(Ed Conrad) wrote in message ...

For one thing, man -- in almost our present form -- existed while
coal was being formed, and our ancestors lived alongside
giant scorpions, dinosaurs and beasts with six-inch-high canine
teeth.


Actually, dinosaurs had become extinct millions of years before the most
primitive of anthropoids ever showed up on the scene. Note in the link
below, the K-T boundary, when the dinosaurs became extinct, was 65,000,000
years ago. Hominids (pre-anthropoids) occured at a point between 12 and 20
million years ago. Modern man (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) came on the scene only
about 50,000 years ago.