OREGON DINOSAURS-PART 3

The latest dinosaur news from the University of Oregon (U of O) and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Eugene has recently been released in the form of a kid’s activity guide. The title of the guide is “Oregon’s Dino-Story!” Also available is an associated short video with a lot of the same interpretive information as is in the guide.

I think that the most important thing to be learned from this release (dated May 2022) is that there is no mention of the “Oregon dinosaur vertebra” that had been reported with great fanfare back in July of 2021. That likely means that the only Oregon dinosaur bone in the fossil collection at U of O is the toe bone with collection #118600. This toe bone was found in the Hudspeth formation of Eastern Oregon in 2015. I think we can conclude that the chunk of rock that was hoped to be another component of an Oregon dinosaur has proven to be inconclusive.

Oregon Dinosaur Toe Bone

I have written previously about this probable Duck-Billed dinosaur fossil toe twice before in CEC News. You can read these articles here and here. So, after seven years the scientists at U of O have determined that the time has come to “educate” the kids about this fossil bone by developing the video and the 8-page activity guide.

The first two pages of the guide present general scientific facts about paleontology, fossils, and dinosaurs. I am in agreement with the educational material presented in these opening pages. However, on page three the secular idea of the “Age of Dinosaurs” is introduced. Using the biblical creationist perspective we would conclude that the dinosaurs lived at the same time as all other life and were buried to become fossils as a result of the cataclysmic global Flood at the time of Noah. There was no such thing as an “Age of Dinosaurs.” On page four the kids are told that “it takes a very long time for a fossil to form—sometimes many millions of years!” The reality is that permineralization can happen quickly depending on the type and amount of minerals existing in the water that comes into contact with the animal or plant material being fossilized. Creationists have published examples of things like hats, fence posts, teddy bears and many other things totally petrified in only a few years. This is in alignment with the biblical time since the Flood of about 4,500 years. Millions of years is a presuppositional concept of evolutionists not a scientific fact.

If we jump to page six we find the guide selling the idea of feathered dinosaurs. The statement reads, “The discovery of feather impressions in dinosaur fossils revealed that many dinosaurs had feathers.” The image next to the statement is of the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx. In reality evolutionary scientists have not developed a consensus on Archaeopteryx with some saying it is a bird, some saying it is a dinosaur, and some thinking it is a dinosaur evolving to become a bird. My creation-based opinion on what Archaeopteryx is can be found here.

Finally, on page seven is the statement, “There are over 700 different kinds of dinosaurs!” Again, there is no secular or creationist agreement on the number of kinds of dinosaurs found in the rock record. Creationists do agree that the number of created kinds was much less than what the evolutionists would like to have. Evolutionists need a large number in order to help them with their concept of one kind changing into another kind over millions and millions of years.

Overall the activities put together by the U of O staff could be useful for biblical Christian parents to help their children learn about fossils and dinosaurs up to about the 4th grade level. I was able to download a copy at no charge from the Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History website. The caveat is that Christians using the guide would want to navigate around the erroneous statements promoting the secular worldview that I have mentioned.

I will plan to continue to watch for and report in CEC News and on my website any new developments regarding dinosaur fossils excavated from the rocks of Oregon.

J.D. Mitchell

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