#3 Soft Tissue in Fossils10 Best Evidences From Science That Confirm a Young Earth

www.answersingenesis.org ^ | September 11, 2012 | David Menton

[kimtom]

"... A recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, however, has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question this assumption. 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. Needless to say, no evolutionist has publically considered the possibility that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old. ....."

[kimtom]

That is what I said in #93 but not so elegantly

Thanks

[old and tired]

Christ was making reference to the last supper that we now celebrate, also known as communion.

"Actually, Christ was pretty clear. This is my Body... Do this in remembrance of Me." Not this is like my body. Not this is a reminder of the Last Supper.

The creation story, however, is just that - a story. Inspired by God, the Creator of all things. Whether it's literally true or not, matters not to me as I am not a scientist, nor am I interested in matters geological. We're going to disagree, of course, and I will no longer respond, because I find your whole tone rude, and your posts ignorant.

[OneVike]

I use the NKJV when attending Church services. It’ more poetic like the original KJV, but modern.

I use the NASB for my studies because it’s more a word for word translation. Or at least as close as we can get when considering the difference between the ancient languages and modern day English.

That being said, my Hebrew/Greek/English interlinear uses the NKJV for its English translation.

I use many sources for my in-depth studies. All Christians would be better served if they could try to at least recognize some words from the original languages used.

[MrB]

As for the “word for word”, a concordance and dictionary are useful. There are a lot of contemporary connotations to the Hebrew and Greek that often are missed, but are greatly enlightening when explained fully.

[OneVike]

Rude and ignorant only because you claim to think God is not what he claims to be, and you have no clue as to what he said, nor how to read what he said by taking things in context.

You sound like the Romans who accused Christians of cannibalism because they claimed to be eating Christ and drinking His blood.

Who is the ignorant one?

[kimtom]

“..close as we can get when considering the difference between the ancient languages and modern day English...”

I thought ASV 1901 was supposed to do that?

I don’t trust modern scholarly attempts......

(perhaps it is the manuscripts they use...)

[kimtom]

“...The creation story, however, is just that - a story....”

Ahh! But True!!!

And! it should matter!

[RFEngineer]

” For myself I really don’t care what science does or does not prove, it has no effect on my faith.”

You are wise.

those who look for science to prove faith have little understanding of either.

[Popman]

Bm

[OneVike]

I have no problem with the original KJV. As long as one is not adhering to such heretic works as the New NIV, or the New World Translation used by the JWs.

There are a couple other very bad translations but off the top of my head they escape me for now.

However, I will inform you that James erasmus was a Catholic priest, and he was the main translator for the original KJV. unfortunately, when Erasmus ran into problems, he used the Latin Vulgate to fill in gaps and some of those transfers from the Vulgate were errors.

Well when the KJV was written, they still lacked any manuscripts for certain areas, and thus the writers used parts of Erasmus’s Greek edition that had errors, and those errors were translated into the KJV. Errors that have been corrected in the NKJV and NASB.

Corrected because we have since found old manuscripts like the Dead sea Scrolls that predate Christ by almost 600 years. These manuscripts corrected the original errors from the Vulgate that Erasmus used and were used for the original KJV.

[OneVike]

That should have been, Desiderius Erasmus, not James Erasmus

[OneVike]

One more thing,

The ASV was just an American edition of the English Revised Version (ERV). The ERV was the translation made by Westcott and Hort based on the corrupt text for the purpose of replacing the KJV and its traditional and preserved texts!

The ASV was much like the ERV, but with American an American attitude.

The NASB removed all personal bias that the ASV had. So while the ASV claimed to be the most accurate, it was not. Remember, the dead sea scrolls were not discovered until the late 1950’s almost 60 years after the ASV was printed.

[count-your-change]

“Errors that have been corrected in the NKJV and NASB.”

At least one error that has not been corrected for some reason, is the reading at 1 John 5:7,8 in the NKJV.

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

[BroJoeK]

from the article: "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? "

If creationists are right, and dinosaurs died off only 3,000 to 4,000 years ago (that's 1,000 to 2,000 BC: historical times!), then in drier, colder regions we would expect to see large deposits of unfosilized dinosaur carcases, a few with recoverable DNA and other soft tissues -- similar to those mammoth remains we do find.

