Dinosaur Study Refutes Critics

cavell · Dec 28, 2012

[FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]DINOSAUR BONE TISSUE STUDY REFUTES CRITICS[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]Original dinosaur tissues in fossil bones are probably the most controversial finds in all of paleontology.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]Secular scientists have difficulty interpreting them. They debate whether the tissues are real, based on laboratory-measured tissue decay rates, or whether the tissue decay rates are real, based on plainly observed tissues.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]The latest report on this subject characterized original dinosaur biochemicals found inside fossil bones, and it adds further proof of the chemicals' originality.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]Many of those who are familiar with the rapid pace of tissue decay, which occurs as the tissues oxidize into tiny chemicals, have insisted that what looks like dinosaur blood vessels and cells is actually bacterial biofilm. Certain bacteria can produce slimy film structures as protective coatings. The study authors wrote in the journal Bone, "It has been proposed . . . that the [dinosaur bone] 'vessels' and 'cells' arise as a result of biofilm infiltration; but no data exist to support this hypothesis."[1][/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]North Carolina State University's Mary Schweitzer and lead author of the study used an array of different techniques to analyze the apparent bone cells inside the dinosaur bone. One method used antibodies, which are chemicals that bind to specific targets. She and her co-authors found that antibodies known to bind chemicals that vertebrates, not bacteria, produce clearly indicated that original vertebrate proteins were in the dinosaur bones.[2][/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]Thus, not only is there no data to support the biofilm idea, but there is plenty of data to outright disprove it.[3] Schweitzer and her colleagues wrote, "Here, we present morphological, microscopic, and chemical evidence that these are indeed altered remnants of original cells."[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]So, the problem with finding soft tissues in dinosaur and other fossils only remains a controversy for secular scientists who will not yield, no matter what the evidence says, on their insistence that these artifacts are millions of years old. After all, without that unscientific assumption, all the actual science makes sense.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif][1] Schweitzer, M. H. et al. Molecular analyses of dinosaur osteocytes support the presence of endogenous molecules. Bone. Published online before print, October 16, 2012.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif][2] Specifically, antibodies reacted with non-bacterial proteins Actin, Tubulin, PHEX, and Hostone H4.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif][3] See also: Peake, T. Small Foot, Big Impression. Phys.org. Posted on Phys.org July 24, 2007, accessed October 26, 2012.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial,Verdana,sans-serif]Dinosaur Bone Tissue Study Refutes Critics[/FONT]

miamited · Dec 28, 2012

Hi cavell,

Agreed!

God bless you.
IN Christ, Ted

Steve Petersen · Dec 28, 2012

For a rebuttal to this, go here.

As is nearly always the case, the juicy bits are in the background. The great advantage that science journals have today is the ability to put all supplemental details on-line. In this case, the three page "main" article sports a supporting text over four times as long. For example, the main article has left many people with the false impression that the recovered tissues were in a soft pliable state when first exposed. This is not true. All of the fossil material was rehydrated during the same process that removed the mineral components of the bone. They were then buffered, and also some were fixed. The related press reports have created the impression that there are large features with the characteristics of fresh tissue. This is not true. The structures examined are a few millimeters across at most. The last, and rather irritating aspect of this research is not from the Science article, or the supporting material, but from the press interviews given by Schweitzer which repeatedly hint at the recovery of DNA, and even of cloning.

Adding fuel to the simmering sense of cultural inferiority many Americans harbor toward the British, the BBC Word News did a much superior job of reportage which is available online at, T. rex fossil has 'soft tissues'. There the reader learns that, "Dr. Schweitzer is not making any grand claims that these soft traces are the degraded remnants of the original material - only that they give that appearance." Also, another expert in the small field of molecular paleontology, Prof. Matthew Collins provided comment.

