Home-schoolers find intact dinosaur skeleton

WorldNetDaily ^ | May 21, 2002

[scripter]

A dinosaur fossil expedition for home educators has excavated a large, rare, intact allosaurus, a discovery that organizers say helps debunk the theory of evolution.

The fossil measures more than 22 feet in length and 10 feet in height, with a complete skull more than a yard long. Allosauruses are believed to be a close relative of the tyrannosaurus rex, differing from the T-rex primarily in size and cranial capacity.

Under the leadership of Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum and an adjunct professor of apologetics with the Institute for Creation Research, and Peter DeRosa, a veteran archaeologist and paleontologist with Creation Expeditions, the team of 30 home schoolers spent a week earlier this month hunting for and excavating fossils in a privately owned location in the Skullcreek Basin of northwest Colorado.

Of the 37 allosauruses that have been discovered around the globe, only 13 have been found with more than 25 percent of the fossilized remains intact, explained a statement released by Phillips and De Rosa. Of those 13, just three complete skulls have ever been recovered. Nearly 70 percent of the Skullcreek allosaurus has already been found, lending credence to speculation that it may prove to be the best-preserved and most fully articulated, or connected, allosaurus yet to be excavated, the statement said.

"Most people do not realize that there is a tremendous paucity of dinosaur bones available to scientists," said Phillips. "Ninety-five percent of all the fossils in the world are marine invertebrates; 95 percent of the remaining 5 percent are plants. The vast majority of the rest of the fossil record are fish and insects. Only a fraction of a percent of the remaining fossil record includes land vertebrates, and those finds usually consist of less than one bone. To find a complete allosaur is simply historic."

DeRosa commented on the possible time of death of the giant animal.

"The evidence strongly points to a relatively recent and catastrophic event similar to that described in the Bible as the flood of Noah's day," he said.

"We found a complete section of vertebrae more than 12 feet in length, which was fully articulated. The dinosaur appears to be in much the same position as he was at the time of his death and burial, which must have been virtually instantaneous, and caused by a catastrophic event. Not only was this fully articulated dinosaur found lying in a bed of leaves and plant debris, but there is wood from trees mixed in among the bones, some of which contains petrified and unpetrified elements in the same piece of wood. If this creature were millions of years old, the evidence would look quite different."

Phillips contends that the discovery of such a valuable dinosaur by creation scientists may well send shockwaves through the scientific community.

"Up to now, a well-funded and insular community of evolutionary theorists have dominated the field of paleontology, directing most of the large dinosaur finds to research and museums committed to interpreting the fossil evidence through the faith-driven assumptions of evolution," said Phillips. "To have a dinosaur of this size and significance within the camp of scientists committed to the creation model is nothing short of a coup d'etat."

The DeRosas, who have a contract on the fossil rights to the property and own the right to the material they excavate, had been working the site well in advance of the arrival of the home-school expedition. Their preliminary work over a period of months led them to believe that they had an allosaurus, but it was not until the home-schoolers arrived and performed the heavy lifting of moving a lot of dirt that evidence was found to validate their suspicions.

Home-school dad finds skull

According to the organizers' statement, the discovery of the allosaurus skull came at the last moment of the last day of the trip. With just minutes to go before calling quits on the expedition, Dr. Bruce Bellamy, a home-school father from Clinton, Mo., broke dirt on what would prove to be the neck vertebrae leading up to the skull.

"I placed a $250 bounty on anyone who found the skull," Phillips said. "It was just a small incentive for my team, of course. The actual skull could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Last week, DeRosa brought in a fresh team of professional excavators to remove the skull from the ground for preservation. It is not yet known when the skull will be available for viewing.

Bellamy, as it turns out, was not the only one to uncover a last-minute prize. Just yards away, on a second site, 9-year-old home-schooler Haley Meadows was dusting away dirt with her brush when she found the claws of a 100-foot sauropod, presently believed to be of the rare ultrasaurus variety, according to Phillips.

"What is amazing about this sauropod is the fact that it constitutes an entire hill," Phillips said. "This is an enormous and impressive creature. Everywhere we dig we seem to be finding more bones, from six-foot femurs to ribs to vertebrae."

