Fresh Tissues from Solid Rock

Fresh tissues continue to be found in supposedly millions-of-years-old fossils. These un-replaced, un-mineralized, still-soft tissues come from animals or plants that were preserved by some catastrophic event.1 Each specimen looks young, and a direct inference is that its host rock must also be dated as thousands, not millions, of years old. And the fresher the meat, the more ridiculous are the evolution-inspired claims of great antiquity for the rock in which it was discovered.

These tissue finds are typically accompanied, in either the technical literature or science news, by the phrase "remarkable preservation." If one is to believe in the great ages assigned to these artifacts, then the quality of preservation is beyond "remarkable"--it is not scientifically possible in such a context. This is, of course, why authorities increasingly offer assurances that soft tissues, despite what is known about their decay rates, can somehow be preserved for millions of years.

For example, Melanie Mormile of Missouri University recently told Discovery News that when other researchers recovered intact DNA from bacteria trapped in "419 million-year-old" salt deposits, this showed "that these organisms can somehow survive for these amazing amounts of time."2 A similar assertion came in a recent airing of CBS News' 60 Minutes. Reporter Leslie Stahl interviewed Dr. Mary Schweitzer, who proved beyond any reasonable doubt in early 2009 that soft tissues, including several different proteins like collagen, had been extracted from a hadrosaur.3 At one point, Schweitzer showed Stahl soft tissue from a Tyrannosaur. Stahl then commented, "It looked like the soft tissue she would have expected to find if it had been modern bone. This was impossible. This bone was 68 million years old."4 Stahl's statement that it is "impossible" makes more sense than the implied assurance from Schweitzer that these discoveries are somehow indeed possible in the context of "80 million years."

A more recent finding was claimed to be the "highest quality soft tissue preservation ever documented in the fossil record."5 Paleontologists found intact, mostly desiccated muscle--complete with blood-filled vessels--in a fossilized salamander that had been removed from the Ribesalbes Lagerstatte deposit near Castellon in northeast Spain. This geologic formation probably resulted from a local, explosive event.

Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the researchers made it quite clear that "the detail revealed by TEM [transmission electron microscopy] imaging unequivocally identifies the organic remains as fossilized musculature from the salamander itself."6 They did not comment on the trouble these tissues bring to evolution's assumption of deep time, but their silence regarding the "elephant in the room" question of how a "fresh" fossilized salamander could exist after millions of years does not diminish the question's relevance.

When it comes to evidence that earth's igneous rocks are young, ICR-sponsored research found it in spades in the form of an abundance of trapped helium in granites and still-ticking carbon-14 clocks in diamonds.7 Now, when it comes to scientific evidence that sedimentary rocks are much younger than evolutionary scientists claim, there is perhaps no clearer message than that provided by fresh tissues in fossils.

1 These remains must have been deposited catastrophically, either as a result of Noah's Flood or from smaller, local post-Flood catastrophes. Although each deposit must be carefully and individually interpreted, it is possible to generalize that fossils found from the Cambrian up to the Cretaceous strata were Flood-deposited, and fossils found in Cenozoic Era were post-Flood.

2 Reilly, M. World's Oldest Known DNA Discovered. Discovery News. Posted on discovery.com December 17, 2009, accessed December 18, 2009.

3 Schweitzer, M. H. et al. 2009. Biomolecular Characterization and Protein Sequences of the Campanian Hadrosaur B. Canadensis. Science. 324 (5927): 626-631.

4 B-Rex. 60 Minutes. Aired on CBS November 15, 2009. Accessed online November 19, 2009.

5 Ancient muscle tissue extracted from 18 million year old fossil. University College Dublin press release, November 5, 2009.

6 McNamara, M. et al. Organic preservation of fossil musculature with ultracellular detail. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Published online before print October 14, 2009.

7 Vardiman, L., A. Snelling and E. Chaffin, eds. 2005. Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, vol. 2: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative. El Cajon, CA: The Institute for Creation Research and Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society.

What else is she going to say?

Only what the evidence supports.

That is science.

Contorting the evidence so it supports what you already supposedly ‘know’ about Biblical floods and ‘kinds’ is not science, it is apologetics.

So evolution only happens after great floods, where it happens at thousands of times the pace ever proposed by evolutionary biology, but only within set limits that have never been defined.

So what is going to stop a 2% genetic DNA difference between humans and chimps after six million years if creatures are capable of much greater changes after only six thousand?

This is your field of expertise?

In the sense that understanding what I read and describing it accurately is my field of expertise, yes.

I admire your chutzpah in citing Brian Thomas, MS articles to argue against my contention that Brian Thomas, MS is a deceitful writer. "He's not lying--see, he says so himself!" Oh well, Brian cites his own articles in his references all the time, I guess you might as well too.

It's also amusing that you cite an excerpt with a scientist saying "we really don't understand decay" in support of your assertion about the "current understanding of collagen rate of decay."

I can't follow Brian's references in the second excerpt because they're behind paywalls. I've followed many of them before, though, and I've usually found that he's misrepresented their content. You'd be better off not accepting his representations at face value.

There's a number of other articles along these lines at the ICR website.

Oh, I know. Blyin' and I go way back.

What else is she going to say? Only what the evidence supports.

What evidence did she cite?

Contorting the evidence so it supports what you already supposedly ‘know’ about Biblical floods and ‘kinds’ is not science

What evidence did I contort?

