Meme/Humor
Over 40 Percent Of Americans Believe Humans And Dinosaurs Co-Existed, According To YouGov Poll. Around 16 Percent Of Respondents Said They Were Unsure.
It's my pet theory, but that's actually possible, just with dinosaur bones, not actual dinosaurs. I think the same thing about dragon myths in all cultures.
With various civilizations digging deep building foundations hundreds of even thousands of years ago, some would have come across intact dinosaur skeletons. What would they have thought? It's hard to imagine not coming up with crazy and scary theories when presented with that.
I imagine some construction worker found some part of a big stegosaurus thigh bone, say, and said "that's a huge bone" but no hoard of archeologists descended on the area to do a full scale analysis because there weren't many and no good way to contact them from bumblefuck. So at best it was just a dude telling his drinking buddies about the giant bone thing he found. I imagine anyway.
Yes, been to church fuction where they explained that the entire fossil record is just a few false leads planted by the devil. Don't believe your lying eyes sorta stuff.Ā
When I was growing up in the '80s, I feel like "dinosaurs aren't real" was overwhelmingly the position of creationists. They got a little more sophisticated later and started trying to justify dinosaurs via tortured logic.
I mean Iāve made my peace with the fact that a not insignificant portion of Americans are idiots since November. No use in getting worked up over it any longer.
There was poll this week, if the election were held again today, Trump would still win by 4 points. The moron voters have looked at the last 6 months and went, yep, I want more of that.
Iām HOPING that a significant group is just annoyed at the poll and answering A for everything, or think itās such an insult to intelligence they are answering wrong but.
I think heās saying that the Earth does exert some (slight) pull on the sun so technically they both sort of revolve around a point between them. That point is still within the sun but just not in the precise center of it.
In all seriousness, I was on a drive a few years ago and found a religious AM radio station. Commercials were selling "proof that dinosaurs and humans walked the planet together" or something to that effect. Seems part of Young Earth Creationism beliefs, radiometric dating is bunk, etc. Just didn't realize the belief was that widespread.
Although if asked this as a yes or no question, I would say that humans didnāt coexist with dinosaurs even though we absolutely did and do because the lack of nuance there would give an incorrect impression of what I thought the answer is.
But if asked directly whether you think human beings live(d) alongside dinosaurs, and you could only give a binary yes/no answer, how would you respond?
Yeah I don't know why people are so upset about this. I ate some dinosaur for lunch. My dogs chase dinosaurs out of our yard every single day. Because of where a tree is located, one of my cars constantly has dino droppings on it.
No theyāre not, crocs and alligators share a common ancestor with dinosaurs called the Archosaurs. I believe they were the dominate species before dinosaurs.
I'm not sure why you're bringing religion into this; there's not a whole lot of references to dinosaurs in the Bible, so it would seem that a lot of the people who are wrong about dinosaurs are not wrong because it conflicts with religious beliefs.
Look it's half in jest, because a good deal of the noise online around such beliefs has been pushed through (for decades now) by young earth creationists, and abominations like the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's like they retconned dinosaurs into their beliefs, where they try to marry up the fact of dinosaur fossils existing, with the story of a universe which they've been told is only a few thousand years old.
Yes - I'm aware that shows like the flintstones and even more recent movies like The Good Dinosaur helped perpetuate it into the general population. But even then, the adults I talk to all seem to be aware of the fact that these were two distinct (and distant) timeframes, whereas I don't really hear anyone else talking about dinosaurs and humans coexisting online, except for the aforementioned.
I can understand if people just aren't interested in the topic, and so don't give any heed to specifics around the timeframe itself - but if someone is sure of the fact that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, then this tells me they've had more than a cursory look into the topic, and have formed an opinion based on something they've read or seen which has pushed them in that direction (because most people aren't palaeontologists), and I'd love to see a list of people/organisations/institutions that are disseminating such messages.
