Gary A. Byers<\/b><\/p>\n
While it is a bit outside my field of study (by about 65 million years), I want to visit \u201cJurassic Park\u201d with you. Destined to make all other box office records \u201cextinct,\u201d this movie is a mix of Michael Crichton\u2019s literary techno-thrillers, Steven Speilberg\u2019s patented cinematic humor and thrills, and George Lucas\u2019 digital revolution in special effects.<\/p>\n
As Sharon Begley wrote in Newsweek, all great science fiction must be science first and fiction second. Even more, she continued, it must tap into the reigning scientific paradigm of its era. For \u201cJurassic Park\u201d that paradigm is biotechnology coupled with our continued fascination for dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
Here are a few facts related to the movie and the scientific evidence behind them.<\/p>\n
1. Jurassic Park is an almost completed amusement park on an uninhabited island near Costa Rica.<\/p>\n
The park takes its name from the Jurassic period of prehistory when many dinosaurs are said to have roamed the Earth (which, by the way, had not yet broken into continents yet – they were all still part of one supercontinent called Pangaea). The Jurassic period, which lasted from about 200 million to 140 million BC (give or take a few ill), takes its name from the Jura Mountains of France and Switzerland where many fossils dated to that time period were found during the 19th century.<\/p>\n
2. Plans for the park call for 14 different kinds of dinosaurs to inhabit Jurassic Park; including Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Gallimimus, Dilophosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor.<\/p>\n
The term dinosaur was coined in 1841 by British scientist Richard Owens after examining fossils found in Britain which were not from typical reptiles. Although he understood they were not technically from large lizards, he called them Dinosaurs (Greek for \u201cTerrible\/Lizards\u201d).<\/p>\n
For the sake of having Paleontology Correctness, it should be noted only Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus were alive during the Jurassic period. The others missed it by about 20 to 30 million years. Scientists have today identified 300 different kinds of dinosaurs which they believe lived on the earth during the 150 million year Mesozoic (\u201cMiddle\/Life\u201d) Period. They became extinct about 65 million years ago (or was that 65 million BC?).<\/p>\n
By the way, one of the leading experts on dinosaurs today, Dr. Robert Bakker who also served as a consultant for \u201cJurassic Park,\u201d recently said that we probably do not know 99% of the dinosaurs which existed during the age of dinosaurs. He added that 99.999% of what we want to know about dinosaurs is yet to be discovered. So much for authoritative research!<\/p>\n
3. The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were recreated by cloning dinosaur DNA which had been extracted from blood retrieved in prehistoric mosquitoes sealed in amber.<\/p>\n
Amber fossils of insects, plants and small animals are quite common. They were created when they became trapped in clear sticky plant resin. Pressure over time hardened the resin into amber <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1993) p. 67<\/p>\n
while the organic matter trapped inside remained intact. \u201cAncient DNA is indeed being extracted and cloned from extinct organisms preserved in amber,\u201d said biologist George Poinar Jr. He was part of the team which accomplished the feat for the first time – two weeks into the filming of \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, paleontologist Jack Homer hinted it is easy to get DNA from dinosaur bones. The question is whether it is the dinosaur\u2019s DNA as opposed to the DNA of bacteria or fungus contaminating the bone. Horner and Robert Bakker are generally considered the leading experts on dinosaurs today. Also a scientific adviser to the movie, Horner is said to have been the model for the hero of \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Noted paleontologist Alan Grant, fictitious hero of the movie, had a particular take on the demise of dinosaurs. He believed they evolved into birds.<\/p>\n
There are currently over 100 theories attempting to explain the extinction of dinosaurs, which scientists suggest occurred 65 million years ago. One of the most widely accepted theories, put forward by John Ostrom of Yale in 1970, suggests that birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs.<\/p>\n
Since the first dinosaur fossil discoveries in the last century, these giant beasts have captured the imagination of young and old alike. But scientists, educators and marketing experts have all acknowledged an ever greater interest since the mid-1980\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The dinosaur boom began with a new generation of scientists who took a fresh look at dinosaurs and totally revised traditional views. In fact, if you have not studied dinosaurs in the past 20 years, forget everything you ever learned about them. No longer is a \u201cdinosaur\u2019 cold-blooded, slow, dim-witted, outdated, obsolete and a loser. They were the masters of the universe for 150 million years!?!? The Lord actually put it even better when He pointed out a dinosaur to Job and said, \u201cHe is the chief of the ways of God…\u201d (Job 40:19).<\/p>\n
