I read your article on dinosaurs in the October Forerunner (“Another Look At Dinosaurs, Oct. 1991”) with considerable disappointment. I am both a practicing Christian and a geologist and have been so for over 20 years. And I have never had to compromise my beliefs in either area. The article placed a negative image on those geologists who are not strict creationists as being poor scientists and anti-Christian. I work with geologists who are both excellent scientists and true believers.

I firmly believe that we need to be telling folks about believing in Jesus Christ rather than worrying about whether or not man and dinosaurs ever co-existed on the earth. There are several misconceptions reported in your article.

First of all, the geologic record shows that dinosaurs did not all become extinct instantaneously. World-wide climate change is a perfectly logical explanation for the disappearance of those remaining dinosaurs and for the flourishing of the biologically superior mammals.

Secondly, the Paluxy River beds have been examined thoroughly by many geologists and paleontologists and no human footprints have been positively identified.

And thirdly, you erroneously state that Sir Charles Lyell set up the geological time table. He did not. He started the thought process that initiated the development of the time table, which is still being tested and adjusted today.

While geology is not an exact science and must rely on certain assumption, such as uniformitarianism, these assumptions have proven to work over the more than 150 year span of the practice of this science.

Roger V. Amato
Registered Professional Geologist
Silver Spring, Maryland