[SirLinksalot]

Key paragraph for your focus :

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Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

[Sols]

Creationists cherry-picking and misrepresenting the scientific research of others? A shocking development.

[dead]

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old.

Goofballs.

Nice article. Fascinating science.

[printhead]

I remember when capri's were clamdiggers and I thought that was prehistoric.

[trashcanbred]

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”

Gee what a shock... ID is a cult like scientology. Only difference is Scientology has this cool dude named Xenu to look out for.

[Onelifetogive]

briefly taught remedial biology to high schoolers.

Sex education class?

[GourmetDan]

I saw a Discovery Channel show on this subject. Ms Schweitzer, when encountering the Hell's Creek fossil for the first time said something like, "This thing smells like a cadaver."

The response was, "All Hell's Creek fossils smell like that."

So, even when faced with olfactory evidence that these fossils aren't 68 million years old, the 'scientific' paradigm must be protected at all costs.

What exactly is the misrepresentation?

[pabianice]

This is wonderful! Who would have believed that soft tissue could survive for so long?

[Manic_Episode]

PING

[miliantnutcase]

Yes! Now scientists (or so called ones) can stop trying to clone stupid animals like sheep and go right to the T-rex. The we can put it on an island in the Pacific with all the liberals and have ourself a real "Survivor".

[nightdriver]

"...It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

Uh, no.

The Bible does not, I say again, NOT claim that the Earth is only 10,000 years old, or less.

In fact, if these young-Earth claimants were serious Bible students, they would find strong evidence of an Earthly creation (man, cities, "fruitful places," birds, etc) that predate Adam.

[BenLurkin]

Dr. Schweitzer

[Liberal Classic]

Fossilization has always been described as a gradual process. The discovery of partially fossilized tissue, though exciting, does not turn science on its head. These discoveries will help us better understand the process.

Paleontologists have generally been reticent to saw very valuable bones in half, though I'm willing to bet now they will start doing so more often. For anyone who "can't believe" that organic tissues could remain in tact for millions of years, consider what causes tissues to decay and what conditions are conducive to preservation. Consider that insects can be found perfectly preserved in amber millions of years older than these dinosaur fossils.

[wallcrawlr]

Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science.

^{Revelation 4:11}Intelligent Design
Constantly searching for objectivity in the evolution debate...
See my profile for info

My comment based on this quote

invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science.

Science does not have a free hand apart from God. What God wills happens.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Interesting post.

[RoadTest]

"a glowing computer screen showing a network of thin, branching vessels. That’s right, blood vessels. From a dinosaur. “Ho-ho-ho, I am excite-e-e-e-d,” she chuckles. “I am, like, really excited.”"

What she looked at was only a few thousand years old, but if you worship Evolution, you can't believe it.

[DocRock]

Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue
70-million-year-old fossil yields preserved blood vessels
(Click Pic to read MSNBC.COM story)

(Click Pic Below to download 11.4 MB
High Quality .asf Format Video of
Interview with Professor Mary H. Schweitzer)

If you are on Dial-up,
Click HERE to watch 2.1 MB .wmv
Low Quality Interview

Excerpts from Interview with
Professor Mary H. Schweitzer
North Carolina State University
(timed to videos above)

1:25 It flies in the face of everything that we understand about how tissues and cells degrade. It’s not something that anyone of us could ever predict or hope for.

2:49 It is the first appearance of t-rex so therefore its... geologically its the oldest t-rex on record.

4:45 Like I said, a lot of our science doesn't allow for this. All of the chemistry and all of the molecular breakdown experiments that we've done don't allow for this. So if this material turns out to be actual remnants of the dinosaur then yes, I think we will have to do some, umm, certainly re-thinking of some of the basics of the model of fossilization.

5:16 It just doesn't seem possible. But yes, you can actually take the vessels and they do have internal components and so you can take a probe and kind of squeeze those things out into solution and the vessels are fine. It’s just... I can't explain it to be honest. I just can't.

Reference: Science, Vol 307, Issue 5717, 1952-1955 , 25 March 2005

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Main point: Evolutionist scientists had something wrong and were too stubborn and uncurious to investigate it. It's probably too early to draw any other definitite conclusions other than that one. The texbooks were wrong. The "right thinking" scientists were wrong. They are not all knowing gods. That's the main point here.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The theory of evolution is malleable enough to accomodate the presence of any kind of life form in proximity both in time and space to any other life form. For example, to find dinosaurs living at the same time and in the same place as humans does not seriously challenge the philsophy that all life is derived through common ancestry. The theory of evolution is a grand, tweakable mirage, requiring a faith more blind than the account of creation handed down to us through the biblical texts.

