Well, I knew the examiner.com is a pretty trashy news source, though I don’t know much about it, but this time it’s reached a new low. In a piece called “What are the Biblical cryptids of cryptozoology?“, writer Dale Stuckwish (an appropriate name!), susses out what the creatures mentioned in scripture actually were. He obviously has a God-given ability (perhaps conferred through revelation) to help us make zoological sense of God’s Word.
First, his background (from The Examiner):
Dale Stuckwish is a born-again Biblical Creationist in the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves to study the Word of God(Holy Bible). He loves also to study biology, astronomy, and zoology and how it relates to the bible. Dale resides in Pennsylvania and works in Pittsburgh as a security consultant.
Stuckwish has published a number of creationist pieces on the site, including “Evidences of a Biblical worldwide flood,” “Coelacanth: a creationist’s dream fish, but an evolutionist’s nightmare,” and “The Bible and science facts for Pittsburgh creationists.” He’s also written a book on Biblical cryptozoology (the hidden animals of the Bible).
What is a creationist doing polluting a public forum like this, misleading readers with his Biblical pishposh? Only the Examiner knows for sure.
At any rate, through his arduous researches Stuckwish has managed to identify many of the mysterious creatures in the Bible—the Biblical “cryptids”—that have long mystified the faithful and provided amusement for atheists.
Here’s what he’s found (I’ve added illustrations):
Behemoth (Job 40:15-24). Stuckwish has concluded that ” a sauropod dinosaur such as Diplodocus would fit this description nicely.”
Leviathan (Job 41: 1-34). According to Stuckwish, “One marine reptile that fits leviathan to a tee is the Kronosaurus. Kronosaurus which means ‘lizard of Kronos’. It was among the largest pliosaurs with a total length of 43 feet.”
Fiery flying serpents (Isaiah 30:6). It’s another dinosaur: a pterosaur: “Herodotus, a Greek explorer described this creature also that fits a Rhamphorhynchus to a tee.”
Rhamphorhynchus (from Carnivora)
Unicorns (Job 39:9-12). “There is a dinosaur that fits the unicorn to a tee. It is the Styracosaurus.”
Styracosaurus
Satyrs (Isaiah 13:21). Here Stuckwish isn’t so sure: “Many cultures describe hairy apelike creatures in their legends.We know and heard about the Yeti and Bigfoot legends.But could these creatures actually be satyrs that are mentioned in the Bible.”
Dragons (Old Testament). Probably another dinosaur. Stuckwish notes (he apparently doesn’t like question marks):
But could the dragon be a dinosaur. The Bible that was translated into English in 1611 did not have the word dinosaur in it because this word was not coined until 1841. Sir Richard Owens came up with this for the huge terrible reptile fossil skeletons being unearthed. Dinosaur means “terrible lizard“. Many dragon legends around the world talk of huge reptilian creatures. China even incorporated the dragon into its calendar along with 11 other animals.
Stuckwithawish doesn’t mention what the “big fish” was that swallowed up Jonah—I presume it’s a whale—but remember that Jonah lived three day’s in the fish’s stomach before he was vomited out on dry land. I doubt anyone can stand gastric juices (much less the lack of oxygen) for that long.
I hope Stuckwish keeps his day job, because this kind of craziness can’t be all that lucrative. And it’s certainly craziness—or wish-thinking—since it presumes, in the face of all evidence, that dinosaurs (which died out about 65 million years ago, except for those that evolved into birds) were contemporaries of humans.
Well, maybe there’s one exception:
If you want to protest this insanity masquerading as science, you can contact the Examiner at this site. It takes only a minute to write a short complaint.
h/t: Tom Holland via Matthew Cobb
That’s insanity 3.0
“….because this kind of craziness can’t be all that lucrative.” Unfortunately there indeed is a substantial market for this kind of craziness, as demonstrated by home school materials, creationist textbook publications, fundamentalist Sunday School materials, and the myriad offerings of the Ayatollah of Appalachia.
Well I’m convinced!
