Customer Reviews

Dinosaurs by Design

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I really enjoyed this book for the outright silliness of it. God forbid my daughter should ever see it. The only thing that dampened my enjoyment was the thought that someone might actually take it seriously. We're Christian and respect a diversity of viewpoints but, wow, this thing is nuts.

This book is a fantastic example of how facts and science can be manipulated, misrepresented and plain made up to display anything an author desires. Excellent for teaching children about bias and lies, and for imbuing them with a healthy amount of scepticism. Not so great for learning anything factual though.

Are you looking for a book that will present the solid facts on dinosaurs on a level anyone can understand? Look no further! Adults and children alike love this book. It's a book that will be used again and again.

This is a great book for kids and adults alike who would like to learn more about dinosaurs. Though I would think that it would be better for young children. Adults who would like to learn the truth about dinosaurs should see The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved! by Ken Ham. All in all a great book!

We really enjoyed this book about dinosaurs from the creationistic point of view. It gives credible answers to all the questions children have about how dinosaurs fit in from a biblical viewpoint. Even as an adult reading this book I had many of the secular evolutionary ideas I grew up on challenged. It will enhance your faith in God to realize that there are credible creationistic theories in response to secular evolution!

This book is written in an easy style that enables readers of all ages to enjoy the information given. Science and Scripture are not mutually exclusive, as explained by the author using scientific fact and wonderful illustration. Mr. Gish gives the truly open-minded evolutionist something to think about, and perhaps something to honestly research on their own. He dosen't answer our questions so much as he questions our answers. Scientists who are also Christians should be grateful for this book as a tool to open the minds of others.

This book is an expanded version of his earlier "Dinosaurs: Those Terrible Lizards." This book is highly informative, and you can learn a lot from it if you are brave enough to tolerate all the Creationist foolishness.

According to Duane Gish, all of the animals were created in the beginning. This includes both dinosaurs and people. All of the animals, even the ferocious tyrannosaurus, were herbivores until the Fall of Man.

In this book, he added several very interesting and informative features. On pages 10-13, he tells us how dinosaur fossils are excavated and restored. On page 23, he tells us the story of the first dinosaur discovery. No Evolutionist could take issue with any of this.

On pages 62-63, however, he misrepresents Evolutionists as saying that transitional animal species grew useless wings or useless fins on a smaller scale. He argues that such emerging organs would only hamper their hapless owners. His illustrators make that point with two amusing illustrations.

On pages 64-65, he admittedly does present a challenging point: He tells us that some dinosaurs were "bird-hipped" and some were "lizard-hipped," and that those species which Evolutionists regard as avian forebears happened to be "lizard-hipped." He even gave the Greek equivalents for those two terms.

Gish expands on the subject of the Great Deluge. He argues that there are Flood legends from all over the world, so it must be true. I wonder if anyone ever pointed to Gish that there are Cinderella legends from all over the world, and asked him if the Cinderella legend is true.

Beginning on page 80, Gish suggests that dinosaurs were dragons. After all, dragons appear in folkore all over the world, so they must be real. Again, what about the Cinderella legend?

To argue that dragons can breathe fire, he discusses the explosive chemical emitted by the bombardier beetle. This discussion was also included in his earlier book.

Gish was popular with Creationists partly because of his warm and folksy style. The last paragraph of this book ends, "Is the search for 'new' animals over? What do you think? Who knows what adventures are wating for YOU!"

Now excuse me while I look up "ornithischian" and "saurischian."

Awful. My son grabbed this book to read to him at bedtime. How did this "creationist" nonsense get in my house??? It's not even going to goodwill; I wouldn't want another child or parent to be confused. I won't burn it though! I think I'll use it as an example how my children need to verify what you learn; just because it's written in a book, doesn't mean it's true.

