The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons: Science Sets the Fossil Record Straight (Feral House, 2025) is Fayetteville State University Professor of Zoology Philip J. Senter’s latest effort to present over 15 years of research into Young Earth Creationists’ conjectures about dinosaurs in a single, accessible volume. In 2019 I praised Senter’s first book on the subject, Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? The Hilarious History of Creationist Pseudoscience at Its Silliest, for its meticulous and groundbreaking research, while still being unable to recommend it due to what I consider to be several critical flaws.
My review of Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? subsequently led to a spirited but friendly email exchange with Senter, which ended when he indicated his plan to revise the book to ameliorate some of the issues I’d raised. The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons is that revision, and I’m thanked in the acknowledgements for my “indispensable advice.” That said, I had no part in the actual writing or researching of this book, and was never shown a manuscript nor consulted by Senter following our brief exchange in the summer of 2019.
I stand by my criticisms of Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? and it would have been disheartening if they were still applicable to The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons. Still, I believe it is unfair to judge a work based on what you think it should be rather than what it is, so I’m happy to report that all the best parts of Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? are still present in The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons. This includes not only Senter’s thorough research and elegant prose stylings, but also his engaging discussion of the highly speculative and spectacularly life-threatening biomechanics of fire-breathing and why no animal has ever possessed such an ability.
One of my chief criticisms of Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? was the book’s tone. While Senter’s many articles about creationism and dinosaurs for Skeptic and the Skeptical Inquirer always conveyed a diplomatic air of academic objectivity, Fire-Breathing Dinosaurs? repeatedly belittled creationists and mocked their beliefs. I considered this both unbecoming and counterproductive to Senter’s stated objective of trying to win the hearts and minds of Christians who, in his view, have been bamboozled by Young Earth Creationist theology. Fortunately, nary a whiff of condescension can be found in The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons.
Another criticism I had concerned the lack of photographs of the various archeological artifacts which Young Earth Creationist’s routinely point to as evidence for dinosaurs coexisting with humans, each of which Senter painstakingly dismantled. The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons remedies this, boasting 73 full color photographs, drawings, and diagrams to help illustrate Senter’s explanations and arguments.
I also thought Senter appeared unfamiliar with the existing scholarly literature on Young Earth Creationism, its history, and its broader cultural context. While the bibliography of The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons now contains references to Ronald Number’s The Creationists and the work of Lloyd R. Bailey, the impact of these texts isn’t necessarily apparent on the printed page. Senter does spend more time discussing how 19th century paleontologists openly conflated dinosaurs and dragons, but he still barrels headlong from the end of the Victorian era into the early 1960s and the publication of John C. Whitcomb and Henry Morris’ The Genesis Flood, ignoring everything else that came in between.
But The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons is Senter’s book and not mine, and it’s clear his aim here is not really to understand or contextualize Young Earth Creationist’s claims about dinosaurs, but to simply refute them, casting such beliefs as not only erroneous but heterodox as well. This leads to one of the most complicated facets of Senter’s work, his own Christian faith. Senter is not only a professor of zoology, but he also has a Master’s degree in Applied Orthodox Christian Theology from the University of Balamand.
As a result, the final chapter of The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons is a lengthy exegesis of Genesis arguing in favor of a non-literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and theistic evolution. This has the effect of transforming Senter’s cumulative work into a religious polemic that it seems to me, an atheist with a Master’s in Religious Studies, employs the same sort of cherry-picking used by the Young Earth Creationists he criticizes. More troubling, I suspect that Senter’s theological presuppositions have also skewed his interpretation of the development of the dragon mytheme, leading to the euhemeristic and reductionist conclusion that historical dragon accounts are simply exaggerated reports of snakes.
Senter is of course entitled to his religious convictions, and this aspect of his new book (also present in the first), should in no way diminish the overall achievement and marked improvement that The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons represents. Senter’s faith should also serve as a reminder that quality scholarship on outré beliefs and Fortean phenomena is not dependent on one’s own beliefs about the same or similar material.
Moreover, much of the methodology employed and some of the examples cited by Senter have applications beyond Young Earth Creationism, and apply equally as well to the claims of cryptozoologists and Ancient Alien proponents. I’m happy to say that this time, Senter’s The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons comes highly recommended.
AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
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