I actually have a book in my reading-queue about how some legendary creatures may have been derived from fossils found by ancient civilizations, am looking forward to reading it! (It’s told from a paleontological point of view rather than kooky security guard’s)
I think that’s part of the reasoning for where the Cyclops in Greek mythology came from. A prof I had in college said ancient Greeks most likely came across mastodon/mammoth remains and mistook the trunk opening for an eye socket. Interesting thought.
The same idea is mentioned in Michael Bishop’s novel “No Enemy But Time”.
Is that Mayor’s The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times?
/@
That’s the one! Have you read it? If you have & didn’t like it, please don’t tell me as it looks interesting!
No, but I’d thought of getting it… It does seem an interesting thesis.
/@
Buy it. It’s a solid work of established scholarship.
I think there are similar claims made by scholars regarding American Indian mythic creatures.
Same scholar, I think you’ll find (i.e. Adrienne Mayor). Recommend.
Well, at least the Kronosaurus has a cheerful expression.
Southern Baptists, at least, are quite adamant that Jonah was NOT swallowed by a whale. It was a “big fish.” Period. End of story. Even today, the reflex still remains — whenever I hear “Jonah was swallowed by a whale,” my immediate first thought is always “NOT A WHALE!! A big fish.” heh
Yes, Jonah was swallowed by a whale but a big fish. Because if it was a whale, then God (who either wrote or “inspired” the writing of the Bible) doesn’t know the difference between a fish and a whale. Something any primary (grade?) school child knows.
Sorry, NOT swallowed by a whale.
My local paper also publishes similar trash. It can be found throughout the entire paper. The letters to the editor are riddled w/ god pleas and warnings about god’s judgement, the front pages contain large photos of various x-tian sects performing rituals, a regular columnist (and person who I am convinced is psychotic)writes lengthy columns of every bit of insane x-tian slop you could think of.
Please to the editors to stop that shit go at first unanswered, then come the simple and stupid explanation that the “readers” want it and then finally come the militant atheist accusations and if you don’t like it, lump it.
Why? Because the owners of the paper are wacko, evanfungical idiots themselves. They actually hunt down people who share their fundamental insanity. I expect the same explanation holds true for the Examiner, in one degree or another.
I’ve worn myself out trying to get these idiots to understand the wasteful and destructive nature of their efforts. My and the efforts of others has yielded zero positive results.
So long as the boneheaded dogmatists own the paper and sign the paychecks, nothing will change.
I suspect your diagnosis (“They actually hunt down people who share their fundamental insanity.”) is correct. I don’t know how else to explain writing of this caliber being published by anyone. A great deal of its clunkiness can be attributed to needless repetition and “poor” (if it’s fair to say such a thing) style, but there are dozens of things that never should have made it past the editors. This gem is a real standout: “Job seen this creature…” I’m tempted to chalk that up to carelessness, but I know all too well that this usage (particularly with this verb, though it can be heard with any) is typical of his geographic region.
I noticed the Chupacabra Coalition was suspiciously left out. And where are the Cthulhu Stufflings?
Does ‘born again’ mean you are born into sin twice and, therefore, doubly sinful? Doesn’t sound like something to which to aspire!
Who knows but born again as an adult must be hellish painful for the Mother.
Don’t recall any flying dinosaurs in Herodotus?
Well, strictly speaking, Rhamphorhynchus wasn’t really a dinosaur, you know.
Beat me to it. And sadly, that appears to be Jerry’s text, it’s not in the Examiner link.
Okay, okay, I’ll fix it. Geez!
Hey man, YOU HAVE GOT TO GET IT RIGHT. Even my kids know that pterosaurs weren’t dinosaurs. And nor were mosasaurs. Although the reason why not (something tedious to do with bones) escapes them…
Did I ever say I was perfect? That’s a characteristic of gods, not men (or scientists).
“China even incorporated the dragon into its calendar along with 11 other animals.”
Why do I get the feeling that this guy got all his knowledge of the Chinese calendar from a Chinese restaurant placemat?
My thoughts exactly!
