GP = General Paleontology)
Note: Secular Answers in green and Creationist Answers in blue.
Question 1. Secular Answer: Paleontologists.
Creationist Answer: Paleontologists.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., Guidebook to North American Dinosaurs According to Created Kinds (GNAD), CEC Publications, 2014, pp. 6-7.
Question 5. Secular Answer: Reverend William Buckland in 1824 (Megalosaurus).
Creationist Answer: Anglican geologist and paleontologist William Buckland in 1824 (Megalosaurus).
Reference: Sarfati, Jonathan et al, Titans of the Earth, Sea, and Air (Titans), Creation Book Publishers, 2022, pp. 22-23.
Question 7. Secular Answer: Its size, its stride, whether it walked on two feet or four, whether it traveled in herds, how it carried its tail, how heavy it was.
Creationist Answer: As above. The most questionable would be its size and how heavy it was. Many assumptions are involved in any of these determinations.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, pp. 27-33.
Question 10. Secular Answer: Over 700 perhaps as many as 1,500.
Creationist Answer: What must be kept in mind is that for the general public dinosaur names are understood and talked about at the genus level not the species. Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Allosaurus etc. are all genus names not species. And Gregory Paul wrote this: “About fifteen hundred dinosaur species have been named, but a large portion are invalid. Many are based on inadequate remains such as teeth or one or a few bones, that are taxonomically indeterminate.”
The tendency is for dinosaur paleontologists to be “splitters” when they are young in the profession and then become “lumpers” in their later years. Creationists believe that there were much fewer created kinds of dinosaurs in the beginning than are identified by secular experts as species or genera. (The created kind is usually at about the family classification level which is a larger category than genus or species.) J.D. Mitchell has determined that there were 15 created kinds of dinosaurs whose remains have been found in the North American rocks.
References: Paul, Gregory, The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Princeton University Press, 2010, pp. 61-62 & Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, pp. 79-81.
Question 32. Secular Answer: “The Bone Wars”; Edward Drinker Cope (1840-97) and Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-99) and their associates found and named over 100 dinosaurs in the American West during the 19th century. They became bitter enemies during their dinosaur fossil hunting conflict.
Creationist Answer: Same.
References: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, pp. 72-72 & p. 75 & Colbert, Edwin H., The Great Dinosaur Hunters and Their Discoveries, Dover, 1984.
Question 35. Secular Answer: True. The scientific names are Ornithischian and Saurischian.
Creationist Answer: True.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, pp. 13-17.
Question 36. Secular Answer: Trackways.
Creationist Answer: Trackways.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, pp. 27-30.
Question 40. Secular Answer: Sir Richard Owen.
Creationist Answer: Sir Richard Owen. Prior to this naming by Owen dinosaurs were called dragons, for example in the King James version of the Bible.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, p. 5.
Question 45. Secular Answer: True. But remember that pterosaurs were flying reptiles, not dinosaurs!
Creationist Answer: True. The pterosaur Quetzelcoatlus was thought to range in wingspan up to 5 meters. Other pterosaurs, e.g. Alanqa, are thought to have had a wingspan of up to 9 meters and stand as tall as a giraffe. However, as is often the case, these estimates are based on very little fossil evidence.
Reference: Witton, Mark P., Pterosaurs, Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 249-250.
Question 52. Secular Answer: Ten inches (250 mm), based on one fossil skeleton and named Nemicolopterus crypticus.
Creationist Answer: About ten inches. Much more fossil evidence has been found for the genus Pterodactylus which had a wingspan that was not much larger.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., Fossils: Description & Interpretation Within a Biblical Worldview, CEC Publications, 2014, pp. 177-180 & Witton, p. 219.
Question 84. Secular Answer: False, dinosaurs are generally known not by their species names but by their genus names.
Creationist Answer: False, dinosaurs are known by their genus names and for creationists the created kinds are usually at about the family level of classification.
Reference: Mitchell, J.D., GNAD, p. 79.
