Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Support for a Young Earth? Scientists Baffled by Preserved Dinosaur Blood Cells [Psalms 85:11]
CNS News ^ | 6/15/2015 | Garrett Haley

Posted on 07/09/2015 9:48:38 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski

LONDON – The discovery of well-preserved blood and proteins in a supposedly 75-million-year-old dinosaur fossil has stumped secular scientists and led one Christian apologist to herald the findings as evidence of a young Earth.

A team of scientists at the U.K.’s Imperial College London carefully examined eight Cretaceous dinosaur bones discovered in North America, scrutinizing the bones’ interiors with an electron microscope. The researchers were stunned when they discovered what appeared to be red blood cells in one of the specimens.

Upon closer examination, the British scientists identified an internal structure within the dinosaur cells, complete with nuclei and amino acids. Then, in addition to the blood cells, the scientists discovered excellently-preserved collagen, which is a common soft tissue.

The scientists published their findings last week in “Nature Communications,” emphasizing that the dinosaur bones they studied were “not exceptionally preserved.”

“It has long been accepted that protein molecules decay in relatively short periods of time and cannot be preserved for longer than 4 million years,” the researchers noted. They described the discovery of preserved blood cells and soft tissue as unprecedented and “very exciting...”

(Excerpt) Read more at christiannews.net ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: belongsinreligion; blood; christianmythology; creationism; dinosaur; dna; earth; evolution; nonsense; notanewstopic; notasciencetopic; paleontology; superstition
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-111 next last
To: tacticalogic

The “theory of everything” is what? An amorphous mess? Any process must have a beginning, just as every flower pot hanging from a chain must hang from a hook.


81 posted on 07/11/2015 9:34:57 PM PDT by blackpacific
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 76 | View Replies]

To: Jan_Sobieski

“The discovery of well-preserved blood and proteins “

Not exactly. From a better source:

The discovery of structures that looked ovoid ...

The discovery of structures that looked fibrous ...


82 posted on 07/11/2015 9:37:15 PM PDT by TexasGator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blackpacific

You and the author(s) of Genesis share a penchant for creative writing, but the article was about the age of the Earth and the science (or in the case of creationism, pseudoscience) in determining its age. We know the “Earth” did not come before “Light”, by a margin of about 9 billion years. That’s a matter of fact not interpretation, and the facts are the facts. Case closed.


83 posted on 07/11/2015 10:01:34 PM PDT by GunRunner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: Jan_Sobieski
It's always fun to see what the article actually said. From the abstract;

In one sample, we observe structures consistent with endogenous collagen fibre remains displaying ~67 nm banding, indicating the possible preservation of the original quaternary structure. Using ToF-SIMS, we identify amino-acid fragments typical of collagen fibrils. Furthermore, we observe structures consistent with putative erythrocyte remains that exhibit mass spectra similar to emu whole blood.

84 posted on 07/11/2015 10:31:17 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: tacticalogic

You’ve mellowed a lot in your old age. ;)


85 posted on 07/11/2015 10:33:32 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: Bringbackthedraft; jimmyray
To fit all the species that are now alleged to have existed, the Ark would have to had been the size of Manhattan.

Who said anything about 'species'? He said 'each according to kind'.

86 posted on 07/11/2015 11:03:32 PM PDT by roamer_1 (Globalism is just socialism in a business suit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: GunRunner
Quote: "We know the “Earth” did not come before “Light”, by a margin of about 9 billion years. That’s a matter of fact not interpretation, and the facts are the facts."

LOL. That is a matter of Theory, supposition and guesstimates based on limited knowledge and observation!

You choose to believe the beauty and order around us arose from an explosion and random chance, I choose to believe it was created by the Word of Almighty God, in 6 earth days. You hang your faith on everchanging scientific theory, I hang mine on the unchanging scripture.

87 posted on 07/12/2015 12:08:22 AM PDT by jimmyray
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: blackpacific
The “theory of everything” is what? An amorphous mess? Any process must have a beginning, just as every flower pot hanging from a chain must hang from a hook.

And you can know that it must hang from that hook without knowing how to forge a hook, or smelt iron from ore, or mine the ore, or where the iron from the or came from.

