At Liberty University there is a display of dinosaur fossils labeled "4000 years old". What is your opinion?

Question

Richard Dawkins has suggested that its professors apply to other universities...

Paul S: I've seen the Richard Dawkins talk in Lynchburg, VA... it's great

Pilgram: Richard Dawkins didn't see the sign himself, he was simply informed of it by a member of the University.

Answer 1

If they're actually 4000 years old, they're not dinosaur fossils. If they're dinosaur fossils, they're not 4000 years old. Someone should change the label.

Answer 2

Liberty University Dinosaur

Answer 3

Depends what the fossils were and how they were dated. As you know radiometric dating uses several different isotopes and then compares the ratios (this accounts for more or less of an isotope present in the bones) to come up with a fairly accurate dating.

Edit
*Slaps head* Didn't read the dinosaur in the question, it's a bit early for me.

Edit 2:
The point of this answer was to try to dispel some of the myths about radiometric dating, not to justify the 4000 year date.

Answer 4

I gave up religion ay 15. There is no proof of god... End of story.
if the students are serious about studying GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!... Richard Dawkins.
Do these students pay foe this lousy school?

Answer 5

If they'd lie about that, they'd lie about anything.

Did you know that Dawkins took an incognito tour of Liberty University a couple of years ago, when he was visiting Lynchburg to speak at nearby Randolph-Macon Women's College? Somewhere I've got some great photos of him wandering through there.

Answer 6

Anyone can just stick a label on anything. I could find a rusted can in the desert and label it, "Ancient Evidence of Cans In The Roman Empire" without any documented backup. The folks at Liberty University have a well recognized agenda, so their labels reflect that agenda.

Answer 7

A cave in South Africa has been excavated that shows humans having been around 164,000 or so years ago. The Bible mentions behemoths once and those who imagine they can calculate the beginning or end based on timelines or carbon dating, miss the point that we exist better and longer when we are kind to each other.

Answer 8

PT Barnum once displayed a sort of mummified fish with squirrel monkey's torso sewn onto it and labeled it a "Mermaid".

Don't trust "academics" just because they have phD's. They can be just as dead wrong as anyone else. (Or could be cynically manipulating people who they know will believe whatever they say (like Barnum--"a sucker born every minute."

Talk to a rabbi. The Jewish people know their own history back 6000 years. If any of their ancestors have been eaten by a T-Rex, I'm sure the Torah would mention it.

Answer 9

I don't think the kind of professors it hires would be welcome at most universities.

The only way the label could be true if its using the term 'dinosaur' in its pure cladistic sense for the monophyletic group Dinosauria (probably Archosauria within that) and meant a recent avian or crocodilian species... I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean though. Oh well.

Answer 10

Obviously the date is nonsense, but it would be interesting to know what dating method they claim to have used to determine the age of the fossils.

Answer 11

Dinosaur means rare/terrible lizard.

If a species is rare and one of them dies tommorrow you can call it a dinosaur.

I agree with Icarus' point: I would love to know what species it is meant to be and how it was dated.

Edit: I also agree with Mato.