A Rose By Any Other Name Is Still A Rose! A Brontosaurus by Any Other Name is … An Apatosaurus? or a Brachiosaurus?<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no such thing as a Brontosaurus, is the way one recent children\u2019s book about dinosaurs said it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMuseums all over America are sawing heads off one kind of dinosaur. It\u2019s just been realized the Brontosaurs have been wearing the wrong ones for the past one hundred years.\u201d These were the opening words of a recent program in the NOVA series on PBS. Most of today\u2019s adults grew up knowing more about Brontosauruses (and that is the correct term!) than almost any other creature, ancient or modern. Yet, now they tell us it just ain\u2019t so.<\/p>\n
Brontosauruses are known as therapods (\u201cBeast\/Feet\u201d), huge four legged herbivorous creatures. They were so large that it was once believed, back when we were kids, their legs could not hold their body weight. Consequently, they had to live in swamps <\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 6:3 (Summer 1993) p. 68<\/p>\n
where the water helped support their weight. This included the estimated 1,000 pounds of food the largest of these creatures needed each day.<\/p>\n
More recent studies, however, suggest they roamed in herds on dry land feeding in the tops of trees, as seen in the opening dinosaur scene of \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d Why the new perspective of their habitat? Scientists have noted that their bone structure was hollow and not nearly as heavy as originally assumed.<\/p>\n
But what about the Brontosaurus? The late 19th century, a period remembered as \u201cThe Dinosaurs Wars,\u201d was the heyday of dinosaur hunting. During a twenty year span the bones of 100 different dinosaurs were uncovered in the American west. Rival scientists were racing to dig up and catalog new fossils. The first person to find a new skeleton got to name it.<\/p>\n
In 1877, Othniel Marsh, head of Yale\u2019s Peabody Museum turned up a remarkable skeleton in Wyoming. He named it Apatosaurus (\u201cUnreal\/Lizard\u201d). Two years later he found a similar but much larger skeleton. This one he named Bronotosaurus (\u201cThunder\/Lizard\u201d).<\/p>\n
Apparently the Thunderlizard was found minus its head. One story has it that Marsh stuck on a head found elsewhere. Whether inadvertently or by design, he established a pattern that museums and artists followed for a century. In fact, in 1920, a team from the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh found a complete Brontosaurus. When their Brontosaurus head was compared to the now settled view, it was deemed incorrect and the skeleton was displayed without it. After the expedition leader who found the fossilized remains retired from the museum, someone else added a head – according to the established pattern.<\/p>\n
Today, we know the dinosaur discovered in 1879 and named Brontosaurus was simply a larger version of the Apatosaurus already identified and named. Name corrections began to appear in the 1970\u2019s Heads actually \u201cbegan to roll\u201d in the 1980\u2019s. The NOVA program filmed the head replacement on the skeleton in the famous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, many current writers still refer to the now \u201cextinct\u201d name Brontosaurus, as if the whole thing had never happened. Many other writers have simply switched names in their discussions and quietly gone right on. Now, instead of Brontosaurus they say the same things about Brachiosaurus (\u201cArm\/Lizard\u201d) – usually with no explanation for the change in terminology.<\/p>\n
While scientific research in all fields continues to find new data and clarify our understanding of many subjects, the Brontosaurus story is troubling. This creature has been a standard illustration in the evolutionary explanation for the span of life on earth. When found to be incorrect, it was simply changed and quietly corrected. No big deal.<\/p>\n
But it raises an interesting question. How many other scientific \u201cfacts\u201d used to support the evolutionary frame-work of history are also incorrect? There are already quite a number which have been well established. Unfortunately, they are treated as virtually nonexistent in the mainstream media where evolution reigns supreme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gary A. Byers While it is a bit outside my field of study (by about 65 million years), I want to visit \u201cJurassic Park\u201d with you. Destined to make all other box office records \u201cextinct,\u201d this movie is a mix of Michael Crichton\u2019s literary techno-thrillers, Steven Speilberg\u2019s patented cinematic humor and thrills, and George Lucas\u2019 … Continue reading “JURASSIC
\nPARK, DINOSAURS AND THE BIBLE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}