“Walking with … untruths!”
April 16, 2000
On April 16, the Discovery Channel in America aired a so-called “documentary”
on dinosaurs. What makes this program different from the recent spate of dinosaur
programs is that it features animatronics and other fancy technologies, but even
more interesting than that is the great deal of evolutionary speculation presented
as fact to its viewers.
“Walking with Dinosaurs” was originally broadcast on BBC-TV in England,
where it was a huge hit—over 12 million viewers tuned in for each of the six
episodes. The Discovery Channel rebroadcast the episodes on Sunday, April 16, over
a 3-hour time period. Because of the recent success of the Discovery Channel’s
documentary on mammoths last month (the most-viewed TV program in U.S. cable-TV
history), this dinosaur program promises to be just as successful.
Children’s toys associated with the program—such as “beanies,”
dinosaur figurines, and 3D puzzles—will all be used to indoctrinate young
people in an evolutionary view of dinosaurs. (For what the Bible and true science
say about dinosaurs, order David Catchpoole’s fascinating
DVD Dinosaurs & The Bible DVD)
Science or science fiction?
There is much to criticize regarding the “science” behind the “Walking
with Dinosaurs” documentary. (In fact, the word “documentary”
is used to describe something that is “documented” with primary source
material as much as possible—and “without fictionalization” as
Webster’s says—and this highly speculative TV series certainly comes
nowhere near that definition.) For example:
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It discusses the cynodont, a dog-like creature that “mates for life.”
There is absolutely no evidence for this. In fact, throughout the program, these
kinds of comments are presented as firm statements, and are not revealed as someone’s
guess.
-
The program talked about T-rexes cannibalizing their young—again,
there is no evidence presented that this really occurred.
-
T-Rex is described as a predator, but it may have actually been a scavenger.
The program also claims that its eggs were “closely guarded by a protective
mother,” and that it did not abandon its young—but we don’t really
know that.
-
T-Rex is described as being capable of giving out a mating call, and its
territory is stated to have been over hundreds of square miles. Pure speculation
again.
-
The program assumes that the viewers already accept the belief that dinosaurs lived
more than 65 million years ago, many millions of years before man appeared. Furthermore,
the incredibly designed features of the dinosaurs are simply explained away as products
of evolutionary adaptation. Nowhere was it even suggested (at least with the one
30-minute segment that we were able to preview) where the genetic information required
for new anatomical structures to develop could have arisen through the mechanisms
that evolutionists propose (including how dinosaurs could have evolved into birds,
with their hollow bones, wings, and complex feathers that would have had to change
from reptilian scales).
-
65% of life, they say, was killed when a comet struck the earth, but this assumes
that the fossil record is a tape recording of events spanning millions of years,
and not the burial sequence of billions of organisms in the global Flood described
in the Bible. How in the world did they come up with that figure?
The TV critics
Although many TV reviewers gushed at the program’s animatronic wizardry, it
should be observed that some of the creatures appear “stilted,” and
that the special effects don’t quite match up with what was seen in movies
like the Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World. Indeed, such animation
can cost many thousands of dollars per second, so it appears as if the TV producers
have gone the less expensive route than that taken by big-budget Hollywood moviemakers.
“Walking with Dinosaurs” is so full of speculation and special effects
that it might be better described as a Hollywood movie disguised as a so-called
“science documentary.” In fact, dinosaur expert Angela Milner of the
prestigious Natural History Museum in London told Time magazine (October
18): “I fear that fact and fiction will get mixed up … we really don’t
know whether some of the behavior is correct.”
Dr. David Norman of Cambridge University told USA Today (November 1) that
the program “purports to be factual, but actually it fudges the truth …
its blending of fact and fiction goes too far.”
Evolutionary propaganda against the Bible!
The six episodes are propaganda pieces for evolution as much as they are a way to
present the fascinating topic of dinosaurs. The producers of the programs are certainly
aware that in the United States, almost one half of Americans believe in the creation
account of origins, and that the creation happened within the last 10,000 years.
Because that scenario is so contrary to evolutionary dinosaur history, the Discovery
Channel/BBC appears to be intentionally using this series to promote a worldview
that is anti-biblical.
At least most secular articles on dinosaur history use tentative words like “if,”
“could have,” “may,” etc., which only makes the program’s
dogmatism even more glaring. For example, when you read newspaper articles about
so-called “feathered dinosaurs” (which have so far been shown to be
untrue), the careful reader will notice many tentative words; on the other hand,
this documentary avoids conditional and subjunctive terms, and merely presents everything
it says as absolute fact.
At least we can be somewhat encouraged that many evolutionists have recognized this
major flaw in the TV program. Perhaps through their criticisms, more integrity can
be restored to the study of dinosaurs, including the proposed sequel already in
the planning stage.
The Bible can offer a far better explanation of the history of the dinosaurs. AiG
has many resources available (books, videos, etc.)
that present dinosaurs in a biblical light.
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