Nothing else remotely like avian medullary bone has been found in any non-bird species. This was unmistakably medullary bone. And that makes it more than slightly important. :-D
As well, this goes offtopic (not that it isn;t slightly important) from the main issue of how old the bone is- to which the scientific comunity has to make a cop-out statement that there must have been a fairly remarkable preservation system inplace in Montana and that geochemical and environmental factors that could have preserved the tissues are as yet undetermined, Boy howdy Ill say!
It's only recently that we've had the sophisticated methods necessary to go searching for ancient molecules. People have been working on it for the past 30-some years with variable success. You're basing your objection upon both (it appears) a misunderstanding of the level of preservation involved and (like most people including scientists) the absence of prior evidence that such preservation is possible. We haven't had this evidence before because we haven't had the sensitive analytic methods needed nor have scientists been willing to turn over fossils to be destroyed in search of these molecules.
Science moves on, and research is ongoing in the process of molecular decay and preservation of detailed morphology over short periods of years, longer periods of hundreds of thousands of years, and up to millions of years. Mary Schweitzer (who found this fossil and has been working in molecular paleontology for years) already has proposed molecular conditions needed for preservation and that this type of superb preservation will be more likely in fossils preserved in sandstones, while not as likely in mudstones and marine environments. Future research will show if this hypothesis is correct.
Sometimes the responses to these finds make me scratch my head. Are we just supposed to give up research? Should we be happy with what we know and think we know? Or should we have a post-modern fit and say it's all unknowable, so why even bother? It almost seems like that's what creationists think people should do.
I'm sorry, but this is wisdhful thinkin- As the article stated, there would have had to be extraordinary circumstances at play in Montana to preserve this material- we can have all the 'sensitive analytical methods' in the world, but we've only found a few instances of such material and this does infact indicate natural biological laws at work. You state Mary has a hypothesis, which may or may not hold true, but you didn't mention that these are extremely difficult to preserve through the supposedly endless climate and natural dissaster events this world would have experienced if it were billions of years old.,Sometimes the responses to these finds make me scratch my head. Are we just supposed to give up research? Should we be happy with what we know and think we know?
Noone is suggesting we just give up- it is exciting work no matter the position one has on the issue. I just find it odd that the Creation model is so vehemently ostracized and dismissed as 'apologetics' and accused of 'fitting the evidences' when it's quite clear that instances like this tissue issue are clearly trying to fit it to a hypothesis that supports the evolution stance. I'm not saying you feel this way about oposing views of evidences, but it's quite clear some on this thread can't get over trhe fact that certain scientists could have any other position about what the evidences might mean. And just for the record, Creationists don't 'fit evidences', they assert that the evidences agree with a design model- we're not twisting evidences to fit the model- we';re presenting it and stating that it's just as plausible that the evidence suggest a design that couldn't have arisen from random non-directional mutations, and they've got some powerful evidences to support htis.
Don't confuse the feelings of certain folks outside of science with htose in the sciences- there's plenty of creation/ID scientists that do not feel that way at all- Although there are folks within the evolution science camp that simply refuse to even take a look at anythign that doesn't agree with their model of evolution, I wouldn't for one minute suggest that all evolutionists are afraid of opposing views and won't investigate objectively- although that is what it seems like :b