The Answers to Short Questions from Our Readers
Plain Truth Magazine
July 1969
Volume: Vol XXXIV, No.7
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The Answers to Short Questions from Our Readers
Plain Truth Staff  

"Is there life on other worlds? Life like ours, or superior life on the billions of other planets in the infinite universe? Is man alone? Are there alien men?"

   The surprising answers to your questions are covered in the lead article in this issue of The PLAIN TRUTH: "Is Planet Earth Unique in the Universe?" You probably have never read another article quite like it. It makes plain why man is here, and what is the purpose of human life.

"What caused the great dinosaur extinction?"

   The sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs and other contemporary reptiles has excited scientists and laymen alike. Why, when, and how did these monsters all suddenly vanish from the face of the earth? Geologists are still perplexed.
   For some of the answers take a vicarious trip with us from Alberta, Canada, to northern Utah. Here lie the prime fossil burial grounds of these now extinct reptiles. In this area the Dinosaur National Monument in north-east Utah and northwest Colorado is certainly one of the most impressive fossil regions. Upon seeing the array of dinosaur remains one is forced to ask, "How did they get there?"
   The scattered and mixed dinosaur remains here reveal an important fact. The dinosaurs did not die at this location. The physical evidence shows that the dinosaurs must have been floated and washed appreciable distances before being suddenly buried, and later petrified.
   What happened to these mighty reptiles of the past?
   A science display at the Visitor Center frankly admits that "THERE IS AS YET NO ADEQUATE SOLUTION TO THIS GREAT MYSTERY."
   Edwin H. Colhert, one of the world's most eminent paleontologists, explains that "the GREAT EXTINCTION that wiped out ALL of the dinosaurs, large and small, in ALL parts of the world, and at the same time brought to an end various other lines of reptilian evolution, was one of the OUTSTANDING EVENTS in the history of life and in the history of the earth. It forms one of the MAJOR LINES OF DEMARCATION in the record of the rocks..." (The Age of Reptiles, Colbert, p. 191, emphasis ours throughout the article).
   What caused the lives of these bizarre creatures to be suddenly snuffed out? There seems to be no end of ideas offered to answer this intriguing question. Let's enter the arena of scientific speculation, for a moment, and see what evolutionary science might suggest.
   An early idea was that of climatic change. Perhaps the climate became so cold (or so warm) that the dinosaurs could not survive? This view, although it may sound good, is unacceptable. Why? For the simple reason that the fossil record shows similar climatic patterns on the earth both before and after the dinosaur extinction!
   Very rare fossils of just the teeth, and in a few cases the jaw bones, of rat-size animals have been found in some isolated strata from the dinosaur age. Some scientists assume that these creatures are primitive egg-eating mammals. They suggest that they may have eaten all the eggs of those dinosaurs which reproduced oviparously. If so, why do egg-laying crocodiles and turtles exist today with so many egg-eating rats around? Furthermore. this idea would not account for the extinction of the other dinosaurs whose young were born alive and not by eggs!
   The idea of dinosaurs being killed off by rat-size "mammals" somehow doesn't make too much sense anyway.
   Another suggestion that has been offered is the idea of giantism, This brainstorm has its basis in the lone fact that in many extinct animal groups the last members to be deposited on top of the heap were exceptionally large. But the Great Extinction did not just affect large animals. It wiped out large and small, old and young alike! There is simply no proof that an animal is doomed to extinction merely because it is large.
   Perhaps great epidemics swept the earth at that time, goes another theory. This solution is also rejected by most scientists, and for good reasons. For one thing. most epidemics are very specific or relatively limited in their effects. One paleontologist candidly confesses that "it is stretching credulity far beyond the bounds of reason to suppose that a series of epidemics could have brought about the disappearance of all dinosaurs" (Dinosaurs, Colbert, pp. 255-256).
   What about a change in the food supply? Could a change in the food supply, assuming that it occurred over millions of years, account for the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs? The fossil record shows that the plants eaten by the dinosaurs were still very much available to them at the time of the Great Extinction.
   Some have advocated that earth forces, in making mountains, could have wiped out the reptilian hordes. It is a geologic fact that the earth was in upheaval at that time.
   Geologists reject this explanation on grounds that mountain-making processes, at least according to t he theory of uniformity, act at a very slow rate. For this reason, it is difficult for the m to believe that any changes on the earth itself could have been sudden enough to destroy the dinosaurs and many other contemporary animals.
   All of these theories need to account for the fact that more than just the dinosaurs mysteriously perished at the same time.
   The great crisis in the history of life at that time also destroyed the great marine — reptiles — the ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and the mosasaurs.
   The ichthyosaurs reached a maximum length of about 15 feet and probably lived in the dimly lit depths of the ocean — yet they too all perished!
   Plesiosaurs were the largest marine reptiles. These monsters of the seas reached the length of 40 to 50 feet. Yet, the doom of the dinosaurs on the land was their destiny as well.
   The 35-foot-long marine lizards, the mosasaurs, found in Cretaceous rocks, died out simultaneously all around the earth!
   Other types of life in the sea, and in the air as well, also totally perished. The great winged dragons, the Pterosaurs, had the amazing wingspread of 23 to 25 feet. The final remains of these flying reptiles are found along with the dinosaurs. Their fate was the same.
   No wonder this period has been called "The time of the great dying." Some worldwide event affected life in the air, on the land, and even in the depths of the oceans! This great anomaly confounds all the ideas of evolutionary scientists!
   WHY did the dinosaurs and many other forms of life suddenly perish? Is there an answer?
   Yes, there is!
   The amazing answer to this enigma lies beyond the limits of the commonly accepted "scientific method" of earth study. The so-called "scientific method" isn't fully scientific. For it automatically rejects GOD from its knowledge and rejects any form of knowledge not subject to the scientific method of research. It therefore must reject GOD from its knowledge and any past, present, or future intervention He might exert in the earth's history.
   Is it any wonder that the Great Extinction is a baffling mystery to evolutionists?
   True science is built upon the foundation of all knowledge, and that can not exclude THE BIBLE.
   If most scientists were not wearing the blinders of the theories of evolution and uniformitarianism, they would have long ago seen the obvious and easy explanation to this supposedly "unanswerable" riddle of the rocks.
   The fossil record cries out with the real reason for the mass extinction of life at the close of the so-called "Age of Reptiles." The evidence is all there, but it has been grossly misinterpreted. Instead of showing uniformity and evolution, the strata of the earth reveal great and sudden earth upheaval and change — a universal catastrophe!
   Our eye-opening article about DINOSAURS gives details about the catastrophic events which ushered in the time of "great dying." It explains WHEN the dinosaurs vanished from the earth and WHY! This reprint article is absolutely free for the asking.
   You will be amazed to learn the real significance about the so-called "Age of Reptiles" — WHY the present-day earth is filled with mammals and dominated by MAN.
   You need to know!

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Plain Truth MagazineJuly 1969Vol XXXIV, No.7