Home educators paid $950 a person to study dinosaurs, learn excavation techniques and uncover dinosaur bones. The privately owned area was once described by National Geographic as one of the 50 best fossil dig sites in the world.

"The home-schoolers on this trip paid for the privilege of shoveling dirt, hacking at rocks and the possibility that some of them might uncover dinosaur bones," Phillips said. "Many of our guests came with minimal expectation, but the dig proved successful beyond the imagination of both trip sponsors and participants. There is not one child in a million who gets an opportunity like this. This is what home education is all about."

Added DeRosa, "The story behind the location of this site is perhaps the greatest miracle. Through a series of remarkable events, more than 120 acres fell into the hands of the current owners, a Christian home-schooling couple committed to biblical creationism."

The owners have been approached by museums, television networks and leading evolutionists who have expressed a strong interest in the fossils found on the property.

"I am sure the evolutionists would love to get their hands on these bones. Who can blame them," Phillips said. "It is like a gold mine for paleontologists."

Creation Expeditions, which believes the land may contain dozens of more fully articulated dinosaurs, hopes to be excavating the site for years.

[longshadow]

Did anyone notice which scholarly, mainstream, refereed science publication they intend to publish their findings? I didn't see anything in the article mentioning it.....

They do intend to publish their findings, so other scientists can have the opportunity to see the evidence, their claims, and their reasoning that led them to their conclusions, don't they?

[medved]

I don't think it's going to wind up being that important. The age of the earth isn't on all that shaky a ground.

Yeah it is, Reep...

In fact, the age of dinosaurs is on pretty shaky ground as well

[Swordmaker]

Obviously, two Ultrasauruses (100 cubits in length) wouldn't fit too well in the Ark (300 cubits) and still leave room for a coupla allosauruses, some Apotosauri, not to mention a T-rex or two! Besides, have you calculated how much fodder would be needed to feed the U'sauri?

[Always Right]

They aren't serious are they? - so these things were walking around in Noah's day according to these folks?

Made me wonder why Noah did not save any of these dinosaurs....

[Free Trapper]

Thought you might like to see this since they found a sauropod also.Might be your Great Uncle.;o)

[Aquinasfan]

Personally, I think Darwin's general theory of evolution is unscientific bunk. But I don't think that dinosaurs were around to be drowned in Noahs flood circa 3,000 B.C., either.

I'm with you. The idea that this would upset the professional, insular, dogmatic, paleontology community is worth something though.

[VadeRetro]

Hale-freakin'-lujah! Medved has discovered links!

Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective.

The carbon-14 system has been carefully calibrated with nonradiometric age indicators. For example growth rings in trees, if counted carefully, are a reliable way to determine the age of a tree. Each growth ring only collects carbon from the air and nutrients during the year it is made. To calibrate carbon-14, one can analyze carbon from several center rings of a tree, and then count the rings inward from the living portion to determine the actual age. This has been done for the "Methuselah of trees," the bristlecone pines, which grow very slowly and live up to 6,000 years. Scientists have extended this calibration even further. These trees grow in a very dry region near the California-Nevada border. Dead trees in this dry climate take many thousands of years to decay. Growth ring patterns based on wet and dry years can be correlated between living and long dead trees, extending the ring count back to about 10,000 years ago.

When you try to use a particular tool well outside the parameters for which it was developed and calibrated, the results are useless. Your web page focusses purely on Carbon-14, ignoring the results from all the many other dating techniques. There are over forty, several of which directly date the older earth rocks at about 3.8 billion and older meteorites at 4.5 billion.

Former YEC Glenn R. Morton on Those Young-Earth Arguments: A Second Look.

The convergence of lines of evidence for the current estimates of earth/solar system age are given here, The Age of the Earth. Note the following:

It is true that some dating methods (e.g., K-Ar and carbon-14) do not have a built-in check for contamination, and if there has been contamination these methods will produce a meaningless age. For this reason, the results of such dating methods are not treated with as much confidence.

Carbon-14, the only leg upon which your article chooses to stand. I could go on, but there are links upon links from the stuff I linked already. The curious are invited to pursue as they wish.

