Author: Noah Berman / Source: did you know?
So it’s recently come to my attention that there are people out there who have some pretty serious misconceptions about the best subject of all time, bar none: dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs, literally everyone can agree, are/were awesome. But I just want to clear a few things up.
Starting with…Well it’s odd that some people have gotten that idea because we have hundreds of years worth of exhumed fossil evidence that says they did exist, with more fossils unearthed and more dino species categorized every year.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For what it’s worth, the anti-dinosaur argument is ahistorical – the denial of the existence of dinosaurs is pretty fringe, and it’s primarily fueled by extreme religious interpretations of holy books. The basic argument against dinosaurs’ existence is as follows: Dinosaurs are a hoax and all evidence of them that has been dug up over the years is falsified by people, a la the Piltdown Man. What evidence wasn’t outright faked, some of them say, is actually evidence of dragons (there is some mention of dragons in the bible and other ancient texts).
From this perspective, the only reason I can imagine that explains why such a large group of people (scientists, to be specific) would perpetrate such an expensive, effortful, long-term hoax is to provide evidence for the Theory of Evolution, which religious fundamentalists of all stripes have taken issue with (perhaps you’ve heard of the Scopes Monkey trial?). The main issue religions have with the theory of evolution is that it in various ways supplants the primacy of religious texts by establishing a scientific rationale for a history of species that does not need a God.
This is less of a problem for believers in Intelligent Design, but a larger problem for believers in Creationism.
Something to note here: the theory of evolution is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence that we have available to us. A large objection to evolution’s veracity seems to actually come from a…
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