I was delighted when Mr. Carroll showed me his book Dinosaurs: Exploring the Scientific Mysteries of God's Creation, written with his wife, Caroline. Carroll shows that it is possible to be a good Christian and to study dinosaurs. In this article I will review Carroll's book Dinosaurs, and some of his other science books written for the Christian family. In my next article, I will be speaking with Mr. Carroll about science, art, writing and religion.
Dinosaurs: Exploring the Scientific Mysteries of God's Creation by Michael and Caroline Carroll is a beautifully illustrated book for ages 8-12. Michael Carroll is an internationally known illustrator most famous for his outer space paintings, which have appeared in National Geographic, Time, Astronomy, Popular Science, Smithsonian and Weekly Reader, but his paintings of prehistoric plants, dinosaurs and other extinct animals will catch the interest of children and adults.
Dinosaurs discusses some general paleontological concepts but focuses on dinosaurs and their contemporaries (other animals that lived at the same time), such as pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. The contributions made by early fossil hunters such as Roy Chapman Andrews, Gideon and Mary Mantell, Othniel Charles Marsh, Edward Drinker Cope, Sir Richard Owen and the Reverend William Buckland are all mentioned.
The Reverend Edward Hitchcock gets special mention. In addition to being a minister he was also a professor at Amherst College and the state geologist for Massachusetts. Hitchcock brought geology and paleontology into his sermons every Sunday.
Dinosaurs covers such topics as paleopathologies (injuries or infections that show up in the fossilized bones), fossilization, different groups of dinosaurs, the T. rex as predator or scavenger debate, parental care of young dinosaurs, coprolites, dinosaur coloration and vocalization, trackways and extinction theories. It also looks at the study of geology and how scientists date fossils and determine the age of the earth.
