INFINITY #3: The Dinosaurs and Giants of Texas.
by Daniel H. Harris, Ph.D.
I. The Questions.
Did man and dinosaur walk the Earth together? Did the Earth's atmosphere undergo a dramatic change only thousands of years ago? Did giants walk the Earth and fly over the Earth in those days? This INFINITY will present decisive evidence on the age of the Earth and the central issue of Earth history, the reality of the world wide catastrophic flood at the time of Noah.
II. Conventional Wisdom.
Earth science textbooks tell us that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for millions of years, then suddenly died out some sixty eight million years ago; and the textbooks tell us that man has walked the Earth less than three million years. Thus the textbook writers claim that there was no time when man and dinosaur walked the Earth together.
III. The Rocks Speak.
But the rocks of the State of Texas reveal the footprints of man and dinosaurs walking together (Link to endnote); and they show giant human footprints and the fossils of giant flying reptiles, all in rocks of the same geologic age.
South West of Dallas, off Highway 67, near Glen Rose, Texas, in the bed of the Paluxy River, and in other places around the world, are found human and dinosaur footprints, side by side, pressed into the same rock layers. Near Glen Rose, various groups, since 1910, have found more than fifty human footprints, and several overlapping trails of human and dinosaur footprints. And many of the human footprints when they were excavated were well preserved. The footprints are in sedimentary rock, called Cretaceous age limestone. Conventional dating by University of Texas researchers, says that this rock was laid down about 108 million years ago. The Paluxy River dinosaur and human footprint evidence can be examined at the Creation Evidences Museum, near Glen Rose, Texas; and the more abundant dinosaur prints can be examined at the nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park.
IV. Violent Waters Lay Down Limestone.
The Paluxy River footprints are found in limestone, which when it is freshly laid down, behaves like cement. The process starts when fast moving water currents pulverize the shells of sea creatures, making abundant lime (Calcium Carbonate). Further water action then carries the lime up onto the land. As with cement, for a short time the lime has the consistency of mud and can receive impressions. The violent water motions which carried the soft lime onto the land, had to be followed immediately by walking or running feet, perhaps fleeing another approaching wall of water and sediment.
V. Footprints in Stone.
At Glen Rose, some of the human footprints show only outlines, perhaps being made when the limestone was too stiff to leave a good impression. But other human footprints are clear and detailed, with lime pushed up around the print, five clearly outlined toes, a heel impression, an arch, and ball of the foot, all identical in shape to modern man. There is even one print of a sandaled foot. The prints also show the expected left, right, left, right, sequence with appropriate distances between the prints.
To an unbiased observer, these clearly human footprints, adjacent to, and in some cases overlapping dinosaur footprints, uncovered in the presence of skeptical media from a variety of news outlets, uncovered under professional supervision, and carefully documented; show clearly that man and dinosaur did walk the earth together.
VI. The Controversy.
The Paluxy River human footprints have often been ignored or ridiculed by establishment scientists. But it is clear that such carefully documented and witnessed discoveries, would have been well received and widely publicized, if they did not so clearly provide support for a Biblical flood account.
VII. A Violent Upheaval.
The Bible describes a world wide flood of violently moving waters. In Genesis 7:11, we read that: "...In the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." And we read in Genesis 7:19-20, that: "the waters prevailed exceedingly, upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward the waters prevailed..." (fifteen cubits is about 27 feet)
The violence of the flood waters is shown by the Paluxy River footprints, and by fossils found elsewhere; these are the fossils of bodies that were crushed, distorted, and torn apart. For a buried body to become a fossil, the body must be buried rapidly, under thick material to keep out oxygen, otherwise the body will rot away leaving no fossil remains. To quickly deposit a thick layer of sediment obviously requires swiftly flowing water. So the Paluxy River footprints, and the fossils found in other place around the Earth, tell the same story, a story of violently moving water, carrying large amounts of sediment, sweeping the entire Earth.
VIII. The Antediluvian Giants.
The Bible also tells us in Genesis 6:4, that: "There were giants in the earth in those days." (that is, before the flood) Is this consistent with the Paluxy River evidence?
