Posted on 10/26/2014 6:42:10 PM PDT by lasereye
Original soft-tissue fossils continue to challenge mainstream understanding of how and when fossils formed. Secular researchers described dozens of them over the years, from mummified skin and dried red blood to still-purple retinas, and they assign them ages of tens of millions of years. However, the science of tissue decay clearly does not permit these long ages.
For example, lab bench tests that accelerate tissue decay under high temperatures place a maximum age of fewer than one million years on some of the most resilient proteins, assuming the fossil proteins were kept cold and sterile during the entire process. These results call into question the “age” of the most recent discovery: original, pliable, marine tube worm tissue found in Precambrian fossils that are supposedly 551 million years old.1
Publishing in the Journal of Paleontology, three European researchers described details of delicate fossil casings that so-called beard worms manufactured long ago.2 The worms were quickly buried and locked in rock like natural time capsules. The fossil worm’s chitin-containing tubes look the same as those made by modern worms of the same type, complete with high-tech structural cross-layering of fine fibers.
The scientists first listed events that did not happen to these fossil worm casing walls. Their research ruled out preservation by various means of “mineralization” where minerals take the place of original biological material. Silicification, phosphatization, carbonization, pyritization, phyllosilicate metamorphism, and apatite permineralization all contribute to the fossilization of delicate tissues in other instances—sometimes involving bacteria in the process—but not in these Precambrian worm sheaths.
The study authors wrote, “Minerals have not replicated any part of the soft tissue and the carbonaceous material of the wall is primary [not replaced], preserving the original layering of the wall, its texture, and fabrics.” They described the worm sheath as still “flexible, as shown by its soft deformation.” And just to be clear, they wrote, “The body wall of S. cambriensis [fossil worm] comprises a chitin-structural protein composite.”2 The paper included close-up pictures revealing its fossilized—but not mineralized—tissues.
The idea that chitin or any unaltered biological material (soft tissue that has not yet decayed) can last longer than a million years has no direct experimental support. In fact, decay rate studies make a joke out of their deep-time age assignments.1,3 Geologists in 2011 reported original proteins and chitin in fossil sea scorpion exoskeletons—yet the fossils were supposedly 417 million years old.4 The subject of this more recent find of soft chitin and protein in marine worm fossils should again cause us to seriously question their evolutionary time designations.5
What decay rate measurements back the claim that animal proteins can last for a million, let alone half a billion, years?6 The still-flexible tube tissue of this lowly ancient marine worm matches the Flood explanation: a worldwide watery catastrophe buried these seafloor worms beneath hundreds of feet of sediments only thousands of years ago.
References
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Sealed in stone locks in the freshness and flavor.
Read Restaurant at the End of the Universe, et. al.
Zip-Roc?
Secular researchers described dozens of them over the years, from mummified skin and dried red blood to still-purple retinas, and they assign them ages of tens of millions of years.
...
I’d like to see the ICR define “secular researcher.”
but clever
I like it.
Lol, well punned!
It’s aliens.
The Institute For Creation Research (oh, boy), scared to go by name anymore?
“In fact, decay rate studies make a joke out of their deep-time age assignments ...”
In fact, flight studies make a joke out of studies that heavier than air contraptions are possible - “If men were meant to fly they would have wings,” one wag said.
Here is a 2008 book which discusses all of those "dozens of them", as of 2008.
First, you will find that most "soft tissue" found are, in fact, well preserved stone fossils, not organic material:
So, the cases of actual preserved soft organic tissues found from the age of dinosaurs are, in fact, very small, and all controversial.
And so we're clear: there are no dino-DNA fragments found.
Second, what is claimed, though not yet fully accepted, is dino-collegen, simple organic matter, mentioned briefly here.
These finds, if fully confirmed, demonstrate that under ideal conditions some organic material can survive a very long time indeed.
They certainly do not "prove" that every other method and idea about the earth's age is suddenly wrong.
from the article: "However, the science of tissue decay clearly does not permit these long ages."
Rubbish.
Did you ever get a chance to read this book?
I’m curious to hear your opinion.
Well, what do you know?
Blood and soft tissue DO last 550 million years!
A man is convinced he is dead. His wife and kids are exasperated. They keep telling him he’s not dead. But he continues to insist he’s dead.
They try telling him, “Look, you’re not dead; you’re walking and talking and breathing; how can you be dead?” But he continues to insist he is dead.
The family finally takes him to a doctor. The doctor pulls out some medical books to demonstrate to the man that dead men do not bleed. After some time, the man admits that dead men do not bleed.
The doctor then takes the man’s hand and a needle and pokes the end of his finger. The man starts bleeding. He looks at his finger and says, “What do you know? DEAD MEN DO BLEED!”
No, but from the reviews, it sounds like something very close to my own ideas.
Not certain if I could follow him through strictly Jewish traditions (i.e., Kabala, Maimonedes), but any insights from the Old Testament likely match my own.
When time permits, I'll check it out.
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