. 378,380). For example, in Arizona in 1924, when examining a high mountain wall, it was discovered that pictures of various animals had been carved into the stone, e.g. of elephants and mountain deer, but also a clear image of a dinosaur (Thoralf Gulbrandsen: Puuttuva rengas, 1957, p. 91). The Mayan Indians also have preserved a relief sculpture with a bird resembling Archeopteryx, i.e. a lizard bird ⁽¹⁸⁾. According to the evolutionary view, it should have lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

Evidence has also been preserved of flying lizards, whose wingspan could have been twenty meters, and which are believed to die out tens of millions of years ago. The following description refers to them and how a Pterosaur-like flying animal is depicted on the pottery:

The largest of the flying lizards was the pterosaur whose wingspan may have been more than 17 meters. (…) In the Bbc Wildlife Magazine (3/1995, Vol. 13), Richard Greenwell speculated about the existence of the pterosaur today. He quotes the explorer A. Hyatt Verrill, who had found some Peruvian pottery. The clay vessels depict a pterosaur resembling pterodactyl.

Verrill speculates that artists have used fossils as their model and writes:

For centuries, accurate descriptions and even drawings of the pterodactyl fossils have been passed over from one generation to another, as the forefathers of the Cocle people lived in a country where there were well preserved remains of the pterosaurs.

Also, the North American Indians were familiar with the thunderbird, whose name was borrowed for a car as well. (19)

In the Bible, the Behemoths and Leviathan mentioned in the book of Job seem to refer to dinosaurs. It says of the behemoth that his tail is like a cedar tree, that the sinews of his thighs are tightly knit and bones are like bars of iron. These descriptions fit well with certain dinosaurs, such as sauropods, which could grow to over 20 meters in length. Likewise, Behemoth's location in the covert of the reed, and fens fits dinosaurs, because several of them lived near beaches.

As for the cedar-like tail that Behemoth moves, it is interesting that no large animal is known today to have such a tail. The tail of the herbivorous dinosaur could have been 10-15 meters long and weighed 1-2 tons, and similar animals are not known in modern times. Some Bible translations translate Behemoth as a hippopotamus (and Leviathan as a crocodile), but the description of a cedar-like tail does not fit a hippopotamus in any way.

One interesting comment on the subject can be found from the respected late fossil scientist Stephen Jay Gould, who was a Marxist atheist. He stated that when the book of Job speaks of Behemoth, the only animal that fits this description is a dinosaur (Pandans Tumme, p. 221, Ordfrontsförlag, 1987). As an evolutionist, he believed that the author of the book of Job must have obtained his knowledge from fossils found. However, this one of the oldest books in the Bible clearly refers to a living animal (Job 40:15: Behold now behemoth, which I made with you…).

- (Job 40:15-23) Behold now behemoth, which I made with you; he eats grass as an ox.

16 See now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.

17 He moves his tail like a cedar: The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.

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 to him.

20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.

21 He lies 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 drinks up a river, and hastens not: he trusts that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.

Leviathan is another interesting creature mentioned in the Book of Job. This creature is said to be the king of animals and it is described how a flame goes out of his mouth. (The so-called bomber beetle that can spew hot – 100 degrees Celsius – gas directly on an attacker, is also known in the animal kingdom). It is possible that many stories about dragons that can blow fire from their mouths stem from this.

Some Bible translations have translated Leviathan as a crocodile, but who has seen a crocodile that makes you crumble at the sight of it, and who can esteem iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood, and who is the king of all majestic animals? In all likelihood, it is also an extinct animal that no longer exists, but was known during the time of Job. The Book of Job says the following:

- (Job 41:1,2,9,13-34) Can you draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which you let down?

2 Can you put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?

9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

13 Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?

14 Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

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 does 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 goes smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

21 His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.

22 In his neck remains strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.

23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.

24 His heart is as firm as a stone; yes, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

25 When he raises up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

26 The sword of him that lays at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

27 He esteems iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

28 The arrow cannot make him flee: sling stones are turned with him into stubble.

29 Darts are counted as stubble: he laughs at the shaking of a spear.

30 Sharp stones are under him: he spreads sharp pointed things on the mire.

31 He makes the deep to boil like a pot: he makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

32 He makes a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.

33 On earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

34 He beholds all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

What about Bible descriptions of dragons? The Bible is filled with metaphors depicting doves, grievous wolves, cunning snakes, sheep, and goats, which are all animals that be found in the nature today. Why would a dragon, which is mentioned several times in the Old and New Testaments, and in old literature, be an exception? When the Genesis (1:21) tells how God created large sea animals, sea monsters (the revised version) (Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.), the original language uses the same word “tannin”, which equates to dragon elsewhere in the Bible. The following verses, for instance, refer to dragons:

- (Job 30:29) I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

- (Ps 44:19) Though you have sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.

- (Isa 35:7) And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

- (Isa 43:20) The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

- (Jer 14:6) And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.

- (Jer 49:33) And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.

- (Micah 1:8) Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

- (Mal 1:3) And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

- (Ps 104:26) There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom you have made to play therein.

- (Job 7:12) Am I a sea, or a whale, that you set a watch over me? (the revised version: sea monster, in Hebrew tannin, which means dragon)

- (Job 26:12,13) He divides the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through the proud.

13 By his spirit he has garnished the heavens; his hand has formed the crooked serpent.

- (Ps 74:13,14) You did divide the sea by your strength: you brake the heads of the dragons in the waters.

14 You brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

- (Ps 91:13) You shall tread on the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shall you trample under feet.

- (Isa 30:6) The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from where come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches on the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures on the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.

- (De 32:32,33) For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

- (Neh 2:13) And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire.

- (Isaiah 51:9) Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are you not it that has cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?