But instead, very rare finds of minute quantities of dinosaur soft tissue (no DNA) tell us that however it happened, it was a most unusual process, and therefore could have happened long before the current era.

[sauropod]

.

[BroJoeK]

fishtank: "Good ridiculous article.
Good flimsy evidence.
Good absurd logic."

Fixed it. Yes, you're welcome. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

kimtom: "The possibility that fossils could be younger cannot be allowed. yet fossilization (mineralization) does not take long at all (decades) (longer for more complete)."

Under some conditions, fossilization can be delayed for many thousands of years and longer.
For one famous example, consider mammoth carcases found in Siberia.
For another, Neanderthal bones with some intact DNA.
For another, consider insects preserved in amber -- which became the basis for the fictional story of Jurassic Park

Yes, those minute amounts of alleged dinosaur soft tissue seem now likely to be that, but is not yet definitely proved.
No DNA has been recovered, and so other possibilities still exist.

But if we assume these minute tissues are dino-remains, then they would first suggest that other conditions can also preserve small amounts of organic material much longer than previously expected.

So your basic assumption -- that organic material must always fossilize or quickly decompose -- is, well, unwarranted.

[BroJoeK]

central_va: "I see no evidence where one species begets another different.
There are no crossover croca-horse fossils."

Of course not, and nobody ever said there is.
But we are dealing here with a precise scientific definition of the word "species" -- what is it?

For example, Polar Bears and Brown Bears were classified scientifically as separate "genera" but recently got changed to just different "species" of the same genus.
One reason: they do occasionally mate and produce viable hybrid offspring, sometimes called a "groler-bear".

"The polar bear was previously considered to be in its own genus, Thalarctos.[14]
However, evidence of hybrids between polar bears and brown bears, and of the recent evolutionary divergence of the two species, does not support the establishment of this separate genus, and the accepted scientific name is now therefore Ursus maritimus....

"The bear family, Ursidae, is believed to have split off from other carnivorans about 38 million years ago.
The Ursinae subfamily originated approximately 4.2 million years ago.
The oldest known polar bear fossil is a 130,000 to 110,000-year-old jaw bone, found on Prince Charles Foreland in 2004.[16]
Fossils show that between ten to twenty thousand years ago, the polar bear's molar teeth changed significantly from those of the brown bear.
Polar bears are thought to have diverged from a population of brown bears that became isolated during a period of glaciation in the Pleistocene.[17]

"The evidence from DNA analysis is more complex.
The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the polar bear diverged from the brown bear, Ursus arctos, roughly 150,000 years ago..."

Point is: most of these changes take place over long periods of time, generation by generation, and so it is not possible to pinpoint precisely when one sub-species has changed just enough to be considered a new species, or one species changed just enough to be called a new genus, etc.

Groler-bear:

[BroJoeK]

OneWingedShark: "The main problem, as I see it, is that evolution is violation of God creating things and declaring they reproduce 'after its own kind.' "

First of all, "kind" is not a scientific classification, nor can anyone, anywhere define precisely what a "kind" is.
Therefore the word "kind" is meaningless.

Second, except potentially in cases of viable hybrids (i.e., "groler-bears"), no parent ever gave birth to another "species".
What happens instead is that every generation is slightly different from its parents and so over many generations -- thousands, millions -- these changes accumulate to the point where scientists can distinguish separate species, genera, families, etc.

So, it turns out -- however you wish to define "kind", every species does reproduce its own "kind", but every child is slightly changed from its parents, hence: evolution.

[BroJoeK]

OneVike: "Science and Religion are very compatible, the only folks that find them to be otherwise are the folks who subscribe to the outdated and unproven Darwinianism."

And under whose authority do you redefine the word "science" to mean: OneVike's religious convictions?

Current scientific ideas about evolution grew out of Darwin's 1859 proposals, but as with evolution of species, the evolution of scientific ideas, small step by small step, has lead us to something notably different than Darwin understood.
For just one example, consider that Darwin himself knew nothing about the workings of genetics.
All Darwin could see was that children are often different from their parents, he didn't know the hows or whys.

