Dinosaur Fossil Soft Tissue Contradicts

Millions of Years Since Alive

By Pastor Timothy R. Stout

    

Dinosaurs are the key marketing tool of the evolutionist. Dinosaurs are fascinating, both to very young children and adults alike. The suggestion of a 40-foot long T. rex biting a man, tossing him into the air, and then swallowing him in a single gulp is terrifying. At least they died out millions and millions of years ago. Or, did they?

 Perhaps not! Soft tissues have been found in numerous dinosaur fossils. Realistically, these tissues should have decayed long before the fossils appeared to us. More significant than this, many specimens of the tissues have consistently been carbon-14 dated to about 20,000 to 40,000 years ago.

This is inconsistent with evolutionary theory, because the rocks in which these fossils have been found are typically presented as over 65,000,000 years in age. The discrepancy between these values is huge.

 There are many, many changes that would need to take place for evolution to transform the plants and animals associated with the time when T. rex roamed the earth into those prevalent today. Indeed, if evolution were to take place this rapidly, we should be able to observe significant changes taking place before our eyes. Man of even 2,000 years ago should be significantly different from what he is today. This is just not the case. Therefore, the discovery of dinosaur soft tissues in dinosaur fossils along with their relative recent carbon-14 dates poses a serious challenge to evolutionary theory.

Jack Horner and Mary Schweitzer

Jack Horner is among the elite of dinosaur field scientists. He has become a living legend, having found more T. rex fossils than any other scientist. He was the chief consultant for Jurassic Park and many other dinosaur movies. In fact, he acknowledged that the renowned paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in the film Jurassic Park was patterned after him—he is the real life Alan Grant.

In 1991 one of Horner’s graduate students, Mary Schweitzer, discovered what appeared to be capillaries and blood cells inside of dinosaur fossils. It gave the appearance of original tissue, i.e., that it was composed of the same molecules that the dinosaur had when it died. The study of this material became the subject of her Ph.D. thesis. Her goal was to try and prove that what she found was not something else. After several years of effort, it still appeared that she had discovered original dinosaur capillaries and blood cells. In 1997 a summary of her investigation was published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of the Sciences, an extremely prestigious science journal.

Her article created an uproar in the scientific community. Organic compounds decay rather rapidly. Even the drugs in our medicine cabinet have relatively short lifetimes, typically having degraded enough to make them unsuitable for use in less than ten years. This is within the relatively protected environment of a dry pill bottle in a medicine cabinet. 65 million years is simply too long for original biological material to possess still recognizable characteristics left in an unprotected environment in nature. Common sense tells us this, based on drug expiration dates. Everything science has learned about decay processes and rates tells us this. If Schweitzer truly found original dinosaur tissue, a natural conclusion would be that the dinosaur it came from died very recently, not many, many millions of years ago. If this were to become a consistent pattern and not just an isolated case, it would challenge the validity of the long periods of time needed for evolution.

Then, in 2006 Schweitzer published a report in Science, arguably one of the two most prestigious science journals in the world. This documented her discovery not only of soft tissue from a dinosaur, but soft tissue that was still flexible. This was too much! Now the scientific community as a whole responded to Schweitzer’s report with great hostility. For instance, one Smithsonian paleon­tologist even suggested that the investi­gators probably mistook contamination from a field worker’s lunch for soft, pli­able connective tissue including blood vessels and erythrocyte- [red bloodcell]- like elements.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is the case, then a good video clip is worth a thousand pictures. Fortunately for those interested in this subject, there are a number of good video clips featuring the scientists who are actively doing the work and which also show what they have discovered. The following clips are dramatic. If you have any interest in dinosaurs, you should be fascinated by the clips. Space does not permit more than a hint of what they clips reveal. It is recommended that you click on and watch these clips as they appear in the text.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJOQiyLFMNY produced by the “60 Minutes” TV news program. News correspondent Leslie Stahl interviewed Jack Horner and Mary Schweitzer as they told the story about Schweitzer’s discovery of soft tissues in dinosaurs. Most importantly, Schweitzer shows us clips of the tissues taken by a color video camera peering at them through a microscope. You can see for yourself that there is no way that the tissues shown here are the product of microscopic lens error or a fossil digger’s sandwich falling on the bones he was excavating. In the clip you can see for yourself just how obvious this is. Yet, these comments had been made by supposedly authoritative scientists!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/t-rex-blood.html  produced by Nova, a television science program sponsored by PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service. In it news correspondent Peter Standring interviews a number of paleontologists about dinosaur soft tissue and provides more insight into the issue.

