Soft Tissue in Fossils - Page 1

by Dr. David Menton

Ask the average layperson how he or she knows that the earth is millions or billions of years old, and that person will probably mention the dinosaurs, which nearly everybody “knows” died off 65 million years ago. A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, however, has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question this assumption.

If dinosaurs lived over 65 million years ago, why do some dinosaur fossils still contain well-preserved soft tissues?

Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone (femur) of a Tyrannosaurus rex found in the Hell Creek formation of Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found in all blood vessels.

Amazingly, the bone marrow contained what appeared to be flexible tissue. Initially, some skeptical scientists suggested that bacterial biofilms (dead bacteria aggregated in a slime) formed what only appear to be blood vessels and bone cells. Recently Schweitzer and coworkers found biochemical evidence for intact fragments of the protein collagen, which is the building block of connective tissue. This is important because collagen is a highly distinctive protein not made by bacteria. (See Schweitzer’s review article in Scientific American [December 2010, pp. 62–69] titled “Blood from Stone.”)

Some evolutionists have strongly criticized Schweitzer’s conclusions because they are understandably reluctant to concede the existence of blood vessels, cells with nuclei, tissue elasticity, and intact protein fragments in a dinosaur bone dated at 68 million years old. Other evolutionists, who find Schweitzer’s evidence too compelling to ignore, simply conclude that there is some previously unrecognized form of fossilization that preserves cells and protein fragments over tens of millions of years.1 Needless to say, no evolutionist has publically considered the possibility that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old.

An obvious question arises from Schweitzer’s work: is it even remotely plausible that blood vessels, cells, and protein fragments can exist largely intact over 68 million years? While many consider such long-term preservation of tissue and cells to be very unlikely, the problem is that no human or animal remains are known with certainty to be 68 million years old. But if creationists are right, dinosaurs died off only 3,000–4,000 years ago. So would we expect the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules of the type that Schweitzer reports for biological tissues historically known to be 3,000–4,000 years old?

The answer is yes. Many studies of Egyptian mummies and other humans of this old age (confirmed by historical evidence) show all the sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. In addition to Egyptian mummies, the Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail.

We conclude that the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules in dinosaurs is entirely consistent with a young-earth creationist perspective but is highly implausible with the evolutionist’s perspective about dinosaurs that died off millions of years ago.

Dr. David Menton holds a PhD in cell biology from Brown University and is a well-respected author and teacher. He is Professor Emeritus at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Menton has many published works and is one of the most popular speakers for Answers in Genesis.

Wrong Shtal, the Earth is not dated based on dinosaurs and finding soft tissue in a dinosaur bone does not mean that evolution is wrong. You truly get more pathetic and more desperate with each and every childish post, have some self respect, geez.

Where is Menton's paper he passed a religious opinion on a paper that dates the fossils around 80 million years which also confirms evolution. Really making yourself look stupid here.

All creationists have to do is invent a scientifically reliable dating mechanism, they haven't and they can't and they won't.

Another example of a creationist lying for jeebus with sources, appeal to authority fallacy much;

"
Dr. David Menton of Answers in Genesis has written the latest reaction to Tiktaalik roseae. Interestingly, the article makes almost no reference to the Tiktaalik fossils themselves, except where facts are made up.

In the article, Menton's only claims about the anatomy of Tiktaalik relate to the pelvic fins and girdles (i.e. the hips and legs) of Tiktaalik. There is no disucssion of the skull or shoulder girdle, and only tacit reference to the fin skeleton. Menton explains in relation to fishes and tetrapods that:
[t]he hind limbs [of tetrapods] in particular have a robust pelvic girdle securely attached to the vertebral column. This differs radically from that of any fish including Tiktaalik. Essentially all fish (including Tiktaalik) have small pelvic fins relative to their pectoral fins.
Menton is a liar. He cannot possibly know anything about the pelvic fins of Tiktaalik. The two papers describing Tiktaalik offer absolutely no descriptions of the pelvic fin skeletons or girdle. I've seen the material first-hand and there are no such details of the pelvic fin.

I took the time to go one step further. I emailed Ted Daeschler (of Colbert Report fame) who is one of the authors of the papers to drive this point home. Here's his reply which I got this morning [emphasis added]:
Regarding Tiktaalik pelvic fins . . . no pelvic fin material has been reported. Less for him to misrepresent!
I know this is like taking a whizz in the ocean, but chalk up another lie for AiG.

The article is replete with misinformation, and I will only take up a few of them here. There is a "supplement" below for those who are interested in the finer details of biology or the particularly vapid claims that Menton makes. The article has some subtle ways of using definitions as though they were arguments. For instance, Menton claims that "no fish (including Tiktaalik) has true finger or toe bones." This is a "truth by definition". Tetrapods, by definition, have digited limbs. In other words, only tetrapods have true finger or toe bones by definition. If it has fingers, it ain't a fish! Menton's claim isn't even an argument, but it sure is misleading.

