The first dinosaur-like creatures emerged up to nine million years earlier than previously thought.

That is the conclusion of a study on footprints found in 250 million-year-old rocks from Poland. The age of and evidence for dinosaurs increases with each of these discoveries.

I have often wondered how dogmatic theists have managed to refute evolution. Dinosaur fossils are obviously at loggerheads with religious faith which preaches that all life was created in its full 'designed' form the way God intended.

But Dinosaur fossils throw up an unavoidable question? Why does the bible not mention them? Did they sail two-by-two on Noah's Ark? How can dinosaurs have existed 250 million-years ago if the earth is only 6,000 years old as the Bible claims?

I know there are many religious followers who have no problem keeping their religious beliefs compatible with scientific fact and view the Bible's messages symbolically.

But to refute evolution categorically, which is extremely common within societies which promote 'intelligent design', is refuting a scientific fact which experts say is as scientifically established as gravity as a theory. This is extremely common in the USA, where polls suggest up to 87 per cent of people refute evolution with no deitistic involvment.

Each person is entitled to their own beliefs.

But some can be dangerous. George W. Bush, president of the richest and most powerful country in the world, famously denied funding for stem-cell research - one of the most promising and ground-breaking medical advances in history - for fear of angering God by destroying the souls of unborn children. Or to most sane people, a group of cells too minute to be seen without a microscope. A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly.

Stem-cell research aside, I wonder how many dogmatic religious fundamentalists let their children watch the blockbuster film Jurassic Park? Would this count as heresy?

It is a work if fiction after all though. Similar to the Bible in many ways then....