So what is going to stop a 2% genetic DNA difference between humans and chimps after six million years if creatures are capable of much greater changes after only six thousand?

I have no idea what you're talking about. You seem to be assuming ape to man evolution and then saying the differences between apes and humans should be much greater than between elephants 6000 years ago and today. They don't have the DNA of the elephants that have existed 6000 years ago to compare to today's elephants, so even if we assume evolution your question doesn't make any sense.

The articles quote other sources, or are his summary of those sources.

This is just a quote from an article:

“in bones, hydrolysis [breakdown] of the main protein component, collagen, is even more rapid and little intact collagen remains after only 1-3x104 [10,000 to 30,000] years, except in bones in cool or dry depositional environmnents.”

You have yet to demonstrate where he’s deceitful on his contention about the decay of collagen in the first place. So you’ve got it backwards. It’s “he’s lying because I say so” or “just assume he’s lying”.

The scientist wasn’t saying there’s no scientific estimates of collagen decay. That would mean no research had ever been done, which is obviously wrong. What he obviously meant was that the estimates must be wrong. That’s obviously an ASSUMPTION that he’s making.

Give me examples of where he’s misrepresented content. Chances are they’re like your current contention. You make some assumptions or misrepresent something yourself.

She cited the evidence that these fossils were 50 some million years old.

Contorting evidence on fossilization to fit some preconceived notion of a biblical flood is what you contorted.

You have no idea what I am talking about? Probably because you don't really understand the subject.

There is only a 2% genetic difference between humans and chimp.

If the “limits” you propose on evolutionary change are constrained somehow to less than a 2% genetic difference, it would be impossible for all species of animals to have evolved from those that could fit on a boat of known dimensions within the last few thousand years.

The evolution you propose would be thousands of times more rapid than ever proposed by an evolutionary biologist, and it would exceed the change of 2% in genetic DNA that would separate humans and chimps for those species.

So if an animal, fresh off the Ark, can change over the next few thousand years to become many different species over the Earth, far exceeding a 2% genetic DNA change; what is to stop a human population from diverging from a chimp population and accumulating a 2% genetic DNA difference over some six million years?

How do you reconcile your belief in massive evolutionary change in a short time, far exceeding a 2% genetic DNA change (while somehow limited to staying within a “kind”), while simultaneously deny that slow incremental evolutionary change over millions of years can derive a 2% genetic difference?

Is that simple enough for you? If not I don't really know how to dumb it down any further to make it understandable to you.

She cited the evidence that these fossils were 50 some million years old.

Tell me where she did that.

Contorting evidence on fossilization to fit some preconceived notion of a biblical flood is what you contorted.

Give me the quote where I contorted evidence.

How do you reconcile your belief in massive evolutionary change in a short time, far exceeding a 2% genetic DNA change

As I said, THEY DON'T HAVE THE DNA from those elephant fossils (that I know of) ago to compare current elephants to. You make some assumption about what the DNA difference is. You keep making unwarranted assertions that are based on an assumption of evolution, i.e. circular reasoning.

They do have the DNA of many of the animals extant upon the Earth, and if all of those different species descended over a few thousand years from those few species that could fit on a boat of known dimensions, then the change in genetic DNA over that time span is far greater than 2%.

So how do you reconcile your belief in massive evolutionary change in a short time, far exceeding a 2% genetic DNA change (while somehow limited to staying within a “kind”), while simultaneously deny that slow incremental evolutionary change over millions of years can derive a 2% genetic difference?

I should add that your whole argument assumes apes evolved to humans. Another circular element. It’s “since we know apes evolved to humans over millions of years, therefore something that evolved in much shorter time should have less of a DNA difference”. Then you ALSO assume that the elephants have a large DNA difference, even though we don’t have the DNA.

I am not talking about just elephants here. I am talking about ALL of the species living here on the Earth that you propose evolved over a few thousand years from those species that could fit on a boat of known dimensions.

One need not assume ape to human evolution to note that there is only a 2% genetic DNA difference between humans and chimps.

Why is it acceptable to you that an animal fresh off the Ark can, over a few thousand years, become many different species all over the Earth accumulating DNA differences far in excess of a 2% difference, but absolutely unacceptable that a slow incremental change over six million years could accumulate a similar 2% genetic DNA difference between humans and chimps?

The articles quote other sources, or are his summary of those sources.

Yes, I know. I have read many of Brian's articles and usually read his sources when I can. I have found that he regularly misrepresents what the original source said.

This is just a quote from an article:...You have yet to demonstrate where he’s deceitful on his contention about the decay of collagen in the first place.

The deceit here is subtle. He quotes a scientist saying "little intact collagen remains after 10-30,000 years." He then turns that into "[collagen has] a lifespan of 30,000 or so years." That's not what the scientist said--Brian just ignores that important adjective "little" (in other words, "some") and completely blows by the rest of the sentence, "except in bones in cool or dry depositional environments." Let's rewrite that statement a little: "some intact collagen can remain after 30,000 years, esecially in bones in cool or dry depositional environments." That kind of blows his conclusion apart, and an honest writer would have attempted to account for it.

Give me examples of where he’s misrepresented content.

I don't have time to go on that hunt right now. It's time-consuming: I have to read Brian's stuff, then follow his references, many of which are behind paywalls, then read the references I can get to to figure out what they're really saying, then compare that to Brian's version. I've done this a lot over the past few years, and I'm sure I'll do it again--but not today. Gotta go earn some money.

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