This is a perfect example of the kind of misinformation that perpetuates the worst kind of bias within the Christian community. The art is perfect to attract children and home schoolers. The scientific "evidence" is all laced with half truths and logic games that seduce the reader into making a moral judgement against what is and what is not GOOD knowledge. An inquisition is not a proven way to gain followers.
Conservative Creationism is NOT about converting non-believers, even though that happens with the occasional fence sitting adult. This literature is mostly about selling books to well meaning house wifes and planting the seeds of mistrust and ignorance into the current generation children in dire need of truth in education. This idea of an ultimatum is only OPINION, not TRUTH.
I AM A BELIEVER. I am active in my local church. And for the last twenty years I have studied the scriptures used to reinforce these VIEWS. They are among the most debated and mysterious passages in the Bible. Genesis and Revelation are the books people fight about because they are Not KNOWABLE.They cannot be confirmed historically the same way most of the scripture can. Because of this, and other forms of widely varied interpretations of those texts, they are twisted and interpreted in any number of ways to fit very narrow agendas and dogmas. And without those scriptures,the behavior of the proponents would never be mistaken as ministry. In fact, in many ways, everything about Conservative Creationism on this basic level is subversive. One has to completely reject the principles of 21st Century Physics, Astronomy, Genetics, Zoology, Paleontology, and 20th Century Geological Science, and Medicine because those sciences demand Atheism.
The premise is basically this. "You cannot believe in Scientific Studies and believe in God. Faith demands that you chose between God and Science." This idea of mandatory choice is not true. There are many doctors and vets and scientists attending every Christian denomination every Sunday morning. They know what is real. The knowledge that makes their careers possible is the same knowledge that keeps the congregation healthy and keeps the lights on and the cars coming to and from the parking lot. They also know that if they do not keep quiet they can be ostracized as Heretics. This practice flies against every intention of Christian outreach. It successfully drives away many of those who most need the reality bigger than scientific explanation.
The Truth with a Capital T is that Science is a system of Study, of organizing ideas. But it is Not a complete belief system. It can't be because it admits that it can NEVER KNOW EVERYTHING. The Truth of Faith is that it IS the ultimate answer to everything.
Books like Dinosaurs, By Design are Anti-science books. They are anti-logic books. They demand a completely adversarial view of our entire educational system at a time when the USA is already behind the rest of the Western world in this matter. And the worst of it is that this whole idea of choosing God against Science is a sad, unnecessary, false starting point for whole belief system.
In short, Science is the study of HOW GOD DID IT. Faith reveals WHY GOD DID IT. We don't need some faction to dumb down the world and the Word to an understandable size. We don't need to make a simple choice between God and Science. Science is the study of everything in the real,physical world. God created all that stuff. Every bit of matter in existence is the product of God's creativity. And that was a really really hard thing to do. Even harder to understand. Thats where faith comes in;the belief in things not understood. Isn't that what medical researchers do every day?They know they don't understand what they are looking at. But just because they don't understand it,they don't say it doesn't exist. And every believer knows that God created everything. So,Science Is the study of how God Did Everything.
Science is the study of God's Creation. Evolution happened. God did it. Get over it!
I know this is not a popular stand to take for someone in my position. The fact is that Truth with the BIG T has always been unpopular. History speaks for itself.


For His glory alone, JPF

When my 3 year old son told me dinosaurs weren't around at the same time as people, I explained to him (again) that God created the dinosaurs the same time as all the other animals. Many died during the flood. There were dinosaurs on the ark. Probably many dinosaurs that came off the ark were killed off by knights. He replied, "Well then why are there never people in the pictures with the dinosaurs?" It was then I that I decided I needed to buy this book. My son was mesmerized by the pictures and looked through it over and over again. He would even sit through me reading the pages (which are a bit wordy for such a young child). My son is now 6 and he still loves the book. He still doesn't read much of it himself, but he loves for me to read it to him. Especially neat to this book is the section that has a drawing of each dinosaur, a map of where their fossils have been found, their family, fossil locations, diet, & interesting facts. We also purchased "Dinosaurs of Eden" and "When Dragon's Hearts Were Good" both of which I would also recommend. "The Amazing Story of Creation" might be good for when he's older. It still doesn't keep his attention.