Why do we draw them today as if they were alive? Why do we make movies about them where they appear to be alive? Why do children’s books show them as living, breathing animals instead of just dead fossils in the ground?
When the ancient Greeks illustrated their mythology on pottery, in statues, and other art, why did those mythical creatures appear to be alive? What’s fun about drawing pictures of skeletons when you can remind me of exciting stories of heroes fighting monsters, for example?
I have no problems with that method of showing emphasis. However, the Biologos Open Forum is better than most by giving us access to bold and italic fonts. So you may find that as useful as I do!
Truly, dinosaurs are always a fun topic.
I know, right?
I sometimes make use of the BioLogos forum text emphasis tools, but I neglect them when I feel the need to write or post quickly!
But they wouldn’t have to. People know that a skull buried in the ground was the head of an animal. They know that a fossil rib cage tells us the general size of the animal. And even though many fossils are jumbled heaps, some are nicely positioned on their side, for example, so that it is not difficult to imagine what the living animal looked like.
Have you ever seen an elephant’s skeleton? If so, it is easy to imagine how it may have led to the myth of the cyclops. It was very easy for an ancient Greek who saw an elephant skull to imagine that the hole in the enter of the “face” was a single eye socket. Nobody drew the cyclops as a skull. They drew it as the imagined living creature. That was a lot more fun and made a much better story when they told the adventures of their hero!
Dude. Mary Anning: Mary Anning - Wikipedia
Total amateur. Found two complete plesiosaur skeletons, an ichthyosaur (when she was 12), a pterosaur, and many other things.
Of course paleontologists have a difficult job, and the field has changed a lot in the past couple hundred years.
But seriously, why do we think ancient cultures were incapable of finding fossils? Sure, they didn’t have the benefit of modern knowledge, so things were left a bit more to chance, but there’s no reason why they wouldn’t have found them now and then. Also, since they had no concept of deep time, they wouldn’t have had reason to believe that the dinosaurs they found were not still alive and thriving somewhere nearby – hence the legendary status of dragons, and as others have mentioned, we’ve developed our own lore quite extensively despite never having seen a live dinosaur.
In Chinese medicine and apothecaries, fossils are still sold as medicinal “dragon bones”.
HISTORY as well as science can help us solve many problems. The look of artwork and place of discovery can sometimes be more useful for determining the age of an object as “carbon dating” (which isn’t so popular in YEC circles). As I’ve mentioned in my article, they are found in the tombs of the dead (which are covered by wood roofs. These tombs are really fascinating, if you want to do some research).
I’ll assume you hadn’t read my previous post before you wrote this (if you had:
Dinosaurs existed. The mythical creatures you mentioned did not. Also, you must consider that ancient cultures were VASTLY different. To say otherwise would be to neglect the grand heritage of history they left us. Some cultures put a lot of mythology into their art. Many (like lots of Native Americans and Africans) mostly did art from life.
The academy loves nothing more than paradigm-shifting discoveries. That statement alone shows great disregard for history. In history, we usually see the opposite. The Geocentricists didn’t give up without a fight. Neither did the flat-earthers. The evolutionists won’t either.
Here is a quote from Max Planck (translated of course):
“A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a way that opponents become convinced and discard their previous views. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcoming generation is familiarized anew with the truth.”
Max Planck; Vortrage und Erinnerungen, S. Hirzel-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1949 (translated from German)
I do not think that they are ignoring contrary evidence. There really isn’t much (if any)
I’ve found stuff too. Not that impressive, but it DOES depend on where you live.
“However, I feel that (despite being heard by the very informed) this discovery (dinosaur cambrian deposits etc.) would either rarely see the light of day, or be “explained away” somehow. That’s been the fate of most all of that sort of thing.”–J.E.S.
Just a reminder that it is the YEC’s who are constantly trying to explain things away, such as 14C dating, K/Ar dating, U/Pb dating, and Rb/Sr dating.
@Socratic.Fanatic
Note: The ancient Greeks did not depict the elephant accurately, did they? They were also fairly familiar with elephants (but, to be fair, after Homer).
The Ica stones depict dinosaurs accurately, don’t they?
@T_aquaticus
One thing I am grateful to the BioLogos forum is for showing me problems in the YEC view (e.g: distant starlight). That sort of thing shows where research is needed.
However, you must know that these dating methods (I’m not an expert on them, but it doesn’t take an expert to see the errors) have some glaring issues.
“However, I feel that (despite being heard by the very informed) this discovery (dinosaur cambrian deposits etc.) would either rarely see the light of day, or be “explained away” somehow. That’s been the fate of most all of that sort of thing.”–J.E.S.
You are trying to explain away the evidence.
The evidence of 65 million years or more of radioactive decay in the igneous rocks that lie above dinosaur fossils.
This is really a myth in YEC circles. Radiometric dating using different isotopes confirms the accuracy of the methods and does not rely on presupposition of age (as many YECs still state).
Point taken. Let’s talk about dating (I mean the chemical dating ancient objects, of course) once I’ve read a bit more about it.
I wouldn’t consider something made in the 1960’s to be that ancient.
“In 1973, during an interview with Erich von Däniken, Uschuya stated he had faked the stones that he had sold.[3] In 1975 Uschuya and another farmer named Irma Gutierrez de Aparcana confirmed that they had forged the stones they gave to Cabrera by copying the images from comic books, text books and magazines.[2]”
@T_aquaticus
Behold: the infamous Wikapedia article. Again.
Wikipedia does not know everything.
I’ve talked about it in a post for @jammycakes already this very day.
People are so willing, relieved even, when the monolithic voice of wiki speaks in their favor.
Seriously, though if you want more refutations about specific things in the Wikipedia article, I’ll try to give them to the best of my ability.
Hopefully you detected the sarcasm in that last post, I mean, Wikipedia totally knows everything 
.
Behold, the “explaining away” of evidence.
The most telling piece of evidence is that not a single Ica stone was discovered in situ by anyone. They all came from some mystery cave that no one has ever been to nor discovered.
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