[ahayes]

In the middle of March AIG came out with an article mocking Dr. Schweitzer's continued acceptance of an old age for this fossil. In response I sent them a lengthy and rather curt letter which I never received a response to. I don't think I can blame this on the tone of the article, since if that were the only problem they would have taken the opportunity to slice me to bits on their feedback page for revenge. I'm afraid they simply were not able to refute my statements. Since they have neither responded to me nor published my letter in the six weeks since then I will publish it here.

If I'm pinging you it's because either I spoke to you about this, think I spoke to you about this, or think you might be interested. ;-)

---

I am writing to you because I feel that your coverage of Dr. Schweitzer's dinosaur fossil research has been grossly unfair and misleading. AIG has misrepresented Dr. Schweitzer's research, slandered Dr. Schweitzer and her colleagues by accusing them of attempting to "explain away" their findings, and swept under the rug a follow-up paper published by Dr. Schweitzer which presents some inconvenient evidence indicating that birds and theropod dinosaurs are genetically related.

My letter is prompted by your March 6 article "The Scrambling Continues" regarding Dr. Schweitzer's discovery last year of an unusually well-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex fossil femur. When the fossil was retrieved the femur was broken. The internal cavity had an unusual porous appearance, so Dr. Schweitzer took some small fragments of the bone and soaked them in a solution that removed all of the minerals. It is important for the sake of accuracy to emphasize that the samples removed from the fossil were indeed hard and mineralized, not soft like raw marrow as some sources have stated (based I believe on your misleading commentary). After the minerals were removed the end products were tiny fragments (most less than 1/8 inch in diameter) of a network, with some fragments (or sections of a fragment) brittle and fragile while other fragments were spongy and flexible, resembling connective tissue and blood vessels. Under the microscope in the vessels Dr. Schweitzer could see structures resembling cells and with some type of internal structure. I'll quote the conclusion of Dr. Schweitzer's paper (1):

"The elucidation and modeling of processes resulting in soft-tissue preservation may form the basis for an avenue of research into the recovery and characterization of similar structures in other specimens, paving the way for micro- and molecular taphonomic investigations. Whether preservation is strictly morphological and the result of some kind of unknown geochemical replacement process or whether it extends to the subcellular and molecular levels is uncertain. However, we have identified protein fragments in extracted bone samples, some of which retain slight antigenicity (3). These data indicate that exceptional morphological preservation in some dinosaurian specimens may extend to the cellular level or beyond. If so, in addition to providing independent means of testing phylogenetic hypotheses about dinosaurs, applying molecular and analytical methods to well-preserved dinosaur specimens has important implications for elucidating preservational microenvironments and will contribute to our understanding of biogeochemical interactions at the microscopic and molecular levels that lead to fossilization."

AIG has reported this recovered material as strictly organic. This is a conclusion not warranted by the evidence, as a close reading of Dr. Schweitzer's original article and even a cursory reading of the accompanying commentary article (2) in the same issue of Science would show:

"Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, cautions that looks can deceive: Nucleated protozoan cells have been found in 225-million-year-old amber, but geochemical tests revealed that the nuclei had been replaced with resin compounds. Even the resilience of the vessels may be deceptive. Flexible fossils of colonial marine organisms called graptolites have been recovered from 440-million-year-old rocks, but the original material--likely collagen--had not survived."

Some of the tougher biopolymers (especially chitin, lignins and proteins) may degrade very slowly in a fossil. Some arthropod fossils from 25 million years ago contain a small amount of chitin (3), although insects preserved in amber from about the same time period show complete diagenetic alteration (fossilization) in spite of the superb morphological preservation (4). Likewise, in spite of the excellent morphological preservation of this fossil Dr. Schweitzer clearly states that it is unknown at this time whether the actual original cellular and organic material is present. The preservation of intact organic material from a long-extinct species would be a wonderful scientific find, however it is most likely that Dr. Schweitzer and other molecular paleontologists will have to settle for studying the typical biomolecule degradation products found in fossils (5). It may actually be that some fraction of organic matter was preserved, and the supplemental material Dr. Schweitzer published indicates that this may be true as the sample extracts showed some affinity for antibodies against bovine osteocalcin and chicken type I collagen. This leads to the exciting possibility of extracting collagen or other structural proteins from the T. rex sample and comparing these to avian proteins to help clarify the evolutionary relationship between birds and theropod dinosaurs. However, it is unfortunately more likely that the sample will prove to be fully mineralized and lacking any utilizable amount of untransformed biomolecules. If this is so AIG will have egg in its face after its trumpeting of the T. rex sample as "unfossilized soft tissue" ("Still Soft and Stretchy," 25 March 2005).

