In recent times, I’ve felt myself getting hit by a tad bit more anti-science theories than usual. Recently, I visited the Thermopolis Dinosaur Center in Wyoming (amazing place, by the way) and my dad joked about the fossils looking fake. I brushed off the joke but later came to find that many people take this notion seriously.
Usually, (from what I can tell) people either stem into the “dinosaurs are actually dragons” camp or the “dinosaurs are faked to fake evolution” camp. I think many people somehow fall into both categories. People who posit this theory claim that dinosaurs are just to cover up the fact of “dragons being recorded through history” and that there is a conspiracy because “the fossils are kept in the back and only the scientists can go see them,” and that they “tell you that the fossils on display are fake.” It seems that these anti-dinosaur theories get rolled up with flat Earth and anti-evolution theorization as well.
Unfortunately, many of these theories are also self-containing. Meaning, you cannot use facts from scientific sources because “the scientists are in on it too.” Meaning, it seems you can only use the sources they trust, which are usually heavily biased to their case to begin with.
What other anti-scientific theories have you heard? Do you think there is any reliable way to reach these misguided souls?
I do have to laugh at the “fossils are fake” folk. I grew up in an area where you literally tripped over actual fossils. My eighth grade science class project required a fossil collection which took literally 10 minutes to collect the required number of different fossils.
Marine mostly, ammonites (up to 2 ft across), shark teeth, crinoids, mollusks, and bi-valves are what I remember (I used to know all their names). Giant marine reptiles are found in the area. All in all pretty much puts the lie to fossils are fake.
Edit to add: There was a recent story of a teen who found a complete fossil of a large reptile.
It is often true they are, in a technical sense. It seems even in the better museums a large part of the specimens on display are reconstructions. That would qualify as “fake,” but in a different sense than that which you are describing. Still, it never hurts, and often helps, to ask for clarification: “What do you mean by that?”
Copies of well preserved fossils are used in many museums that cannot get suitable originals. The labels usually tell that it is a cast and also where the original is. I would not call those fake.
Although the casts are not originals, they are useful for educational purposes and can demonstrate how the fossilized animals looked like, compared to modern species. That is why the museums use them. Nothing fake in that.
Not by some teaching techniques or clever arguments. All any of us can do is try our best to live out faithful lives in front of them and with them, hopefully without the condescending thoughts that “we” are the ones with all the correct and important knowledge, while “they” have only to learn from us. Any of us smell such condescension a mile away and turn the other direction before any needed truth would even get a chance to reach us at all. So, fellowship with people. Be a good friend. Win them (and yourself) over to mutual fellowship and delighting in each other’s company and whatever good things they bring to the table (which is never the same as agreeing with them on all matters - if anyone is always agreeing with me, I would be worried for their sake; it likely means they are easily herded in any direction by whomever they’re with at the moment.). If you can do that (the fellowshipping bit, not the herding), then the important battle is already won, both in your heart and theirs. Trust the Spirit for the rest, which will always be on God’s timing and not our own.
In a feast of poetic Irony, the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter will sell your “little ones” a bag of dirt with fake fossils for about 60 bucks. According to one of the local scientists, the area around both places is rich in real fossils.
Their English interpretation of the word in Genesis, which they say is proof of dinosaurs (Leviathan) in Hebrew, is “sea monster”, not dinosaur.
There’s a lot more evidence that mythical creature stories arose from human knowledge of fossils than that fossils are recently deceased mythical creatures. There is a whole branch of study invented by a woman named Adrienne Mayor called geomythology. It’s a fun rabbit trail if you ever have the time. She matches folklore to fossils that were visible in the regions where the stories arose.
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