The Dinosaur Problem?

[Matthew777]

Allow us to assume that since Adam named every animal, that in the beginning, God created two of every dinosaur.
Approximately 2,000 years later, Noah's flood killed and fossilized the dinosaurs.

Riddle me this:
Given the amount of dinosaur fossils that we have, could they have propagated this amount within 2,000 years?
Are there really enough dinosaur fossils to justify the belief that they dominated their own age of time?

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Allow us to assume that since Adam named every animal, that in the beginning, God created two of every dinosaur.
Approximately 2,000 years later, Noah's flood killed and fossilized the dinosaurs.

Riddle me this:
Given the amount of dinosaur fossils that we have, could they have propagated this amount within 2,000 years?
Are there really enough dinosaur fossils to justify the belief that they dominated their own age of time?

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

Under your assumptions, no.

Therefore, your assumptions must be false.

 

[Matthew777]

Why do dinosaurs appear in the fossil record without intermediates? Perhaps they were created. Just perhaps.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Why do dinosaurs appear in the fossil record without intermediates? Perhaps they were created. Just perhaps.

Perhaps...

But if you're going to base both your science and religious beliefs on a lack of evidence, then you're just waiting for someone to yank the rug out from under you...
Scientists are used to that...many look forward to it. Religion, OTOH...

Just perhaps, intermediate fossils are waiting to be discovered. Can your "perhaps" change as new evidence is found? Or do you have too much riding on it?

 

[Matthew777]

This is not a "God of the gaps" theology but what we already know from Genesis.

 

[The Lady Kate]

This is not a "God of the gaps" theology but what we already know from Genesis.

And what do we already know from Genesis? The who and the why.

The when and the how is a bit of a grey area...

 

[Matthew777]

It is a grey area for those who blind themselves with secular "knowedge" and ignore the teachings of the church fathers.

How many dinosaur fossils do we actually have? Realistically, do we even have proof that there were enough dinosaurs to justify a "dinosaur age"?

 

[tryptophan]

Allow us to assume that since Adam named every animal, that in the beginning, God created two of every dinosaur.
Approximately 2,000 years later, Noah's flood killed and fossilized the dinosaurs.

Riddle me this:
Given the amount of dinosaur fossils that we have, could they have propagated this amount within 2,000 years?
Are there really enough dinosaur fossils to justify the belief that they dominated their own age of time?

May peace be upon thee and with thy spirit.

According to Genesis, weren't all animals placed on the ark?

 

[Alarum]

It is a grey area for those who blind themselves with secular "knowedge" and ignore the teachings of the church fathers.

How many dinosaur fossils do we actually have? Realistically, do we even have proof that there were enough dinosaurs to justify a "dinosaur age"?

In a word: yes.

 

[seebs]

It is a grey area for those who blind themselves with secular "knowedge" and ignore the teachings of the church fathers.

Friend, I have seen you, both here and in the political discussion forums, get a bee in your bonnet and become hostile, confrontational, and derisive.

http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Francis/peaceprayer.asp

Please read this page. I believe that it will speak to your condition.

How many dinosaur fossils do we actually have? Realistically, do we even have proof that there were enough dinosaurs to justify a "dinosaur age"?

I don't think we have proof, but we have very good evidence. They are all at comparable strata, they are all old, and they are rare enough to be that old. The vast majority of corpses do not fossilize; to get as many fossils as we've got, we would have needed to have a very very large number of dinosaurs.

 

[shernren]

I hate to be blunt but you're contradicting yourself.

Your question #1:

Given the amount of dinosaur fossils that we have, could they have propagated this amount within 2,000 years?

In other words, given 2,000 years between the Creation and the Flood, we should have less fossils, which implies that there should have been less dinosaurs than fossil evidence shows. Therefore by our assumptions about the Creation and the Flood there should be less fossils, or alternatively there are extra fossils that your assumptions cannot explain.

Ok. Question #2:

Are there really enough dinosaur fossils to justify the belief that they dominated their own age of time?

Your question implies that there are not enough fossils to show that dinosaurs were prevalent. However, your q#1 admits that there are more fossils than we need by your assumptions, and therefore these "extra" fossils precisely demonstrate that contrary to your initial assumptions, dinosaurs were prevalent, since the hypothesis that dinosaurs were prevalent explains the surplus of fossils that q#1 questions.

Lateda.

 

[Matthew777]

The truth is that I have no idea how many fossilized dinosaurs we actually have.

 

[gluadys]

The truth is that I have no idea how many fossilized dinosaurs we actually have.

Start here
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Dinosauria


The Dinosauria is an order with two sub-orders
In the diagram on this page, the top branch leads to the first suborder(Ornithischia) and the middle branch to the second suborder (Saurischia). A sub-branch goes to the infra-order Therapoda.

Each of these will take you deeper into the list of dinosuars known from fossils down to the genus level. So you can at least make a list of known dinosaur genera.


Note that you do not have to accept the site's pro-evolutionary stance to simply count the number of genera. Each genus represents at least one actual fossil. Some pages give you a lot of interesting information about the dinosaur group featured on the page.

 

[shernren]

The truth is that I have no idea how many fossilized dinosaurs we actually have.

 

[Matthew777]

My guess is that there are only a few thousand dinosaur fossils, not different species, but actual fossils.

 

[Alarum]

My guess is that there are only a few thousand dinosaur fossils, not different species, but actual fossils.

My guess is that your guess is wrong.

Hey, guess speculation doesn't get us anywhere at all! How incredible!

Hint on who's closer: The Smithsonian owns over 40 MILLION fossils from plants and animals.

 

[Matthew777]

But what about dinosaurs?

 

[Alarum]

But what about dinosaurs?

Lets assume 99% of those aren't dinosaurs. Oh wait, that's still a few orders of magnitude off your guess. Uh, lets assume 99.9975% of those aren't dinosaur fossils. Now the Smithsonian just has to own every dinosaur fossil on the planet, and you're right!

They don't even bother to keep count, the number isn't very countable.

 

[DailyBlessings]

I recall reading an estimate that American museums collectively held about a quarter billion individual fossils, but I don't recall which journal it was in, and even if I did that is figure is probably a bit low given how many institutions must hold collections even they don't know the size of. And of course, there are private collections. Some creatures, like trilobites or crinoids, are so common in certain areas that just about anyone could wander by and chip one out for themselves.

 

[AliOgg]

I hate to be blunt but you're contradicting yourself.

Your question #1:


In other words, given 2,000 years between the Creation and the Flood, we should have less fossils, which implies that there should have been less dinosaurs than fossil evidence shows. Therefore by our assumptions about the Creation and the Flood there should be less fossils, or alternatively there are extra fossils that your assumptions cannot explain.

Ok. Question #2:


Your question implies that there are not enough fossils to show that dinosaurs were prevalent. However, your q#1 admits that there are more fossils than we need by your assumptions, and therefore these "extra" fossils precisely demonstrate that contrary to your initial assumptions, dinosaurs were prevalent, since the hypothesis that dinosaurs were prevalent explains the surplus of fossils that q#1 questions.

Lateda.

Happy Birthday Shernren

And God Bless All His Peoples.