- (Isaiah 27:1) In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

- (Jer 51:34) Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me up like a dragon, he has filled his belly with my delicates, he has cast me out.

The Apocrypha of the Old Testament and dragons. What about the Apocrypha of the Old Testament? They, too, contain several mentions of the dragon, which were seen as real animals, rather than fictional creatures. The author of the Book of Sirach writes how he would rather live with a lion and a dragon, than with his evil wife. Additions to the Book of Esther tell about the dream of Mordecai (Mordecai of the Bible), when he saw two large dragons. Daniel was also faced with a giant dragon, which was worshiped by the Babylonians. This shows how these animals may have grown to very large proportions.

- (Sirach 25:16) I had rather dwell with a lion and a dragon, than to keep house with a wicked woman.

- (Wisdom of Salomon 16:10) But thy sons not the very teeth of venomous dragons overcame: for thy mercy was ever by them, and healed them.

- (Sirach 43:25) For therein be strange and wondrous works, variety of all kinds of beasts and whales created.

- (Additions to Esther 1:1,4,5,6) Mordecai, a Jew who belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, was taken into exile, along with King Jehoiachin of Judah, when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia captured Jerusalem. Mordecai was the son of Jair, a descendant of Kish and Shimei.

4 He dreamed that there was great noise and confusion, loud thunder, and an earthquake, with terrible turmoil on the earth.

5 Then two huge dragons appeared, ready to fight each other.

6 They made a dreadful noise, and all the nations got ready to make war against God's nation of righteous people.

- (Additions to Daniel, Bel and the Dragon 1:23-30) And in that same place there was a great dragon, which they of Babylon worshipped.

24 And the king said unto Daniel, Wilt thou also say that this is of brass? lo, he liveth, he eateth and drinketh; thou canst not say that he is no living god: therefore worship him.

25 Then said Daniel unto the king, I will worship the Lord my God: for he is the living God.

26 But give me leave, O king, and I shall slay this dragon without sword or staff. The king said, I give thee leave.

27 Then Daniel took pitch, and fat, and hair, and did seethe them together, and made lumps thereof: this he put in the dragon's mouth, and so the dragon burst in sunder: and Daniel said, Lo, these are the gods ye worship.

28 When they of Babylon heard that, they took great indignation, and conspired against the king, saying, The king is become a Jew, and he hath destroyed Bel, he hath slain the dragon, and put the priests to death.

29 So they came to the king, and said, Deliver us Daniel, or else we will destroy thee and thine house.

30 Now when the king saw that they pressed him sore, being constrained, he delivered Daniel unto them:

REFERENCES:

1. J. Morgan: The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of Scientific Age (1996). Reading: Addison-Wesley

2. Thoralf Gulbrandsen: Puuttuva rengas, p. 100,101

3. Stephen Jay Gould: The Panda’s Thumb, (1988), p. 182,183. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

4. Niles Eldredge (1985): “Evolutionary Tempos and Modes: A Paleontological Perspective” teoksessa Godrey (toim.) What Darwin Began: Modern Darwinian and non-Darwinian Perspectives on Evolution

5. George Mc Cready Price: New Geology, lainaus A.M Rehnwinkelin kirjasta Flood, p. 267, 278

6. Kimmo Pälikkö: Taustaa 2, Kehitysopin kulisseista, p. 927.

7. Kimmo Pälikkö: Taustaa 2, Kehitysopin kulisseista, p. 194

8. Pekka Reinikainen: Unohdettu Genesis, p. 173, 184

9. Stephen Jay Gould: Catastrophes and steady state earth, Natural History, 84(2):15-16 / Ref. 6, p. 115.

10. Thoralf Gulbrandsen: Puuttuva rengas, p. 81

11. Toivo Seljavaara: Oliko vedenpaisumus ja Nooan arkki mahdollinen, p. 28

12. Uuras Saarnivaara: Voiko Raamattuun luottaa, p. 175-177

13. Scott M. Huse: Evoluution romahdus, p. 24

14. Many dino fossils could have soft tissue inside, Oct 28 2010,

news.nationalgeographic.com/news_/2006/02/0221_060221_dino_tissue_2.html

15. Nielsen-March, C., Biomolecules in fossil remains:

Multidisciplinary approach to endurance, The Biochemist 24(3):12-14, June 2002

; www.biochemist.org/bio/_02403/0012/024030012.pdf

16. Pekka Reinikainen: Darwin vai älykäs suunnitelma?, p. 88

17. Pekka Reinikainen: Dinosaurusten arvoitus ja Raamattu, p. 111

18. Pekka Reinikainen: Dinosaurusten arvoitus ja Raamattu, p. 114,115

19. http://creation.com/redirect.php?http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=QbdH3l1UjPQ

20. Matti Leisola: Evoluutiouskon ihmemaassa, p.146

21. J.S. Shelton: Geology illustrated

22. Pentti Eskola: Muuttuva maa, p. 114

23. Carl Wieland: Kiviä ja luita (Stones and Bones), p. 11

24. Pekka Reinikainen: Unohdettu Genesis, p. 179, 224

25. Wiljam Aittala: Kaikkeuden sanoma, p. 198

26. Kalle Taipale: Levoton maapallo, p. 78

27. Mikko Tuuliranta: Koulubiologia jakaa disinformaatiota, in book Usko ja tiede, p. 131,132

28. Francis Hitching: Arvoitukselliset tapahtumat (The World Atlas of Mysteries), p. 159

29. Pentti Eskola: Muuttuva maa, p. 366

30. Siteeraus kirjasta: Pekka Reinikainen: Dinosaurusten arvoitus ja Raamattu, p. 47

31. Scott M. Huse: Evoluution romahdus, p. 25

32. Pekka Reinikainen: Dinosaurusten arvoitus ja Raamattu, p. 90