When I read "The Scrambling Continues" it led me to see if any new papers on this fossil have been published since last year. Sure enough, my search revealed a Science paper from June 2005 (6). This paper is foreshadowed by a line in the initial paper: "In addition to the dense compact bone typical of theropods, this specimen contained regions of unusual bone tissue on the endosteal surface." I'll quote from the June paper:

"The location, origin, morphology, and microstructure of the new T. rex tissues support homology with ratite MB [medullary bone]. The T. rex tissues line the medullary cavities of both femora of MOR 1125, suggesting an organismal response. The tissues are similar in distribution to those of extant ratites, being more extensive in proximal regions of the bone. They are clearly endosteal in origin, and the microstructure with large vascular sinuses is consistent with the function of MB as a rapidly deposited and easily mobilized calcium source. The random, woven character indicates rapidly deposited, younger bone. Finally, the robustly supported relationship between theropods and extant birds (15–18, 24, 25) permits the application of phylogenetic inference to support the identification of these tissues (26, 27)."

Medullary bone is a particular type of bone laid down in the endosteal cavities of female birds to allow storage and rapid mobilization of calcium for egg-laying. This type of bone has only been found in birds, so its discovery in a dinosaur fossil ought to be noteworthy to anyone interested in science. This uniquely avian trait in T. rex adds another piece of evidence supporting the evolutionary origin of birds from theropod dinosaurs. I'm certain that your researchers must have run across this article while checking to see if Dr. Schweitzer had published a follow-up paper. Your failure to mention this article's findings in your rather snide article indicates to me that AIG is not so much interested in the pursuit of knowledge as the promulgation of anti-evolutionary propaganda.

Now I have the benefit of prior knowledge of your likely response to this finding of medullary bone in a dinosaur. I mentioned my complaints about your coverage to a young-earth creationist, and he emailed you asking about this. He shared with me your response, which was that medullary bone was indeed found in other species besides birds, providing these links as support: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1790209&dopt=Abstract, http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/saortho/chapter_53/53mast.htm. These links can be easily found by either searching Google for "medullary bone" and ignoring the multiple hits saying it is uniquely avian or by searching for "medullary bone" and excluding "avian" and "bird." The first example given is actually a misunderstanding by your staff member of basic bone growth--in a young mammal the interior of the bone is filled with spongy bone which recedes to leave a medullary cavity as the bone grows. The second example is talking about the medullary cavity and adjacent structures--it describes "medullary bone infarct," which usually occurs in the medullary cavity near the end of a long bone and results in bone marrow and trabecular bone necrosis. Both of these instances have nothing to do with avian medullary bone. Genuine medullary bone is produced by a genetically encoded organismal response to gonadal hormones in an adult female bird, leading to the deposition of bone in the medullary cavity. The gross and microscopic appearance of medullary bone is unique, and the structural composition is quite different from other types of bone (7). Indeed, osteoblasts isolated from hen medullary bone show different expression patterns of genes than osteoblasts isolated from rats, indicating that avian medullary osteoblasts are uniquely differentiated and the process of medullary bone deposition is different than mammalian bone formation (8). The fossilized bone recovered from this T. rex show unequivocal avian medullary bone, and pose quite a conundrum for those who deny evolutionary relationships.

I can hardly expect AIG to suddenly embrace an old earth and common descent. However, I'm sure that AIG would want to be seen as a trustworthy organization that can be relied upon to present the facts accurately. In light of this I am requesting that you publish a correction stating that the T. rex fossil discovered was extensively fossilized, did not have a "raw" appearance, and that the flexible fragments recovered are tiny (on the order of 1/8 inch). Additionally I request an acknowledgment of the existence of Dr. Schweitzer's paper reporting the discovery of avian medullary bone in the T. rex fossil. Finally, I request that my letter in whole be published on your site. These steps will go far towards correcting AIG's superficial coverage of Dr. Schweitzer's findings.

Thank you for your attention to these matters.

1. M. Schweitzer, J. Wittmeyer, J. Horner, J. Taporski, Science 307, 1952-1955, (2005).
2. E. Stokstad, Science 307, 1852, (2005).
3. M. Flannery, A. Stott, D. Briggs, R. Evershed, Organic Geochemistry 32, 745-754, (2001).
4. A. Stankiewicz, H. Poinar, D. Briggs, R. Evershed, G. Poinar, Proceedings: Biological Sciences 265, 641-647, (1998).
5. M. Schweitzer, Annals of Paleontology 90, 81-102, (2004).
6. M. Schweitzer, J. Wittmeyer, J. Horner, Science 308, 1456-1460, (2005).
7. C. Dacke, S. Arkle, D. Cook, I. Wormstone, S. Jones, M. Zaidi, Z. Bascal, Journal of Experimental Biology 184, 63-88, (1993).
8. S. Hiyama, T. Sugiyama, S. Kusuhara, T. Uchida, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part B 142, 419-425, (2005).