First he interviewed a husband and wife team of paleontologists, Dr. Kristi Curry-Rogers and Dr. Raymond Rogers. They spent a decade digging dinosaur fossils in Madagascar. The fossils found there are unique. They look like fresh bone. There is no evidence of iron or other minerals in them. The Rogers were curious about the possibility of soft dinosaur tissue in these bones and sent a sample to Mary Schweitzer to analyze. She had the same results with their samples as with her own. Peter Standring also interviewed Derek Briggs, Ph.D., a paleontologist of Yale University, who acknowledged that the finding of soft tissue appears to be legitimate biological tissue from the original dinosaur.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynXwAo9V_pY produced by cable TV network MSNBC: This shows an interview with Schweitzer a week after her 2006 announcement of finding the dinosaur soft tissue. When asked if it was amazing to find soft tissue in a fossil this old, she responded, “It is very amazing. It is utterly shocking, actually, because it flies in the face of everything we understand about how tissues and cells degrade…All of the chemistry and all of the molecular breakdown experiments that we have done don’t allow for this. If this material turns out to be remnants of the actual dinosaur then, yes, we will have to rethink some of the basics of the model of fossilization…It just doesn’t seem possible.” In other words, Schweitzer acknowledged that the things scientists have learned about the processes and rates of tissue degradation simply do not allow for the tissues she has analyzed to be as old as evolutionary theory requires.

Unfortunately, her response shows the predetermined mindset of the evolutionist. If observed data contradict evolutionary theory, then the problem is not with evolutionary theory, but the data. In this case, Schweitzer concludes that all we have observed and learned about decay rates must be wrong if it would challenge the validity of evolution. Yet, the natural conclusion should be to be honest and come out and say that from what we know about decay rates and processes, the presence of still-flexible soft tissue in dinosaur fossils challenges the current understanding that these dinosaurs lived 65 to 200 million years ago.

It is sad, but most people realize that most of the evidence supposedly supporting evolution has similar problems when looked at carefully. For instance, Pastor Stout has written a booklet available free online at http://www.creationtruthoutreach.org/articles/hgrh.pdf. This booklet goes into great detail showing how the basic laws of chemistry and physics work together to make a natural, spontaneous appearance of life impossible. It shows how information is the product of intelligence and the information stored in a cell’s genetic code required it to have been generated by a living God, One who is intelligent, able to plan out a design, and then has the power to arrange individual atoms and molecules into place to implement the design. In the last three years, over 30,000 copies of this pamphlet have been passed out on university campuses across the United States. Its contents has been ignored. Not rebutted, not argued against. Ignored. Professors who say anything that would call into question evolutionary theory do not get grant money. Without grant money, they can’t do their research. Without research, they lose their jobs. It is even worse than that; they can become a liability for the department they work for; an entire department can sometimes suffer loss of grant funds because of a “renegade” professor.

A reader needs to understand that none of the evidence presented as supporting evolutionary theory is as solid as is taught in the classroom. The situation taking place before our eyes with dinosaur soft tissue is typical across the board concerning evolutionary theory.  

As mentioned earlier, there was a very hostile response to Schweitzer’s discovery when she first made it. Evolutionists immediately understood the potential impact of these findings in the creation/evolution debate and wanted to defuse the potential damage of this subject as swiftly as possible. However, over the course of time, too many scientists from too many different laboratories from too many different countries examining too many different specimens have had similar results. Many scientists have reluctantly acknowledged the validity that these samples are of original biological tissue. So, in an effort to discount the natural conclusion that the fossils are not as old as required by evolutionary theory, they now claim that the tissues illustrate a  current misunderstanding of the decay process.

Some scientists have claimed that the tissues only appear to be dinosaur soft tissue. They are actually bacterial slime (or, more technically, “biofilm”). Although bacterial slime can sometimes mimic soft tissue, the mimicry has obscure, fuzzy boundaries. By contrast, the miscrosopic analysis of the tissues show very precise details. You can see this for yourself in the video clips. But, that is not all. Anti-body tests shows that collagen, a common protein used to connect cells in multi-cellular animals and which is not found in bacteria, is clearly present in these tissues. Hence, many once hostile scientists are now admitting they are not bacterial slime.

