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I didn't say it wasn't important ahayes, it clearly is, however, all these 'identicle' similarities between birds and dinos turn out to be over-stated, overplayed and down right deceitfully presented as in the case of 'dino-feathers' that under closer scrutiny and careful examinatioin turn out not to be feathers at all but nothing more than fuzz unique to reptiles. We have a similarity in a medullary bone, that's it- oh, and they both lay eggs- it's a far far leap to suggest that dinos without birds unique flight capabilities and anatomical structures could take to the air. They lack the avian lung structures, the breastbone features that enable flight, the muscles necessary for flight, the nostril placement and systems to fly, on and on it goes- 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

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.

Wow, you are dramatically oversimplifying the rationale for an evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs. Unsurprising.

it's a far far leap to suggest that dinos without birds unique flight capabilities and anatomical structures could take to the air.

No one has suggested that dinosaurs such as T. rex flew.

Suppositions, suppositions. Please provide evidence that such samples have been exhaustively searched for and not found. Please review the process of chemical degradation that occurs in fossilization and provide a scientific explanation why such preservation is impossible (review Schweitzer's recent work). Please provide evidence that undamaged fossils such as this femur found in sandstone inevitably suffer "endless climate and natural dissaster events" while buried. Your objections are based on handwaving and wishful thinking.

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 was forced to leave the ranks of the young earth creationists several years ago when it became amply clear that the evidence did not support this notion. An ancient universe and earth are supported through a variety of different lines of evidence (here's a good book that summarizes them in a relatively easy-to-read manner), and evolution as an active process is supported by multitudes more. Meanwhile I can't even get two different creationists to agree upon a definition of "kind", nor how much genetic change is allowed to occur within a kind (I almost got one creationist to agree that it is possible that dogs and cats could once have been one kind, others won't even say dogs and foxes are in the same kind). I was disappointed in college as it became more and more clear to me that creationist apologetics were not about putting together a coherent model that fits the evidence, but about nitpicking mainstream science.

In the same manner, you are attempting to say that preservation of this sort means that this T. rex can't possibly be 68 million years old. So how about this--if this T. rex is 4000 (Flood death) to 6000 (pre-Flood) years old, why is the preservation so abyssmal when other fossils 4000-6000 years old have comparatively excellent preservation? Why has every dinosaur fossil examined shown poor molecular preservation? If the majority of fossils on earth originated in the Flood, certainly some of the dinosaur fossils we have should appear quite young. For creationists it should be more important to provide positive explanations supporting a young earth than to try to chip holes in evolutionary theory. That's the fallback position for when the evidence isn't really going your way.

We have a similarity in a medullary bone, that's it- oh, and they both lay eggs- it's a far far leap to suggest that dinos without birds unique flight capabilities and anatomical structures could take to the air. They lack the avian lung structures, the breastbone features that enable flight, the muscles necessary for flight, the nostril placement and systems to fly, on and on it goes

This is a late reply, but I just stumbled across some information on the existence of an air sac system similar to that in birds appearing in theropod dinosaurs. I'm flagellating myself for having missed this before!

Birds are unique among living vertebrates in possessing pneumaticity of the postcranial skeleton, with invasion of bone by the pulmonary air-sac system^{1, 2, 3, 4}. The avian respiratory system includes high-compliance air sacs that ventilate a dorsally fixed, non-expanding parabronchial lung^{2, 3, 5, 6}. Caudally positioned abdominal and thoracic air sacs are critical components of the avian aspiration pump, facilitating flow-through ventilation of the lung and near-constant airflow during both inspiration and expiration, highlighting a design optimized for efficient gas exchange^{2, 5, 6, 7, 8}. Postcranial skeletal pneumaticity has also been reported in numerous extinct archosaurs including non-avian theropod dinosaurs and Archaeopteryx^{9, 10, 11, 12}. However, the relationship between osseous pneumaticity and the evolution of the avian respiratory apparatus has long remained ambiguous. Here we report, on the basis of a comparative analysis of region-specific pneumaticity with extant birds, evidence for cervical and abdominal air-sac systems in non-avian theropods, along with thoracic skeletal prerequisites of an avian-style aspiration pump. The early acquisition of this system among theropods is demonstrated by examination of an exceptional new specimen of Majungatholus atopus, documenting these features in a taxon only distantly related to birds. Taken together, these specializations imply the existence of the basic avian pulmonary Bauplan in basal neotheropods, indicating that flow-through ventilation of the lung is not restricted to birds but is probably a general theropod characteristic.

O'Connor, P. M.; Claessens, L. P. A. M. "Basic avian pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian theropod dinosaurs." Nature 2005, 436, 253.