- Series:Animals, Archaeology, Fossils, Transcript English
Genesis 1: 24
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so”
A previous Creation Moment talked about the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs – those beautiful models of dinosaurs built in Victorian times that do not look anything like what we imagine those same dinosaurs to look like today. We discussed how this was due to the Victorian model maker Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins not having access to complete skeletons of the dinosaurs and therefore putting the pieces together in the wrong order. This was likened to trying to do a jigsaw puzzle without the picture being on the box. We believe it is wrong to criticize men like Hawkins, who did their best with the incomplete knowledge that they had at the time.
I was reminded of the problems of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs recently when reading an article about the finding of a new tyrannosaurus fossil.
Tyrannosauruses are no longer rare! Lots of fossils have been discovered, so even though none of them are complete, we can be reasonably sure that our correct opinion of how they look is more or less correct. Nevertheless, I was surprised by a recent science news article about the most complete T. Rex ever found in the Southwest United States – Utah, to be exact. So complete was it that paleontologists have unearthed 75 percent of the skeleton. Seventy-five percent! That means that one bone in every four is actually missing. And yet this is the most complete specimen found in the SW United States.
It is no wonder that mistakes are made regarding the possible shape and skeletal structure of so many dinosaurs. Humility is required by researchers so that they do not make over-inflated claims for their models.
Prayer: We thank You, Lord, for all the wonderful things You have made. Thank You for making the dinosaurs that we find so fascinating and exciting. Amen.
Ref: University of Utah. (2017, October 19). New tyrannosaur fossil is most complete found in Southwestern US: Researchers are amazed to find nearly complete skeleton with many bones in life position. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 21, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171019143040.htm. Image: Loewen, M.A. et al, license: Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.
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