Edited to add. It gets worse and I can't believe I forgot to add it. Nevermind the rhetoric, Menton (who is an anatomy professor! states: "Finally, no fish (including Tiktaalik) has true finger or toe bones. Instead, fish have slender bony fin rays, which even evolutionists concede are not homologous or related in any way to digits". Rays are not in the place of digits. Rays are dermal bone, they develop in the skin like scales and skull bones. Thus, they are in the skin and form a "sandwich" over the internal, or endochonrdral/cartilage, skeleton. Digits are part of this internal skeleton. You cannot have "rays instead of digits". You may have one and not the other, but neither takes the other's anatomical place. Coming from an anatomist, this statement demonstrates first-rate incompetence. Tiktaalik does have jointed radials, a feature which is typically only in lobe-finned fishes. These are endochondral bones. Whether or not they are homologous to digits is a question of ongoing investigation which will require more fossils and involves gene expression work in lungishes.End of edit

The real problem is not even whether or not Tiktaalik has a tetrapod-like pelvic girdle. It's that Menton's attempt to discredit the claims of the authors is based on listing the fish-like aspects of Tiktaalik and ignoring the tetrapod-like aspects. An animal that is a fish-tetrapod transitional would be expected to have some properties of a fish, no?

Menton's use of quotations is also appallingly dishonest. In a section titled "So Is Tiktaalik a Missing Link?", he quotes the News and Views article by Ahlberg and Clack and states that it concedes a point he is trying to make.
In their review article on Tiktaalik, Ahlberg and Clack (Nature 440(7085):747–749) tell us that “the concept of ‘missing links’ has a powerful grasp on the imagination: the rare transitional fossils that apparently capture the origins of major groups of organisms are uniquely evocative.” The authors concede that the whole concept of “missing links” has been loaded with “unfounded notions of evolutionary ‘progress’ and with a mistaken emphasis on the single intermediate fossil as the key to understanding evolutionary transition.”
But the whole quote reveals that Menton's own choice of word's ("missing link") is a loaded question (a particularly dishonest rhetorical trick such as asking somebody "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?").
The concept of 'missing links' has a powerful grasp on the imagination: the rare transitional fossils that apparently capture the origins of major groups of organisms are uniquely evocative. But the concept has become freighted with unfounded notions of evolutionary 'progress' and with a mistaken emphasis on the single intermediate fossil as the key to understanding evolutionary transitions. Much of the importance of transitional fossils actually lies in how they resemble and differ from their nearest neighbours in the phylogenetic tree, and in the picture of change that emerges from this pattern.
Ahlberg and Clack were saying nothing like Menton's implication.

What I don't understand is why this article had to be written by a professor of anatomy. There is no cogent discussion of anatomy that is relevant to the issue of Tiktaalik. There's a heck of a lot of really bad zoology (see the supplementary section), but not even a discussion of the anatomy of of Tiktaalik. Instead, the attack is a shameful distortion of definitions, quote mining, and outright lies. To give you an impression of what Ahlberg and Clack actually think about Tiktaalik here is the figure from their article. Compare especially the skull roofs along the left-hand side of the figure, an aspect which Menton completely ignores."

Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so . . . So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (GENESIS 1:24, 31)

GSDTRAVEL, look?

TV programs, movies, and books portray dinosaurs as having died out 65 million years ago. You know from the history of the Bible that dinosaurs were made on Day Six of the Creation Week about 6,000 years ago. Dinosaurs could not have gone extinct millions of years ago because Earth isn’t that old! Since the Bible is true, we should expect the evidence to support the Bible—and this is exactly what we find. Dr. Mary Schweitzer has discovered soft tissue, such as blood vessels, in a T. rex bone! Soft tissue does not last millions of years; it should all have decayed away. But Dr. Schweitzer found it in a dinosaur bone. Scientists’ belief in evolution and long ages makes them wonder, Gsdtravels? “How can soft tissue survive for millions of years?” The question they should be asking is, “Are these dinosaur bones really millions of years old?” The answer is no! Dinosaurs are a recent creation, made by God just 6,000 years ago, and most were buried in the Flood just 4,300 years ago. Thank you!!

"The bible is true..."

Evidence please.

You might want to also prove all the other creation myths of all the other religions are wrong.

Believing is not proof.

If the bible was true and could be shown to be true then no faith would be required.

All your pseudoscience and denial of scientific evidence won't make your bible true.

I guess shtal forgot to mention this when he cherry picked from the research;

"
The controversial discovery of 68-million-year-old soft tissue from the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex finally has a physical explanation. According to new research, iron in the dinosaur's body preserved the tissue before it could decay.
The research, headed by Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University, explains how proteins — and possibly even DNA — can survive millennia. Schweitzer and her colleagues first raised this question in 2005, when they found the seemingly impossible: soft tissue preserved inside the leg of an adolescent T. rex unearthed in Montana."

Riddle me this Shtal, why is this find such an anomaly?

Riddle me this Shtal, why is this find such an anomaly?

Shtal, I'm LMAO after actually reading your entire post. Do you realize you sound like a 10 year old who just found his father's playboy magazines? Don't get too excited, we might have to mop up!