Point is: it's not at all clear if today's evolution science is even the same scientific "species" as Darwin's original proposals.

OneVike: "The “young earth” theory, that the earth is just a few thousand years old has more evidence than evolution has, yet the flat earth evolutionists refuse to even consider the facts."

Sorry, but "young earth" theory has no scientifically valid evidence -- zero, zip, nada -- to support its ridiculous claims.
All the evidence we have, from virtually every branch of science, supports a universe and earth billions of years old.
Indeed, "young earth" uses no scientific method at all to establish the earth's age, but rather picks an age out of thin air, and then searches desperately for some evidence -- any evidence -- which can be misinterpreted to support that.

OneVike: "The backlash from the flat young earthers becomes a bit silly after awhile."

There, fixed it. Sure, you're welcome. ;-)

OneVike: "The evidence proves of the presence of soft tissue in a dinosaur was found in the fossil.
Which proves that dinosaurs are not as old as the flat earth evolution society suggests. "

It "proves" nothing of the sort.
First of all, it's likely, but not "proved", that such minute amounts of soft tissue belonged to dinosaurs.
"Proof" would require DNA, which did not normally survive millions of years, but does sometimes survive thousands of years, as found for examples in mastodons and Neanderthals.
And now I see where experiments claiming to find DNA of insects in Amber have not been verified.

OneVike: "We have more evidence to prove the earth is not billions of years old, than the flat earth evolution society has that the earth is billions of years old."

You have no serious evidence to "prove" anything of the sort.

OneVike: "Other than a theory, evolution has never ever been proven as fact."

Basic Darwinian evolution is a confirmed scientific theory based on two observed facts:

1. Descent with modifications, and
   
2. Natural selection.

OneVike: "Its not surprising that the evolutionists and their old age theory folks argue a non bending proposal."

Of course, scientists always "argue non bending proposals" such as "two plus two equals four", regardless of what some non-scientific doctrines might claim.

OneVike: "Evolutionists argue that perhaps there are things we don’t quite know, and that is why they continue to cling to their pie in the sky belief that has never ever been proven."

Strictly defined, science consists of confirmed observations (aka "facts"), unconfirmed hypotheses (proposed explanations), confirmed theories (confirmed by falsifiable predictions) and laws (usually mathematical formulas).
Evolution is a many-times confirmed theory based on literal mountains of facts.

OneVike: "Yet, because Christians dare to show the evidence that disproves evolution and their billion year old earth theory, they will go out of their way to even attack Christians for daring to call themselves scientists."

Christians who claim a "young earth" are not scientists, period.
They are theologians masquerading and pretending to be scientists, when in fact there's no scientific spirit in them, only religious convictions.

OneVike: "What really gets me is the way they claim that theological scholars are ignorant of what the Scriptures tell us.
Anyone so utterly ignorant of theological facts who try to argue someone else’s theories are an affront to both God and Science."

You have a particular interpretation of biblical texts which the vast majority of Christian denominations do not agree with.
Your claims that only your theological interpretations are correct and necessary are not supported by rational thought.
Your claims that your theological interpretations have something to do with real science are utterly false and misleading.

OneVike: "The Holes in the theory of evolution are so massive, that you could literally put the whose universe into them."

In strict scientific terms, evolution does not attempt to explain the whole Universe, only one small feature: descent with modifications and natural selection.

OneVike: "The idea that they dare to claim that the Scriptures agree with them is actually Blasphemous."

Science itself is not concerned with who-ever's religious doctrines may or may-not agree.
But if it turns out (as it does) that much of Genesis does not necessarily contradict science, well, that I'd call a "serendipity", a happy surprise -- surprised by God, you might even say... ;-)

OneVike: "Those who claim such an idea, do not even have a cursory understanding of either Hebrew or Greek.
So for them to claim they know what the Scriptures say is not just ludicrous, but ignorant!"

There are a good many scholars of ancient texts who interpret some biblical passages different than you do.
Indeed, your views are a distinct minority within Christianity itself, which suggests to me that what seems so blatantly blasphemous to you may to God appear, well, not so much, FRiend.

;-)