Yes it is! A number of the Paluxy River human footprints are large, with foot lengths of about 16 inches (41cm). If the people that made these footprints didn't just have big feet, then a 16 inch foot would correspond to a human about eight and a half feet (2.6m) tall. Other sets of prints are more typical of modern man, being 12 inches (30cm)) long, or nine and 3/4 inches (25cm). Others are of children. This is exactly as we would expect from a population of giants.
If these footprints were our only evidence of giants in the distant past, we might not take them so seriously. But there are many other fossils showing that many things grew bigger before the flood. There are fossils of dragon flies with wing spans of 14 inches (36cm) or more, there are the giant flying reptiles known as Pterosaurs with fifty foot (15m) wingspans, and then there are the dinosaurs themselves, some reaching more than seventy feet (21m) in length.
IX. A Changed Atmosphere.
Many people have speculated that the Earth's atmosphere was different before the flood. Let's see what the Bible says.
The Bible tells us that the windows of heaven were opened. A reasonable inference might be that there was a layer of water above the Earth's atmosphere before the flood, a layer of water which came down during the flood. If that layer of water vapor above the atmosphere was equivalent to perhaps thirty feet of liquid water, then the weight of that water would have pressed down on the atmosphere, giving a total weight about double the weight of Earth's present atmosphere. That means the pressure of the atmosphere would have been double the present value. Is the record in the rocks consistent with this?
Consider the fossil dragon flies with a 14 inch wingspans, more than twice the size of the ones we see today. These look just like modern dragon flies, only bigger. The fossil dragon fly is twice as large as the modern ones, so it weighs eight times more, but its wing area and lifting capacity is only four times bigger than the modern variety. So if the air were twice as thick, the dragon flies could, with each little area of wing, push twice as much air with each stroke of its wings, and that would just compensate for the dragon flies larger weight for its wing size.
X. Pterosaurs Too Heavy to Fly!
In the Big Bend Region of South West, Texas, are found the fossils bones of giant flying reptiles known as the Pterosaurs. Among these was Quetzalcoatlus, with a wing span of over fifty feet, which geologists claim lived in the Late Cretaceous Period, about the same time as the Paluxy River dinosaurs. Studies of these creatures have shown that they were too heavy to fly in the atmosphere that the Earth has today. An atmosphere at least double the weight of today's atmosphere would have been necessary.
XI. Man and Dinosaurs Walked the Earth Together.
If you go and examine the rocks of Texas, you will see that the rocks provide abundant evidence in support of the world wide catastrophic flood described in the Bible; evidence that giant men, great dinosaurs, giant insects, and huge flying reptiles lived together, before the flood, and died together in the flood. All thee are evidence that when the waters above came down, there was a dramatic change in the atmosphere.
These evidences are verifiable facts which tear at the core of evolutionary thinking. If man and dinosaur walked the Earth together, and died together in the flood, then the Earth is perhaps at most fifteen thousand years old, not the millions of years needed by the alleged process of evolution. The great deposits of sedimentary rocks did not form slowly over millions of years, they formed quickly, at the time of the flood, perhaps six thousand years ago.
XII. The Rocks Agree With a Biblical World View.
The evidence is clear, the Bible accurately describes the events of world history and the Bible is a solid foundation on which to base your world view. Therefore, you would be wise to make agreement with the one true God who gave us the Bible.
How to make an agreement with God.
At the time that this INFINITY was first broadcast, Dr. Harris hadn't personally visited Glen Rose to examine the Texas evidence directly. But in August of 1999, Dr. Harris did personally examine the evidence, both in the substantial collection of the Creation Evidences Museum, and in the bed of the Paluxy River. With a group from the (link to SABBSA) San Antonio Bible Based Science Association, Dr. Harris personally verified several freshly excavated human footprints, along with dinosaur foot prints in the layer of Cretaceous limestone in the banks and bed of the Paluxy River, near Glen Rose Texas. Dr. Harris saw the perfect matching of a naked human foot to these fresh well preserved prints, and so Dr. Harris affirms that humans and dinosaurs did indeed walk the Earth together as the waters of the flood began to cover the Earth.