88 posted on 07/12/2015 5:00:22 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: <1/1,000,000th%
You’ve mellowed a lot in your old age. ;)

Not sure when that happened. It just kind of snuck up on me.

89 posted on 07/12/2015 5:04:41 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 85 | View Replies]

To: jimmyray
LOL. That is a matter of Theory, supposition and guesstimates based on limited knowledge and observation!

So is a heliocentric solar system, but everything is a matter of "theory" in science as theory means a scientific process to explain an observable fact.

We can observe how new elements are created in furnaces of supernovas.

You choose to believe the beauty and order around us arose from an explosion and random chance...

Not "an explosion', but many. And supernovas occur according to a process and stellar life cycle that scientists know quite a lot about. Looks like you're confusing supernovas with the Big Bang (which wasn't an explosion by the way), so your ignorance is to be expected. If you'd spent one minute of your life reading a book on cosmology (or science of any kind), you wouldn't sound like such a doofus.

90 posted on 07/12/2015 6:44:36 AM PDT by GunRunner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: GunRunner

I am not sure what your point is. But whatever it is, the case is closed.


91 posted on 07/12/2015 11:16:04 AM PDT by blackpacific
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: tacticalogic

Ultimately, physical science cannot explain the origins of anything. Speculation on origins is proper to philosophy. When a natural science initiates a discussion on origins, he does so as a philosopher, and as such he exerts no intellectual supremacy over the average farmer, parish priest, or high school dropout janitor.

But you are correct, science can attempt to explain processes that are measurable. And within that container, a scientist can merit some measure of respect insofar as he is following the methods proper to his area of specialty.


92 posted on 07/12/2015 11:24:51 AM PDT by blackpacific
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: blackpacific
Ultimately, physical science cannot explain the origins of anything. Speculation on origins is proper to philosophy. When a natural science initiates a discussion on origins, he does so as a philosopher, and as such he exerts no intellectual supremacy over the average farmer, parish priest, or high school dropout janitor.

But what we're seeing here is tactic that seems to be calculated to try to discredit a theory of process by asserting that it must explain an origin that it never claimed or sought to, knowing beforehand that it cannot.

93 posted on 07/12/2015 11:55:58 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]

To: GunRunner
QUOTE: "Looks like you're confusing supernovas with the Big Bang (which wasn't an explosion by the way), so your ignorance is to be expected. If you'd spent one minute of your life reading a book on cosmology (or science of any kind), you wouldn't sound like such a doofus."

Observe which side resorts to the most vociferous name-calling and you are likely to have identified the side with the weaker argument and they know it. Charles R Anderson

Incidentally, your theory asserts only helium and hydrogen were formed in the initial expansion (bang! there it is!), and all other elements were formed in stars and released when they exploded, thus providing the other elements that make up our planet, and consequently, us. Thus, all of the complexity around us resulted from an explosion and random chance. If you want to assert it was many explosions, fine with me. If you want to "clarify" that the Big Bang was a rapid expansion of matter and space from a single point, instead of an explosion, I could care less. It is mostly based on the observed red-shift anyway.

I don't buy it, thinking it a poor explanation for the observed complexity.

FWIW, the scripture mentions that God "...stretched out the heavens" multiple times, which may account for the observed red-shift, for example:

Isaiah 45:12 "It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.

94 posted on 07/12/2015 12:32:59 PM PDT by jimmyray
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: Bringbackthedraft

“All I can think of is how the small crew managed to feed all those animals and clean up after them. “

How long would it take that small crew to load the animals?


95 posted on 07/16/2015 9:13:06 PM PDT by TexasGator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: blackpacific; tacticalogic; <1/1,000,000th%; GunRunner; jimmyray
blackpacific: "Ultimately, physical science cannot explain the origins of anything.
Speculation on origins is proper to philosophy.
When a natural science initiates a discussion on origins, he does so as a philosopher, and as such he exerts no intellectual supremacy over the average farmer, parish priest, or high school dropout janitor."

