Ken Ham’s wretched excursion into children’s books


Read and weep. Answers in Genesis has a voluminous line of crap books, and a significant chunk of it consists of propaganda for kids. Joe Csonka reviews Dinosaurs of Eden, by Ken Ham, with scans of the contents.

You knew that, according to AiG mythology, dinosaurs lived with Adam and Eve, and were vegetarians, right?

There’s more at the link. There’s threat of more to come. Let the groaning commence.

Comments

  1. sisu says

    ugh. Dinosaur Train (on PBS) is more scientifically accurate, and those dinosaurs talk.

  2. F says

    Oho! So it was dinosaurs what ate the apple, then they go blame it on the woman. Assholes.

  3. carlie says

    Ok, dinosaurs co-existing with people I can deal with, but dinosaurs co-existing with monocots and dicots??? That cannot stand!

  4. says

    Just goes to show you, if these godbotters couldn’t indoctrinate innocent and trusting children, the religion would die quickly. It really says something when religion can best be propagated by lying to children. And that something is “religion is false”.

  5. ambassadorfromverdammt says

    So, deinonychus’ claw was originally for coring apples? Who knew!

  6. grumpyoldfart says

    Don’t worry, the leaders of the mainstream religions will do the right thing. They are interested only in the truth, and will definitely inform the flock that Ken Ham is selling a lie.

  7. redgreeninblue says

    I’m sorry, but this has got to be a Poe. I LOLed about 2s after looking at Camp Deinonychus eating oranges, and I’m sure it took at least 3s to LOL at Raptor Jesus…

  8. says

    Ok, dinosaurs co-existing with people I can deal with, but dinosaurs co-existing with monocots and dicots???

    They did. Humans, no.

    So, they’re busy lying about what a carnivore is vs. an herbivore. Why not? I suppose humans are “natural vegetarians,” too–nothing wrong with vegetarianism, but it’s today’s knowledge that can make it a decent diet.

    Glen Davidson

  9. David Marjanović says

    The hands of Deinonychus are so wrong I don’t even know where to start, and forget the musculature on the entire animal. The head is way too broad, and and and…

    …and Ceratosaurus had claws on at most 3 fingers per hand. The rest looks like a fairly good plagiate.

    dinosaurs co-existing with monocots and dicots??? That cannot stand!

    Of course it can – but not for Ceratosaurus, and I’m not sure if there were already monocots in the time of Deinonychus.

  10. says

    They seem to have omitted the crab lice.

    Were they vegetarian too, I wonder?

    Enquiring minds need to know.

    I can’t help but wonder who was their custodian on the ark, too.

    David B

  11. Larry says

    Dinosaur Train (on PBS) is more scientifically accurate

    Hell, the Flintstones were a more accurate depiction of dinosaurs and they had brontoburgers!

  12. David Marjanović says

    Don’t worry, the leaders of the mainstream religions will do the right thing. They are interested only in the truth, and will definitely inform the flock that Ken Ham is selling a lie.

    The leaders of the mainstream religions don’t know Ken Ham fucking exists.

    David Marjanović is going to laugh at this. Then cry.

    :-)

    Neither.

    HULK DO ROCKET SURGERY

  13. fireweaver says

    @Brownian #7

    Oh, I am very sure he was THERE – with the assistance of some very strong hallucinogenic drugs.

  14. A. R says

    They realize that Tisntaosaurus was from East Asia, they even put it in the description. why did they draw it in Egypt?

  15. Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies says

    Let the groaning commence.

    *groan!*
    *barf!*

    Okay, really, if you’re going to make a children’s book, the damned thing better look aesthetically pleasing, no matter how shitty the rest of it is. Why would you make the illustrations look like something that was shat out of the 1970s?

  16. fireweaver says

    @A.R. #21

    All things considered, do you really think that HamBone really gives a flying fuck about factual accuracy?

  17. A. R says

    fireweaver: Of course not, but wouldn’t it be nice to see a creationist publication that got some science right?

  18. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Do the people look like tanned Europeans, or those who would become early Middle Easterners like the Canaanites? I think I smell more revisions from reality.

  19. frankb says

    Even Adam and Eve are weird. They’re caucasian and Adam has short hair and Eve’s is neatly trimmed. Did they have barber shops back then?

  20. A. R says

    Nerd: Remember, everything was perfect before the flood, so Adam and Eve would have been lily white.

  21. peterh says

    And gorillas invented the toothbrush? Or is that an early flute? No wonder Mozart hated flute players.

  22. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Nerd: Remember, everything was perfect before the flood, so Adam and Eve would have been lily white.

    Well, I’ll concede prior to eating the Apple of Knowledge, things were perfect in Eden. But the flood was required due to the evil in the world after the banishment from Eden. Just my twenty mils.

  23. Wowbagger, Madman of Insleyfarne says

    Where’s the T-Rex husking coconuts with its big-ass teeth? I remember that one from some previous Creationist dipshittery.

  24. Menyambal -- damned dirty ape says

    I like how the gorilla, which is vegetarian now, had a mouthful of spiky teeth back when everything was vegetarian. Seriously, zoom in on it. There is way more pointiness than the fighting fangs of current adult males.

    I also like how the meanings of the dino names are given, when skipping that would have been less damaging to his delusion.

    And I like how there is no evidence for anything at all, and how this kind of shit really hurts the credibility of Christians.

  25. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Nerd: oops, meant Fall, not flood!

    Another offering to Tpyos. I’ve made my share today.

  26. A. R says

    Menyambal: Good point with the Gorilla teeth. It’s like creationists are utterly incapable of getting anything right.

  27. evilDoug says

    Did all of those herbivores carefully check all of their food to be sure they weren’t eating insects and other wee beasties living therein?

    That monkey on Adam’s back looks awfully new-worldy.

  28. anne mariehovgaard says

    Look on the bright side: this is too ridiculous to fool any child who has ever seen the teeth of a cow, horse, sheep or other animal with a diet of leaves…

  29. frankb says

    I think I get what Ken Ham is trying to say with this picture. Eve’s little pet is sick, and Eve (being the nurturing type) is giving it three big red pills. Adam who is a fun loving type yet filled with testosterone is about to give the gorilla a lesson in dominance. Adam has a tracheotomy and is going to squirt stomach contents into the gorilla’s eye. The gorilla being a savage and crude beast is warning Adam off. He is saying,”If you get your crotch any closer to me, I will do this to it.”

    NO, really. That’s what’s in the picture;)

  30. nick260682 says

    The thing is, this would be unbelievably, beautifully hilarious, if it wasn’t being pushed as the truth, to kids, thus stultifying the future generation and propagating the continuation of the damage being done to the education system.

    I’m tearing my hair out thinking about the amount of remedial hours science teachers must have to spend correcting this kind of crap.

  31. otrame says

    So did one of Ham’s kids draw that? You’d think that with the money they have bilked from the sheep that they could afford a better artist. I could draw that and I am a terrible artist.

  32. nemistenem says

    My heart bleeds for those poor kids – brainwashed and raised in such horribly ignorant homes. Look out, here comes the next generation!

  33. Akira MacKenzie says

    An observation:

    According to Ham and other YECs, predation arose out of the corrupting influences of “The Fall,” correct? All right, why don’t I see droves of fundigelicals forsaking the consumption of meat and becoming vegans?* In point of fact, the Bible-humpers tend to be the sorts that belittle at anyone who choses not to consume animal flesh.

    *Speaking as an omnivore, this is not to be misconstrued as support for vegetarianism or veganism. I don’t take the “moral” arguments against eating flesh seriously and I won’t until I see Ingrid Newkirk and/or Peter Singer waving “MEAT IS MURDER” placards in front of a pride of hungry lions.

    OK, not even then, but it would be morbidly hilarious to watch them try.

  34. says

    Hmm. Odd. After the opening kickoff in the bible, a couple of plays later Mr. Deity says man has dominion over all the critters. So the bit about not eating meat is just…made up and arbitrary?

    OH! OH!!! I GET IT!!! I understand how to play the game now! To play the game of ‘bible’ you just pull stuff out of your ass, which may explain the aesthetics, in addition to the (un)science content, of this book.

  35. platyhelminthe says

    So, Ken Ham has knowingly set out to brainwash children with books he knows are full of straightforward lies, in order to keep them ignorant and cripple their intellect.

    In what respect is this person not a child abuser?

  36. Heliantus says

    “Claws? Which claws? Oh, these claws! It’s to subdue nuts and berries. Some of these wild berries are very mean, you know.”

    [paraphrasing Terry Pratchett, from memory]

  37. says

    That top picture is hilarious.

    I mean, look at Deinonychus, with its razor sharp teeth and long dagger claws, it’s so delighted to be enjoying its meal of lemons.

    What the hell were those claws supposed to be for then? Tapping out messages to each other hard surfaces? Climbing those especially tall… lemon trees?

    It looks like it was drawn using Dinosaur Comics as a reference. (And that’s a Utahraptor anyway! Duh!)

  38. Cuttlefish says

    Ok, that settles it. Time to write a real children’s book, with rhyme and meter and everything, to put this to shame.

    Oh, wait, time to grade a huge stack of midterms. Sorry, false alarm.

  39. savaga says

    Am I the only one whose first thought was that Dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus couldn’t pronate their hands like that?

    Oh well. What’s a little anatomy mistake compared to the rest of this garbage?

  40. says

    Perhaps there’s one good thing about Ken Ham’s abuse of children. When his victims grow up they might eventually figure out Ken Ham (and the parents who allowed this brainwashing) are idiots and they will throw out the dead Jeebus.

  41. says

    In HamWorld, the Ceratosaurus and the Deinonychus (and all the predatory dinosaurs) had big scary claws and razor-sharp teeth for… what purpose, exactly? Gently pulling tender juicy fruits from trees and daintily nibbling on them? This is patently ridiculous. Give me a fucking break.

    Many rational people are of the opinion that Ham and other creationist ideology manufacturers like him really believe this shit. I have never believed that, although I do believe the ignorant fundie masses do believe what they are told to believe.

    No, Ken Ham may believe in god and jeebus but I don’t think for a minute he believes the outlandish creationist nonsense he is peddling to both adults and young children. Ham and Co. are perpetrating fraud and deception on a massive scale, and ruining the minds of children in the process.

    Whatever proceeds from ventures like the Creation Museum and donations to AiG are left over from lining the pockets of the likes of Ham are used to create garbage like this children’s book, so that the next generation gets infected with the godvirus.

    Fucking zombie epidemic. Kill the brain but the body still lurches around, carrying a King James Bible, looking for more brains to kill.

  42. atheistpowerlifter says

    @ #7 “WERE YOU THERE, KEN HAM?”

    That made laugh very hard.

    It’s also interesting that ‘Terrible Claw’ (memo to self, new nickname for our 20 year old incredibly crusty tabby cat) chooses to eat fruit when there are juicy, weaponless, vulnerable mammals nearby.

  43. simbri says

    At first I misread the one on the right as ‘Creatosaurus’ and thought they were making up their own dinosaurs now too. Well, they might as well be.

  44. savaga says

    @firstapproximation #19 “Riding dinosaurs in the desert and Arctic? I think they’re stealing their material from Star Wars.”

    Ha ha, indeed.

    Not only are they bad at science, they’re also not engineers. That cart with Tsingtaosaurus would break with practically no effort, probably from a draft animal attempting to get it moving. There’s a reason wagon tongues were straight.

  45. pixelfish says

    Not just any bananas either, but modern bananas, which have been genetically tweaked. That’s just chock full of anachronisms.

  46. Charlie Foxtrot says

    That cart with Tsingtaosaurus would break with practically no effort, probably from a draft animal attempting to get it moving. There’s a reason wagon tongues were straight.

    Its probably made of Hamster-wood, like the ark.
    Hamster?
    Shrew?…mole?…guinea pig?…racoon?…aardvark?…

  47. Charlie Foxtrot says

    That saddled Gallimimus in ancient Egypt would have changed the world! I mean – look at it!
    Stirrups!
    Have you any idea the power shift that would have caused!? We’d all be talking Egyptian now, probably.

  48. Menyambal -- damned dirty ape says

    The Tsintaosaurus is my favorite. It’s from China, the cart is wrong, the harness is wrong, there’s no way to guide the animal, its tail is under the cart, and there is a`penis on its head.

  49. savaga says

    Its probably made of Hamster-wood, like the ark.

    Silly me. I forgot about the Hamster-wood that was as strong as steel.

  50. Hamilton Jacobi says

    Since when do gorillas eat sticks, anyway?

    “Jethro, how many times do I have to tell you to keep your dang pet gorilla on your side of the fence? She done et up all of my two-by-fours again.”

  51. says

    A few years ago on my Stupid Dinosaur Lies website, I wrote my own book review about that dinocrap Ken Ham made up in which I regard the dinosaurs that Ham dredge up in his book and crackhouse is purely mythical in comparison with the real dinosaurs that ruled the earth millions of years ago before there were any humans on earth. Read it.

    Part 1
    Part 2
    Part 3
    Part 4
    Part 5

  52. savaga says

    That saddled Gallimimus in ancient Egypt would have changed the world! I mean – look at it!
    Stirrups!
    Have you any idea the power shift that would have caused!? We’d all be talking Egyptian now, probably.

    Not to mention the horse collar on the Tsingtaosaurus that would have revolutionized farming and reduced the number of subsistence farmers, giving Egypt an economic edge as well as a military one. The Egyptians would have been unstoppable!

  53. Crudely Wrott says

    Now, that’s downright Ugly. With a capital Ugh!

    Personally, I find it offensive, condescending and most of all, simply dishonest.

    .

    Religion:
    Lying to children
    Since who knows when.
    No wonder we’re in
    The mess that we’re in.

  54. Ragutis says

    Cuttlefish
    19 March 2012 at 7:50 pm

    Ok, that settles it. Time to write a real children’s book, with rhyme and meter and everything, to put this to shame.

    Ooh… Ooh…

    Oh, wait, time to grade a huge stack of midterms. Sorry, false alarm.

    Dammit.

  55. robro says

    Adam and Eve are white because Cain had’t killed Abel yet. Don’t you know what the “Mark of Cain” is? Jeez.

    And, of course, the Deinonychus is eating fruit because there was no death until after THE FALL. That “terrible claw” must have really helped Deinonychus get at the fruit, just like they show. And those dentures Ceratosaurus sports would be especially helpful crushing those tough palm leaves.

    As there was no death you couldn’t kill the plants to eat them, but it was OK to eat their leaves and fruit, which is sort of their babies. So see, eating babies was OK before THE FALL…it’s in the Bible, Ken Ham says so. But you atheists already knew it was OK to eat babies.

    Don’t you love the modest depiction of Adam and Eve? So chaste and innocent. But, what’s this? Where are Adam’s eyes focused? hmmm. In Eve’s direction, but somewhere below her shoulders. Naughty boy. Sneakin’ a peak. Oh, well, boys will be boys.

  56. joezuyus says

    Interesting. The monkey on Adams shoulder appears to be participating in a social grooming practice… But wait, does that mean Adam has lice? So there were parasites in the garden of Eden? Were lice itchy back then?

    Oh where are ID apologists to backtrack and evade when you need them?!

  57. Menyambal -- damned dirty ape says

    The guy in furs with the pack dino is odd, but the migration arrows are insane. And what is that structure at the center of the world–a Mayan pyramid?

  58. SuckPoppet says

    So there were parasites in the garden of Eden? Were lice itchy back then?

    Lice eat blood, skin, and other body ebris, all of which is definitely vege, and cannot survive away from their host.

    Unless pre-Fall© lice survived by sucking on apple juice.
    Oh wait, no not that …

  59. SuckPoppet says

    So there were parasites in the garden of Eden? Were lice itchy back then?

    Lice eat blood, skin, and other body ebris, all of which is definitely <> vege, and cannot survive away from their host.

    Unless pre-Fall© lice survived by sucking on apple juice.
    Oh wait, no not that …

  60. deinonychus2920a says

    OMGS!!!! They’ve insulted DEINONYCHUS… the dinosaur also know as the Roadrunner from Hell!!! He’d have those two humans ripped to shreds in under 10 seconds….

    Jim A Pearson
    USS Deinonychus
    Cretaceous II Class Freetrader
    Deinonychus Intergalactic Freetraders / Dragons Bones Shipyards
    Alberta Canada, eh?

  61. mickll says

    Shouldn’t naughty Deinonychus have been ejected from the garden for partaking of the knowledge of good and evil?

  62. Moggie says

    Shouldn’t naughty Deinonychus have been ejected from the garden for partaking of the knowledge of good and evil?

    Those look like lemons to me. From the tree of the knowledge of sweet and sour?

  63. says

    If Adam and Eve were dark-haired, where do blond people come fro… ah, right from where people of color come from too, I guess.
    Never mind, answered my own question.

  64. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    According to the Book of Ham dinosaurs not only co-existed with humans but were domesticated.

  65. says

    Jesus Babiroussa Christ!!! Not only do they get everything fractally wrong, but they messed up the artwork as well. Seriously, those drawings are hideous.

  66. drxym says

    I think Ken Ham should be congratulated on so succinctly demonstrating the utter ridiculousness of his arguments. There is no better way IMO that showing a creature clearly evolved to kill and eat meat than showing it eating a bunch of fruit from a tree.

  67. Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity! says

    Thought it was Gopher wood?

    Oh, c’mon. Does it always have to be all about sex around here? Can’t we have one thread that doesn’t descend into . . . .

    Oh.

    Nevermind.

    And, of course, the Deinonychus is eating fruit because there was no death until after THE FALL.

    How come there is no concern about the death of the potential trees in the seed of the fruit? (See, it really does end up being about sex.)

    The guy in furs with the pack dino is odd,

    No death, but they have furs? Huh?

    Are there any illustrations of T-Rex peeling a banana?

    What is it with you people and sex? It’s a lying Christian children’s book and y’all make it all about sex. Get your minds out of the gutter!

    And get offa my lawn!

  68. Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity! says

    Of course not. Remember, bananas were created to be used by primates.

    What the hell is it with you people and sex? Must it always be about sex?

    And I think that the Primates in the church can use altar boys and don’t have to use the bananas.

  69. A. R says

    And I think that the Primates in the church can use altar boys and don’t have to use the bananas.

    [Adds Ogvorbis to list of people who owe him various computer parts]

  70. Moggie says

    Did some countries fall further than others? Because where Ken Ham is from, even spiders will kill you.

  71. A. R says

    Moggie: The creationists prefer to pretend that Australia doesn’t exist. You know, all of those marsupials concentrated in one place and all.

  72. Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity! says

    The creationists prefer to pretend that Australia doesn’t exist. You know, all of those marsupials concentrated in one place and all.

    Marupials are proof of the dangers of bestiality. Let a duck, a beaver, and a weasel have sex and you get a platypus. Let a hedgehog do it with a pocketbook and you get an echidna. See, y’all really are making this all about sex.

  73. Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity! says

    Are you suggesting the Garrisonian theory of evolution?

    No. A Christian version of why evolution is evil.

  74. A. R says

    Ok, so no “buttfucking” (the central mechanism of diversification in the Garrisonian theory), just miscegenation?

  75. AussieMike says

    Skipping through the comments here, I don’t think anyone is getting angry enough. It has become a joke almost in the Ha Ha sense.

    Would you feel that way if your own child had just attended a school outing to Ken Hams dungeon of mental abuse?

    I don’t think we should accept this sort of educational abuse any more than anyone should accept a child deprived of an education or kept prisoner in a home and only fed left over’s.

    Sending kids to a Nazi youth camp or Joseph Koni military training are not far off. Remove the violence from these two and you have brainwashing left.

    Depriving children of an education is illegal. At least it is in most western countries. There are established education systems in all parts of the western world and now the developing world that strive to some sort of best practice. However, the USA especially, is going the other way with state sanctioned abuse. It looks more like Iran every day.

    All readers of PZ’s post should be far angrier about this that the comments suggest. Yes its stupid, yes it makes Ham look like and idiot but that is to us. To kids he is a teacher, educator, and builder of awesome theme parks. To kids he is a man of knowledge and wisdom and makes the kids feel they are part of his fight for truth.

    How many dictators and evil little pieces of shit throughout history started by appealing to the immature thoughts of children? Ken Ham is the creationist version of a child sexual predator. Nothing less!

  76. sapphire says

    But – but Ken Ham says the saddled dinosaur at the fun factory is just a cute photo opportunity – not part of the exhibits, he says – not meant to show we believe in the Flintstones.
    Could it be – surely not – that Dr Dr Dr Dr (I think it’s 4 honorary PhDs now) Ken has misled us?
    No – it’s those nasty evolutionists – they’ve tampered with the scientific purity of Ken’s original manuscript. That must be it, Ken would never lie to us.

  77. David Marjanović says

    I can’t stop laughing at this.

    They ripped off Dinotopia! They fucking ripped off Dinotopia!!!

    Now I’m laughing!!!

    I hope the authors of Dinotopia sue. They’d win, and Ken Ham would become the fucking laughingstock of the whole fucking world. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

    And gorillas invented the toothbrush? Or is that an early flute?

    It’s copied from a photo of a chimpanzee eating termites.

    Yes, three epic fails in three words.

    Am I the only one whose first thought was that Dromaeosaurs like Deinonychus couldn’t pronate their hands like that?

    No. But I didn’t mention it because, as I said, I just don’t know where to begin.

    It’s not just dromaeosaurids, it’s more like all archosaurs except sauropods (who sorta kinda cheat).

    Did you count the fingers on Deinonychus? *shudder*

    That saddled Gallimimus in ancient Egypt would have changed the world! I mean – look at it!
    Stirrups!
    Have you any idea the power shift that would have caused!? We’d all be talking Egyptian now, probably.

    Oh for fuck’s sake, stirrups. :-o I’m out of words.

    Not to mention the horse collar on the Tsingtaosaurus that would have revolutionized farming and reduced the number of subsistence farmers, giving Egypt an economic edge as well as a military one. The Egyptians would have been unstoppable!

    …Yeah. That, too.

    In case anyone wonders what a real Ceratosaurus may have looked like:

    That’s more like it.

    Jesus Babiroussa Christ!!!

    ROTFLMAO!

    No death, but they have furs? Huh?

    No, no, no – that’s after the Fall, after the Tower of Babel even.

    Did some countries fall further than others? Because where Ken Ham is from, even spiders will kill you.

    …while… the nettles…

    “The Giant Queensland Stinging Tree – it won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it had.”
    – Brian Choo describing this and notably not that

    Marupials are proof of the dangers of bestiality. Let a duck, a beaver, and a weasel have sex and you get a platypus. Let a hedgehog do it with a pocketbook and you get an echidna. See, y’all really are making this all about sex.