Styracosaurus with its dozen horns fits unicorn “to a tee”? Yep, just like the creationist world description fits what has really happened.
I think he is referring to the one horn on its nose. And certainly there is no other animal with a similar horn on its nose that might have been more likely… cough. cough. rhinocerous. cough.
Or how about a narwhal? Then the unicorns, I mean narwhals, would have conveniently survived the flood…and with that convenient spike they probably took out the leviathans. “and that’s why there’s no leviathans to this very day. There are green alligators, and long necked geese, and humpy-backed camels and…”
Reading this gibberish gives me a monumental headache. It is completely unfortunate, in a modern society that benefits from science in virtually every walk of life, that we still have people who are drowning in this utter nonsense. Not only do they dream this crap up to bend to their pseudo-psychotic world view, but readers lap this stuff up and carry it around as though they know something the rest of us are missing. It’s disturbing to the point that I fear for America and its downward slide to uneducated oblivion.
Unicorns? I’m hearing Inigo Montoya saying “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
There’s no contradiction with these being the animals of the Bible *and* having died out about 65+ million years ago. It just means that those bits of the Bible are completely made up…
Ah, but if they weren’t contemporary with humans, who took the photos? 🙂
Writing a complaint would probably encourage them – as evidence of eyes on the pages. Which is what they sell to their advertisers, be they ink-on-paper or electron-on-screen viewers.
[Sends a complaint to Examiner. Includes Welch’s “no sense of decency” with science as the innocent lad. Then makes popcorn.]
That is a lot of tees. According to his photo, he likes to stock on his tee shirts.
But those are ill fitting, we can note.
[Sorry, just trying to settle into low creationist gear. Pay no mind to the driver.]
What does that even mean? Is he insinuating that he is part of one of his gods?
So the whole “free will” stick goes out the church window, I guess.
And catholics would be self-cannibalizing. Yeech!
How can a searched for and then found bottleneck transitional form be an evolutionary nightmare instead of yet another very successful test? That something like those early forms still exists as a derived form is a boon, not a problem. We still have jellyfish, say.
Oh right, he seems to be an on-and-off security guard, he has no science but know that he should watch out for his cockles.
This is standard Kent Hovind creationism.
I’ve read two books by Adrienne Mayor and enjoyed them immensely. She is a folklorist and interested in pre-scientific ideas. I don’t think you can go wrong but every decision involves opportunity cost. Her work (for me) adds to the wonder of the world.
You should do a search and read both the wiki entry as well as the one from Stanford University to learn more about her.
Cheers.
Examiner.com is not a news site – it is a multi-user blog site that is dressed up to look like a news site.
It pays writers based on pageviews, so a lot of Examiner material tends to be sensationalistic to attract attention — positive or negative doesn’t matter, it’s all clicks. You will see enthusiastic Examiner bloggers linkspamming furiously on other sites, often touting their work as “media coverage” (and themselves as “journalists” or “the press”) rather than just a blog post they themselves wrote.
There are Examiners that are not rubbish, but rubbish is the way to bet.
Coelacanth is a family of fish called Coelacanthiformes. This family was thought to be extinct because it was known only through fossils. The two species of coelacanth tha exist today are in the genus Latimeria, which is a new genus that is not present in the fossil record. It’s as if all elephant species became completely extinct and then two new species of a completely new genus of elephant were found.
I think the Elasmotherium is a much better candidate for the unicorn.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Elasmotherium_%22Thin_Plate_Beast%22.jpg
sub
Jerry, what’s with the greengrocers’ apostrophe in “spent three day’s”?
This is very unlike you. I put it down to the brain-addling effect of this loon’s ramblings.
Has anyone seen a signpost that reads ‘Lost For Words’ Not so lost that I couldn’t comment on the Examiner comments page.
Since I live in Pittsburgh, the good news is I’ve never heard of the guy. But still, how embarrassing.
Honestly, what would we do for entertainment without stuff like this? It isn’t an example of a studied or competent viewpoint or theory. It is ignorance and stupidity. The interesting part is guessing the ratio of those components in the author’s makeup.