[VadeRetro]

They do intend to publish their findings, so other scientists can have the opportunity to see the evidence, their claims, and their reasoning that led them to their conclusions, don't they?

Do the ICR web pages count? Maybe it'll get into CreationOnline, special price now at $79.

[medved]

When you try to use a particular tool well outside the parameters for which it was developed and calibrated, the results are useless...

That ignores the problem. The problem is that, according to all standard theory and doctrines, coal and materials from the carboniferous should not radiocarbon date at all. The fact that it does indicates a severe problem for standard theories.

And then, of course, you have Ed Conrad's carboniferous fossils, which are also not supposed to exist, including teeth, tusks, and bones, some of which are clearly hominid or human.

My favorite of these is this:

Note the lack of serrations; this was a lower canine tooth of some mammal or near-mammal which a tyrannosaur would not want to meet up with.

[VadeRetro]

The problem is that, according to all standard theory and doctrines, coal and materials from the carboniferous should not radiocarbon date at all.

True in theory. The problem with that is that in the real world, every spike of signal fades into a floor of noise. That crackpot web page is just lawyering on the noise, swearing that the floor should be smooth as glass after the signal is gone. That's why they spend so much time trying to say that it's not contamination, it isn't the machine, it isn't this, it isn't that. They're measuring the noise as "age." C-14 is the instrument of choice for their purposes precisely because the real signal disappears quickly.

As I said before, they're ignoring all the evidence against their thesis, presenting only on the supposed anomalous data that "proves" their point. That's either incompetence, cowardice, or dishonesty and you don't knock anything down that way.

None of Ed Conrad's stuff is convincing as a supposed anomaly. Every bone I've seen so far could be from an amphibian or synapsid reptile.

[VadeRetro]

BTW, that "tooth" has no root. I don't think so.

[sixmil]

That's impossible! Homeschoolers are being abused and lied to by their inbred parents. Only the teachers union can educate students good [sic] enough to find fossils. < / s a r c a s m >

[scripter]

As I said before, they're ignoring all the evidence against their thesis, presenting only on the supposed anomalous data that "proves" their point. That's either incompetence, cowardice, or dishonesty and you don't knock anything down that way.

You may be right. I don't yet have the knowledge to make that determination. Still, after following Ed Conrad's "man as old as coal" links to the end and reading the letter from the Smithsonian Institute; if the website lists the true order of events and with the letter to Conrad's congressman, and the response listed, the Smithsonian Institute is acting dishonestly in their recollection of events. That should send alarms off for anyone interested in filtering the data objectively. Something stinks here, bigtime.

[sauropod]

Thx for the ping.

Phillips is full of it. There are a large number of bones that have not even been categorized or examined in a storage facility at some university (Texas?) from the Cope and Marsh days.

There are loads of dinosaur bone fragments over large areas of utah, etc. Illegal to pick them up, but mainly plant eater dino bone frags just eroding away on the surface of the ground...

But that is a subject for another day. See the book Tyrannosaurus Sue by Steve (forgot the last name). I have read the book and actually knew at one time some of the Black Hills guys.

As you can probably tell, paleontology is a hobby of mine.

Rectitudine Sto. Sauropod

[gore3000]

When you try to use a particular tool well outside the parameters for which it was developed and calibrated, the results are useless. Your web page focusses purely on Carbon-14, ignoring the results from all the many other dating techniques. There are over forty, several of which directly date the older earth rocks at about 3.8 billion and older meteorites at 4.5 billion.

Problem is that with near-historical times (and some carbon-14 calibration was done with historical records) calibration and verification is possible. With these other methods, there is no calibration or verification possible.

[gcruse]

 a discovery that organizers say helps debunk the theory of evolution.

And who might the organizers be?

a veteran archaeologist and paleontologist with Creation Expeditions

Bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahhaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, really.  Bwahahahahahahhahahahhahha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 

[gore3000]

Nobody but Young Earth Creationists find evidence for The Flood.

Again the usual evolutionist argument - because evolution, geology, whatever, is true, evidence against the theory must be disregarded. Sounds like self-fullfilling prophecy to me, not science.