    Monotremes aren’t marsupials.

    …from mono-, “single”, and trema, “hole”… shit fuck, this is about sex again!

  78. Ogvorbis: Now With 98% Less Intellectual Curiousity! says

    AussieMike:

    I agree that anger is an appropriate response to bullshititude such as this. It is not the only appropriate response.

    When my children, in public school, were subjected to government-sponsered Christianity (Today, we’re going to make Christmas ornaments. Oh, you object, well here’s some blue and white paper for you.), Wife and I, with the consent of the child, went ballistic. And won (with no lawyers involved (the school now handles holidays differently — not perfect, but they are getting there)).

    My anger about the shit that Hamm pulls is, ultimately, worthless. He thrives on anger. It makes him feel persecuted (which is what every conservative Christian wants). It makes him a victim — Waaah, those mean atheists who aren’t even real ‘Merkuns are angry at me and since they don’t believe in my gods, they have nothing to stop them from killing me, Waaah!

    Pointing and laughing, though, can be an appropriate response, too. Especially if he reacts. When Christians treat mocking as if it were persecution or threats, it weakens their position and helps the world to see them as the spoiled kindergartners that they are. And, at the same time, pointing and laughing (and, more to the point, explaining why we are pointing and laughing) may help to bring over to reality someone who is turned off by anger.

    Anger and mocking both have a place. Both should be used. I prefer mocking, often to the point of abject absurdity, because it helps to preserve my mental and emotional health.

    Anyway, I agree that anger is an appropriate response. I would just argue that does not mean mocking is not an appropriate response.

  79. says

    Classy black bra Eve is wearing.

    It’s her hair, falling over her shoulder. I only noticed her apparent bra because Eve looks a lot like Dave, a friend of mine. I zoomed in because it looks a little bit like Eve has an adams apple.

  80. johnharshman says

    You can’t beat Mark Twain (excerpt from Eve’s diary):

    “Another discovery. One day I noticed that William McKinley was not looking well. He is the original first lion, and has been a pet of mine from the beginning. I examined him, to see what was the matter with him, and found that a cabbage which he had not chewed, had stuck in his throat. I was unable to pull it out, so I took the broomstick and rammed it home. This relieved him. In the course of my labors I had made him spread his jaws, so that I could look in, and I noticed that there was something peculiar about his teeth. I now subjected the teeth to careful and scientific examination, and the result was a consuming surprise: the lion is not a vegetarian, he is carnivorous, a flesh-eater! Intended for one, anyway.”

  81. johnharshman says

    David Marjanovic:

    There definitely are Cretaceous monocots. There are even Cretaceous grasses.

    And did you notice that gay Deinonychus has four fingers and three toes?

  82. Ranunculus says

    @56 savaga
    AFAIK no known theropod had that capability. Unfortunately this bunny-handed condition is ubiquitous even in modern reconstructions, if you can believe it. It’s not a mistake exclusive to the common layman though; you’ll find that the same error is made in many museum mounts(!) and even textbooks. How preparators can assemble a theropod’s axial skeleton without err yet completely fuck up the arms is beyond me. Definitely a bother, but I’m more concerned with Ceratosaurus’ seemingly webbed ‘paws’ and Deinonychus’ deformed feet. Why does it appear to have only two digits, and why isn’t the placement of the sickle claw consistent? Didn’t expect a creationist’s depiction to include feathers of any kind, so no surprise there. Also not diggin’ the mammalian nostrils too much. Despite the illustration’s many faults, I have to give the creator credit for not making the mistake of placing the eye in the antorbital fenestra (which always yields hilarious results, see here).

  83. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Can someone please explain to me why the Tsintaosaurus has a giant erection on its head?

    Tsintaosauri took the expression “give head” literally.