"This may not be fossilisation as we know it, of large macrostructures, but fossilisation at a molecular level," commented Dr Matthew Collins, who studies ancient bio-molecules at York University, UK. "My suspicion is this process has led to the reaction of more resistant molecules with the normal proteins and carbohydrates which make up these cellular structures, and replaced them, so that we have a very tough, resistant, very lipid-rich material - a polymer that would be very difficult to break down and characterise, but which has preserved the structure," he told the BBC."

Further, totally distinguished from the Associated Press video nonsense, the BBC quoted Schweitzer with more than an out of context sound bite regarding DNA,

"I actually don't work with DNA and my lab is not set up to do that," said Dr. Schweitzer. "Our goal is more to look to see what we can find with respect to the proteins that are coded by the DNA.

To a large degree, most of the chemical studies that have been done suggest proteins are more durable than DNA and they have almost the same kind of information because they use DNA as their template."

Calminian · Dec 28, 2012

Steve Petersen said:
For a rebuttal to this, go here.

Reading this rebuttal more than anything affirms the idea that men will always believe what they want to believe. What is certain is that this discovery surprised everyone. Nobody expected to see this, and when it happened, all kinds of reactions followed. Depending on one's methodological world view, this finding has to be neatly explained away so as to keep presuppositions in tact. To the methodological naturalists, he has to be explained in a way to keep with scientific presuppositions of long ages and random chance. To the creationists like myself, who believes the history recorded in Genesis, I find it very hard to believe millions of years would have left the bones in this condition.

Then again, I trust God and the history book He wrote. You would think though, that just dragon legends alone, found all over the world, along with surprising discoveries like this would dispose some to at least consider a miraculous origin for the world and all that is in it. But I know better. The natural human mind doesn't work like that.

ChetSinger · Dec 28, 2012

This is fascinating. Creation.com has an article about it, too: DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone

That title, "DNA...found", is pretty provocative so I looked up the original article's abstract and have quoted it below. While Dr. Schweitzer didn't claim to find DNA itself, they claim to have found evidence of it:

The discovery of soft, transparent microstructures in dinosaur bone consistent in morphology with osteocytes was controversial. We hypothesize that, if original, these microstructures will have molecular features in common with extant osteocytes. We present immunological and mass spectrometry evidence for preservation of proteins comprising extant osteocytes (Actin, Tubulin, PHEX, Histone H4) in osteocytes recovered from two non-avian dinosaurs. Furthermore, antibodies to DNA show localized binding to these microstructures, which also react positively with DNA intercalating stains propidium iodide (PI) and 4′,6′-diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride (DAPI). Each antibody binds dinosaur cells in patterns similar to extant cells. These data are the first to support preservation of multiple proteins and to present multiple lines of evidence for material consistent with DNA in dinosaurs, supporting the hypothesis that these structures were part of the once living animals. We propose mechanisms for preservation of cells and component molecules, and discuss implications for dinosaurian cellular biology.

Cool stuff! I hope she and her colleagues continue this work.

SkyWriting · Jan 6, 2013

cavell said:
Dinosaur Bone Tissue Study Refutes Critics[/url]

Did Jesus ever stoop and pick up a rock or point to a hill and debate it's age?
He had plenty of opportunity to do so.
Why didn't He bother?

Calminian · Jan 7, 2013

SkyWriting said:
Did Jesus ever stoop and pick up a rock or point to a hill and debate it's age?
He had plenty of opportunity to do so.
Why didn't He bother?

Indeed He did. Good article from AiG.

Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Days?

The creation story as recored in Genesis is tied to the rest of the Bible in fact, it's the foundation of the rest of the Bible, old and new testaments. They all rest on the premises of Genesis, from creation, to the flood, to the dispersion to the table of nations, to Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

Yes, every aspect of Genesis including creation is of the upmost importance.

Fascinated With God · Jan 18, 2013

Calminian said:
Reading this rebuttal more than anything affirms the idea that men will always believe what they want to believe.

Belief is all YEC creationists have. There is not a shred of evidence for it.

