“Since everyone is biased, then, we must treat every explanation as equally valid, is that your point? Not just in biology, but everywhere? If someone tells you that Carter was a better president than Reagan, do you just accept that as valid because, well, you’re coming from a conservative bias and they’re coming from a liberal bias? Like I said, this equivalency is just a way of waving away the evidence.”
Not equally valid no. But everyone does have a right to his own opinion. THAT is the point. Interpretation of the evidence is not fact but interpretation. You are welcome to yours and I am welcome to disagree. You want to call me anti science because I don’t agree with your interpretation of the evidence. You have a right to name call as well and that doesn’t bother me but don’t expect me to allow you to distort my views.
“You seem to think she should have acted like this was the first T. rex bone ever discovered. Knowing and understanding the previous work done in your field so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel isn’t bias, it’s education. In most contexts, you’d probably prize that.”
Then why do the experiment in the first place because her field already “KNEW” that soft tissue couldn’t survive 68 million years. She question THIS paradigm but not the age paradigm. It isn’t reinventing the wheel to ask questions. OBVIOUSLY something was wrong with the belief that a dinosaur bone couldn’t contain soft tissue.
“lie about the nature of the soft tissue discovered, calling it “squishy.”
Sources please because I have never seen this. I DO NOT say this. However she admitted herself that no one thought her find was possible. I am questioning her paradigm. Why didn’t she test the soft tissue for carbon 14? BECAUSE her beliefs say that there won’t be any carbon 14. Of course her belief before this said there wouldn’t be any soft tissue. Evolution causes ALOT of experiments to never be done as referenced in the article. “the first observation of its kind. The finding amazed colleagues, who had never imagined that even a trace of still-soft dinosaur tissue could survive. After all, as any textbook will tell you, when an animal dies, soft tissues such as blood vessels, muscle and skin decay and disappear over time, while hard tissues like bone may gradually acquire minerals from the environment and become fossils.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/10021606.html#ixzz0VZChRzSL
“you can show me dinosaur soft tissue that’s not just fragments of collagen inside a mineralized bone”
It was a bit more that fragments of collagen. Of course I won’t accuse you of lying or distorting the facts to fit your worldview like you did to me.
“Not only is the tissue largely intact, it’s still transparent and pliable, and microscopic interior structures resembling blood vessels and even cells are still present.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325100541.htm
Of course you have the right to your own opinion. I never said otherwise. I also never called you anti-science. Nevertheless, when it comes to science, I don't automatically grant that all opinions are equally valid.
Then why do the experiment in the first place because her field already “KNEW” that soft tissue couldn’t survive 68 million years.
I don't think this was considered some kind of rule. Sure, she was surprised to find tissue still soft after all that time. But it didn't violate some basic law in her field; it was just a surprise.
Sources please because I have never seen this.
Brian Thomas, of course: "In recent decades, soft, squishy tissues have been discovered inside fossilized dinosaur bones."
It was a bit more that fragments of collagen.
Perhaps I was mistaken about the collagen. National Geographic described the material as "flexible, stretchy material and transparent vessels. The vessels resemble blood vessels, cells, and the protein matrix that bodies generate when bones are being formed." Collagen is defined as "The fibrous protein constituent of bone, cartilage, tendon, and other connective tissue." The descriptions sound similar to me, but I'm not an expert. At the same time, this source says, "To determine how well the tissue was preserved, Schweitzer and colleagues subjected the tissue to a slew of mineral, molecular and chemical analyses, which turned up small, almost undetectable amounts of material that had all the characteristics of collagen — an identifiable and relatively hardy protein."
I'm right about the fragments, though. The sources I can find say the pieces she found were fractions of millimeters to some few millimeters in size, and all the photos I see of them are from electron microscopes. Whatever the stuff was, there wasn't much of it.
Of course I won’t accuse you of lying or distorting the facts to fit your worldview like you did to me.
I have never accused you of lying or distorting the facts. Why does creationism so often come with a side order of persecution complex?