We should take note of the fact that this is exactly right.
Modern science, aka "natural science" is what you get when you assume that every natural process has a natural explanation, and you exclude all references to the Supernatural.
That's it, that's the whole discussion in a nutshell.

Is it valid to assume that every physical process has a natural explanation, or more to the point: only natural explanations?
That's not a scientific question, it's a philosophical and/or theological question, which presumably people who study those subjects are better prepared to answer.

But, if I understand correctly, philosophy has descended into a black hole of nothingness, and theology is jerking itself over gay marriage, so I agree with our FRiend blackpacific that we'll find better answers from farmers, janitors and, of course, our local pastor.

Bottom line: the powers of scientific assumptions & rules are demonstrated all around us in technology, but science's basic assumptions -- i.e., no supernatural interventions -- cannot be proved, and need not be accepted by anyone with personal experience from the divine.

96 posted on 07/17/2015 4:00:10 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK
Is it valid to assume that every physical process has a natural explanation, or more to the point: only natural explanations? That's not a scientific question, it's a philosophical and/or theological question, which presumably people who study those subjects are better prepared to answer.

But, if I understand correctly, philosophy has descended into a black hole of nothingness, and theology is jerking itself over gay marriage, so I agree with our FRiend blackpacific that we'll find better answers from farmers, janitors and, of course, our local pastor.

Bottom line: the powers of scientific assumptions & rules are demonstrated all around us in technology, but science's basic assumptions -- i.e., no supernatural interventions -- cannot be proved, and need not be accepted by anyone with personal experience from the divine.

Maybe it's just a quibble over semantics, but I see a flaw in that argument based on a failure to distinguish between events and processes.

The concept of "divine intervention" is used in the context of events. That there was a supernatural intervention carries with it an implicit assertion that there was a natural process involved that was interrupted or altered by that intervention.

Any practical application of science is an exercise in prediction, involving the study of a process in order to predict events or results that will be the outcome of that process. If the process itself is divine intervention then the scientists who come up with theories that can successfully predict those outcomes should be elevated to the status of Prophet.

97 posted on 07/17/2015 5:29:25 AM PDT by tacticalogic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: tacticalogic; blackpacific; <1/1,000,000th%; GunRunner; jimmyray
tacticalogic: "Maybe it's just a quibble over semantics, but I see a flaw in that argument based on a failure to distinguish between events and processes."

The Bible itself makes no such distinctions.
It names and describes God as creator and master of all physical reality, using or overturning natural laws as He sees fit.
Science simply assumes -- for scientific purposes -- that such interventions never happen.
Indeed, were some scientist to investigate a supposed supernatural event, the scientist as scientist, literally couldn't see it, much less describe it, much less explain it in supernatural terms.
The scientist would only see a natural event, and could only explain it in terms of natural processes.

So, if that scientist were to take off his scientific coat, put aside his scientific instruments and attempt, as a divinely inspired human being, to describe the event, then he is no longer being scientific, and his words have no meaning to science.

tacticalogic: "If the process itself is divine intervention then the scientists who come up with theories that can successfully predict those outcomes should be elevated to the status of Prophet."

No, again: once a scientist steps outside the realm of natural-science, he or she is no longer a scientist, but something else, something more human than science.
Human perceptions of divine intervention, by definition, cannot be "natural", must be super-natural, and therefore outside the box which science is allotted to study.

So who can study it?
Well, you would suppose philosophers and theologians, but as I suggested in #96, they have pretty much taken themselves out of the picture, so we are left to seek answers from those with more practical experience in the matter...

98 posted on 07/17/2015 6:27:22 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK
So, if that scientist were to take off his scientific coat, put aside his scientific instruments and attempt, as a divinely inspired human being, to describe the event, then he is no longer being scientific, and his words have no meaning to science.

You speak as if scientists can and do turn off their humanity, like flipping a switch, when they put on that lab coat.

99 posted on 07/17/2015 6:36:20 AM PDT by tacticalogic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 98 | View Replies]

To: Fester Chugabrew
“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.”

Amen!

"They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do."
100 posted on 07/17/2015 6:48:04 AM PDT by ForAmerica (Texas Conservative Christian *born again believer in Jesus Christ* Black Man!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-111 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson