The great dinosaur hoax: An analysis for fence-sitters

Are dinosaurs an elaborate hoax? Were they invented in the 19th century by a bunch of masonic scientists to promote the idea of evolution? Have uncounted 'experts' lied to the public for more than 150 years in an attempt to undermine faith and promote a satanic agenda?

The aim of this book, as should always be the case in science, is an approximation to the truth, and the readership it addresses are the onlookers to the debate. I don’t expect to convince any flat-earthers or creationists, nor do I expect mainstream academic palaeontologists to love everything presented here.

Unfortunately, an open and unprejudiced discussion of such questions is usually impossible from both sides, both the sworn, mostly religiously motivated ‘flat earthers’ and the champions of the prevailing scientific paradigm. Nobody seems to be genuinely interested in the truth, everybody just wants to be vindicated in his own echo chamber. But that is not the subject of this book.

The goal here is intellectual honesty and sincerity, a rare creature in this day and age. The aim is to accept criticism where it is justified, reject it where it is misplaced. And to call bullshit just bullshit, without ifs and buts.

I hope this book will provide a much-needed guide to those who are ‘undecided’ whether they should, of all the absurd stories presented to them by wicked mainstream science, believe this rubbish about extinct giant reptiles, heavy as a herd of elephants. A guide, not an intellectual club to beat them in a certain direction.

The book comes in three parts. The first, short one, is a personal statement that may explain, to some extent, why I even bothered to write it.

The second part, the most extensive one, is a critical dissection of what is probably the central text of the ‘dinosaur denier’ community, written by Eric Dubay and first published by him, as far as I am aware, in 2014.

The third part deals with three particular cases of geologists and palaeontologists of the past and present who fall outside the mainstream, but have attempted to find ways to reconcile their religious beliefs with the facts presented to us by nature, with varying success.

As an afterthought, I have added some musings on ‘conspiracy theories’ in general, and why they have to be taken and addressed seriously.