The Dinosaur Bone Wars – Patrick Nurre

The Dinosaur Bone Wars

Description: The Bone Wars or The Great Dinosaur Rush was an intense period of paleontology during the years 1877-1892. It primarily involved two men and their quest to find and name the most dinosaurs. O.C. Marsh represented Yale and was supported financially by his wealthy uncle, Peabody. Edward Cope represented the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia and worked himself to exhaustion to get ahead and stay ahead of Marsh in finding and naming the most dinosaurs. Each hated the other and spent a fortune and their honors to outdo, undermine and destroy the other. Although between the two of them they named over 150 species of dinosaurs, very few are accepted today as legitimate. This was the beginning of American Paleontology and it is today still trying to recover from this black eye. This seminar is about that fossil war and the dinosaurs Marsh and Cope discovered.

The Bone Wars shows us that scientists are human and are often misled by their biases. Many scientists are not even aware of their biases and how they shape their opinions. How often has the search for glory or the need to be right can and did, in the case of the bone wars, negatively influence policy, paleontological doctrine and personal lives as these discoveries were inspiration for confirmation of evolutionary ideas and consequently supported the idea that the Bible was a myth. The Bone Wars also shows us that the nature of paleontology is largely one of conjecture. Not much can be said scientifically about the great beasts we call dinosaurs. The rush to judgment and conclusions during the Bone Wars has led millions of people astray. Human nature has not changed. Many similar mistakes today have had similar results. One generation of paleontologists overturns the previous discoveries and conclusions of other paleontologists.

Speaker: Patrick Nurre was trained in the secular view of geology. Over the past 40 years he has been actively involved in the Creation/Evolution issue in the field of geology. He has spoken to hundreds of college students, and is a popular speaker at many conventions and home school conferences. In 2005, Patrick created Northwest Treasures to provide opportunities to study geology from a Biblical perspective. In the fall of 2012, he opened the Geology Learning Center, a geology museum/educational center located in Lynnwood, WA. Patrick leads field trips each year to many geological sites including his annual field trip to Yellowstone Park in August.

His web site is at www.northwestrockandfossil.com (Northwest Treasures).

Meeting Documents:

• Flyer
• Announcement
• History of The Great Bone Wars

Recordings of the lecture:

• Video recording of lecture on YouTube can be found here.
• Audio recording of lecture can be found here.
• Audio recording of Q&A after lecture can be found here.