Carlisle Cathedral Dinosaur Etchings (Old Earth Ministries)

This is a response to an article written by Old Earth Ministries as a "rebuttal" of the article of Creation Ministries International. The Old Earth Ministries quotes are in blue below and our response follows.

Creation Ministries International's daily article for 26 April 2015 was titled "Concealed under Carlisle Cathedral’s carpet: dinosaurs!" This article by Mark Harwood tells about his visit to Carlisle Cathedral to view the brass etchings on Bishop Richard Bell's tomb, located within the cathedral. There are numerous etchings of animals, along with two etchings that look a lot like dinosaurs.

There are many etchings of animals, as dog, fish, bird, Eel, who are clearly distinguishable. Among this etchings there are two representations of dinosaurs, who are clearly distinguishable. This Dinosaurs appear be a Shunosaurus and Vulcanodon

 However, Bell was buried in 1496. It was not until the 1800's that dinosaurs were discovered...at least that's what the official records show. Then how do we explain the carvings? Young earth creationists have a simple explanation...dinosaurs and man lived together, after the flood, and many men witnessed them. The author states, "Here at Carlisle Cathedral is clear evidence of dinosaurs surviving into the 15th century AD."

When Neyman say : "However, Bell was buried in 1496. It was not until the 1800's that dinosaurs were discovered...", He is actually commenting a error, because he is confusing the difference among find a bone of dinosaur and make a representation of dinosaurs alive, In the Carlisle Cathedral Dinosaur Etchings we see representation of dinosaur alive.

http://creation.com/concealed-under-carlisle-cathedral-carpet-dinosaurs

 The problem with this, though, is two-fold. First, there is absolutely no physical evidence of dinosaurs existing in the 1500's in England, and second, if they did, there would be a great number of references to dinosaurs in the literature of the time, and there isn't. From the standpoint of hard, scientific evidence, there simply is none to support dinosaurs living in medieval times.

Actually There are many evidences for dinosaurs alive in medieval times. We know that many parts of dragons myth was actually dinosaurs history, because the term Dinosaur was proposed in 1842 by Sir Richard Owen, then if the bible is true (because one pillar for the Young Earth Creationism is that supposedly prehistoric animals coexisted with humans ) How medieval man called dinosaurs if this name did not exist? knowing that the medieval described the appearances of dragons, we can compare this reports and the dinosaurs that we know how it seemed, thus we come to the conclusion that some dragons reports actually refers to dinosaurs, even because the medieval men considered dragons as alive animals. Conrad Gessner wrote in his book Historiae animalium early 1500:

"The dinosaurs are very rare but still living creatures"

For more information see : http://creationwiki.org/Dragon

If we consider it then we will see "great number of references to dinosaurs in the literature of the time".

 The most likely answer is that Bishop Bell, or the engraver, was an amatuer paleontologist. True, dinosaurs were not known yet at this time...at least that we know of. They were not scientifically described until the 1800's. However, their bones were around during this time, and could be viewed. No doubt there were curious people prior to the 1800's who looked at the fossils in the rocks, and tried to figure out what they were. This is probably where all the medieval dragon legends come from. In another one of my articles, I tell about the drawings of dinosaurs in the western United States by native peoples, dated to about 1200 A.D. However, the western U.S. is full of dinosaur fossil locations, so the native Americans were sure to have seen them, and some tried to depict what they would have looked like.

Actually the think about the dragons myth come from dinosaurs bones is fallacious. There are reasons about why dinosaur fossils not inspired myths of dragons and representations of dinosaurs, or the because who the old men were not amatuer paleontologists.There are eight reasons for who the old men were not amatuer paleontologists, It will be shown below:

1 - If those representations are from fossil, Where are the fossils unearthed ?

2 - Where are the tools used by old men? Why are not in museums?

3 - How did the old man do faithful representations? Even early paleontologists made totally wrong attempts, moreover the paleontologists just managed to good results with the help of computers and experience in compared anatomy.

4 - Why Don't the old man's representation show they digging fossils?

5 - Where are the reports about dig of fossils?

6 - Many representations made by old men show portions of body that do not easily fossilized, as :cartilage, skin and muscles details, how Do they managed find this by random? 7 - Some Native Americans dread of touching or even discussing the remains of living things! Then, they do not touch in fossils, but Native Americans did dinosaurs representations, how?

8 - How Did they know the techniques for dig of fossils? 

We are left with two possibilities:

1 - The etchings represent live dinosuars, that were seen by the artist in the middle ages, as the creationist organization CMI suggests. There is no scientific evidence to support this theory, as dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.

In this part Neyman committed a error, He uses his logic for try prove something. There are two modes for view the radimetric Dating and Geologic Column, The Uniformitarianism and the Catastrophism.

2 - The etchings depict the work of an amateur paleontologist, who found the bones, and tried to imagine what they looked like. Since many early scientists were also clergy members, Bishop Bell may have studied dinosaur bones. There are no writings to support this, but we do know that dinosaur bones existed in the rocks at the time, and they would have been visible to observers.

This has already been addressed

Which is the most likely scenario?

The Hypothesis number one

[1]: Harwood, Mark, "Concealed under Carlisle Cathedral's carpet: Dinosaurs!" Creation 36(2):12–14 April 2014.

[2]: http://creationwiki.org/pool/File:Bispo.jpg

[3]: http://refutandoaevolucao.blogspot.com.br/2015/09/dinossauros-parte-2.html

[4]: Documentary: The great Dinosaur Mystery, Available in : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i8xH9y65pY

[5]: http://refutandoaevolucao.blogspot.com.br/2015/11/criapilares.html

[6]: Gessner, Conrad, "Historiae Animalium", p. 224

[7]: http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/ancient-paleontologists/

[8]: http://refutandoaevolucao.blogspot.com.br/2015/10/RE001.html

See also: http://www.icr.org/article/did-medieval-artists-see-real-dinosaurs/ for a similar creationist article