Calminian said:
...this finding has to be neatly explained away so as to keep presuppositions in tact. To the methodological naturalists, he has to be explained in a way to keep with scientific presuppositions of long ages and random chance.

Most scientists, totally unlike creationists, would much rather know the real truth than have a personal belief falsely confirmed. Your comments here are nothing more than projection, your are describing your own motives rather than anything that plays out in science.

Calminian said:
To the creationists like myself, who believes the history recorded in Genesis, I find it very hard to believe millions of years would have left the bones in this condition.

Once the soft tissue is replaced by minerals and fossilized, why do you assume that it can't last millions of years? At that point it is a rock. If it wasn't for soft tissue fossils in shale we would know nothing about early life before skeletons and carapaces evolved.

SkyWriting · Jan 18, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
Belief is all YEC creationists have. There is not a shred of evidence for it.

If Jesus were to heal a man blind from birth and stick him in front
of you, what evidence would you offer to prove he had been blind?

Once the soft tissue is replaced by minerals and fossilized, why do you assume that it can't last millions of years? At that point it is a rock. If it wasn't for soft tissue fossils in shale we would know nothing about early life before skeletons and carapaces evolved.

There is no such record. The Burgess shale fossils are unique in that some soft tissue left an outline around the skeletons. It's almost impossible to recreate even how it happened as soft tissues normally decompose in days and leave no trace.

Adaephon · Jan 18, 2013

It's always adorable watching people debate scientific articles they don't understand.

Fascinated With God · Jan 18, 2013

SkyWriting said:
If Jesus were to heal a man blind from birth and stick him in front
of you, what evidence would you offer to prove he had been blind?

The testimony of family, friends and acquaintances.

SkyWriting said:
There is no such record. The Burgess shale fossils are unique in that some soft tissue left an outline around the skeletons. It's almost impossible to recreate even how it happened as soft tissues normally decompose in days and leave no trace.

I can think of at least two exceptions to your rule here off the top of my head. The 5,000 year old Alps ice mummy had all of his soft tissue exquisitely preserved. Bodies that were thrown into bogs also have soft tissue preserved for thousands of years. In both cases the contents of the stomach could be examined to reveal exactly what they ate before they died.

Steve Petersen · Jan 18, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
The testimony of family, friends and acquaintances.

I can think of at least two exceptions to your rule here off the top of my head. The 5,000 year old Alps ice mummy had all of his soft tissue exquisitely preserved. Bodies that were thrown into bogs also have soft tissue preserved for thousands of years. In both cases the contents of the stomach could be examined to reveal exactly what they ate before they died.

There is a HUGE difference between 5000 years and 65 million.

Adaephon · Jan 18, 2013

Steve Petersen said:
There is a HUGE difference between 5000 years and 65 million.

Of course, no one has bothered to actually link the study in question so far, so we have no evidence at all of soft tissues being preserved for 65 million years at all.

SkyWriting · Jan 20, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
The testimony of family, friends and acquaintances.

I can think of at least two exceptions to your rule here off the top of my head. The 5,000 year old Alps ice mummy had all of his soft tissue exquisitely preserved. Bodies that were thrown into bogs also have soft tissue preserved for thousands of years. In both cases the contents of the stomach could be examined to reveal exactly what they ate before they died.

I went to the mummy exhibit. What fascinated me was the inability to determine the age of nearly every mummy in the exhibit. The few exceptions were due to written records.

We were referring to the vast majority of the (1000 times older) fossil record.

Fascinated With God · Jan 21, 2013

Steve Petersen said:
There is a HUGE difference between 5000 years and 65 million.

I wasn't thinking very clearly. There is no soft tissue preserved in the fossils so comparing it to cases where soft tissue is preserved is not meaningful. A better comparison is petrified wood, which frequently retains the color on the outside of the original wood, as well as frequently preserving the internal tree ring structures.

Dinosaur Study Refutes Critics

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