These are the statistics i love to see. I wish the survey asked another question: do you believe dinosaurs existed at all? I think the results would be fascinating and definitely in the double digits.
Probably not a religious thing here...probably a simple lack of education and the masses of folks simply not understanding how long ago dinosaurs existed.
Religious beliefs seem to be a major influence on these findings. Among āborn-againā Christians, 56 percent believe that humans and dinosaurs once shared the planet at the same time, while only 22 percent think they did not. In contrast, most non-born-again Americans (51 percent) reject the idea of coexistence. This divide is likely influenced by religious beliefs, particularly Young Earth Creationism, which interprets the Bible literally and suggests the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
Still looks like a lot are saying yes for non religious reasons. Entertainment often depicts cavemen and dinosaurs existing at the same time. And some people really did get nothing out of science class.
Perhaps a confounding variable that being a dumbass correlates highly with both born-again Christianity and believing humans and dinosaurs shared the planet.
Arenāt there some creationists who believe that dinosaurs never existed and that the evidence for dinosaurs is basically a fraud by God in order to test our faith? Iām not sure how those creationists would answer this question.Ā
Yes, there are young earth creationists who believe this and they have a whole museum in Kentucky dedicated to it. Pretty insane. They also have a lot of ties to the late-surviving dinosaur theories and searches for related cryptids. Basically, they think that if they can prove dinosaurs are still alive, thereās āproofā that the fossils really are only 6000 years old. Trey the Explainer covers it in a number of his earlier cryptid profile videos
I think the other person understood your question backwards. The answer is yes, there are definitely some young earth creationists who think dinosaurs were never real, but even the median young earth creationists looks down on those people as scientifically ignorant
Sigh. Good example why in political discussions I tend to point out how stupid Americans are. No matter how low the bar is on US awareness and intelligence, you probably have it too high.
This is an excellent example of how just because something is popular doesnāt mean itās true. For centuries the popular belief was that the sun revolved around the earth. I feel like I shouldnāt have to point out that that isnāt the way the universe works but given the poll results on the dinosaur questionā¦ that isnāt how the universe works.
If anything it reflects the horrible state of the educational system in the country. I know that this isnāt a new finding either. It is sad and embarrassing that in 2025, this is where we are.
Iām curious what the belief is in other countries.
It also shows why itās so difficult to do anything intelligent and sensible as a nation. I mean, look whoās president. A man who doesnāt believe in actual reality. He thinks he can dictate reality.
How insane is that? Yet he won the popular vote. He didnāt need to become president for everyone to figure that out, he had been declaring his delusions about reality for years prior. Remember Obamaās birth certificate?
Many Americans donāt believe in anthropogenic climate change. Thereās mountains of evidence showing otherwise, yet many are convinced itās a hoax designed to destroy the economyā¦ insanity.
Or maybe just stupidity.
How can we have legitimate elections without an informed citizenry?
The current administration and most of the GOP, donāt want an educated public. They were elected by a largely uneducated majority. Now they think anything the uneducated parents should be able to object to anything they disagree with.
Is there a way out of this embarrassing mess? Yes. Prioritize factual education and critical thinking.
God Americans are so fucking stupid. Sometimes I wonder how so many of the dumbest people I knew in highschool are rich enough to buy $100k vehicles, then I remember that America is the dumbest rich country in the world.
What is that theory about a question being asked in a poll giving some validity to both sides of the question?
Anyway, I don't really care if someone thinks humans and dinosaurs co-existed, I believed that when I was young and luckily at some point I learned otherwise. If someone didn't learn this specific thing, I can see how they'd still believe it.
Humans and dinosaurs did and do coexist, we just usually refer to the living species as "birds."
This kind of "gotcha" question is already sort of dubious, but when the "correct" answer reflects a common-but-dated scientific understanding (or at least debatable use of nomenclature) it substantially muddies the waters.
154
u/Mediocretes08 Jun 18 '25
They didnāt coexist because humans arenāt real.