The current hope of the evolutionist as he tries to justify long ages for dinosaur burial, is that iron can act as a preservative. The problem is that proteins have numerous kinds of bonds. Some of these bonds can be preserved in an iron environment. However, others are quickly destroyed by iron. The tissues show no sign of iron damage in the bonds that should have been attacked by iron, if the iron were in a high-enough concentration to be effective.

Shortly after Schweitzer announced her discovery of flexible dinosaur soft tissue, Jeffrey Bada, a biochemist at the University of California at San Diego and a specialist in amino acid decay, initially said that Schweitzer’s discovery could not be original tissue, but had be to bacterial slime. This was because the accumulated effects of radiation on original tissue for over 65 million years would completely destroy it, overriding any other processes. It is interesting that since it has become clear that the tissue truly  is original soft tissue, he has apparently dropped the topic.

The bottom line is that scientists have exhausted all of the known possibilities to let the soft tissue be as old as evolutionary theory requires. We know all kinds of reasons that would prevent it from lasting this long. Every attempted explanation to show how soft tissue could survive this long has broken down under careful, honest analysis. Realistically, we need to acknowledge that science as we understand it clearly teaches against the possibility of fossil soft tissue having been formed in the distant past. So, soft tissue truly poses a concrete and readily observable argument against evolutionary theory.

Carbon-14 Dating

If the element carbon is present in a particular ancient object of some sort which has not been carbon dated and if the object has any kind of significance, it is normal to carbon date it. If the measurements are consistent with what is expected, they confirm the expectations and may help further refine our understanding. If they do not agree, there is potentially interesting information ready to be discovered as the cause of the discrepancy.

Many, many major advances of science have been made when a scientist set about to make what was expected to be a routine measurement and found something unexpected–and proceeded to follow through on it. This even applied to the steps leading to the discovery of dinosaur soft tissue. Scientists are supposed to be curious about unexpected discoveries, not suppressing them because they contradict current scientific opinion.

Therefore, one would expect that carbon dating the soft tissue found in dinosaur fossils would be high on their list of priorities. However, it is not. Not only is it not, there has been an open hostility to even considering it. This is not the attitude of a true scientist. It is the attitude of someone who is trying to protect a pet theory and has a deep-seated concern that a particular line of research might give the “wrong” results. I.e., there is a legitimate concern that the research might uncover findings that are forbidden to be discussed by the scientific community. Any argument which goes against the validity of evolution is in this category.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szHNDAMfA0s is a clip which very clearly illustrates the strange reluctance of scientists to carbon date dinosaur soft tissue. A Denver talk show radio host called up none other than Jack Horner himself on the telephone and offered him a grant of $20,000 if he would carbon date some of the soft tissue he has recovered from a dinosaur fossil. The conversation is recorded and presented in this clip. Remember, it was Horner’s student, Mary Schweitzer, that discovered soft tissue in the beginning. Scientists are acknowledging that the information they are gaining from the soft tissue, not only in dinosaur but actually in all kinds of fossils, is changing the major emphasis of paleontology. However, Horner does not want to make these readings. He would be allowed to extract his own tissues and pick his own laboratory to insure the quality of the work. Yet, he has no interest in doing this.

Finally, towards the end of the conversation, he says that he is reluctant to do this because he doesn’t want a “circus.” It is as though he expects “bad” results from the dating. He knows all of the “flack” soft tissue discovery caused and is still causing with some. He apparently does not want to take the next logical step. Listen to the tone of his voice in the conversation. He is trying to be gracious (he is talking with a radio show talk host who is recording his conversation for the radio and wants to be gracious, yet he truly does not want to make these tests). One would think that if Horner were confident that the fossils were over 65 million years old, that he would look forward to demonstrating this experimentally. It is not scientific for a scientist to run from performing a standard test on samples that have never been subject to that test. All kinds of interesting things could potentially be discovered…..

Paleochronology Group

There is another group which has not been so reluctant to carbon-14 date dinosaur soft tissue. The Paleochronology Group comprises a number of consultants in geology, paleontology, chemistry, engineering, and education who perform research on fossils. Between 1989 and 2011 they acquired samples from various parts of eight dinosaurs found in sites from  Texas to Alaska. Twenty different samples from these dinosaurs were taken and dated for carbon-14.  The carbon-dated ages for all 20 samples ranged from a low of 22,380 years to a high of 39,230 years. The laboratories performing the tests claim the technology they used is accurate for at least 60,000 years. In general, scientists working in this area acknowledge the validity of this claim. Yet, the rocks in which all of the dinosaurs were found were reputedly at least 65 million years old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgM_p9UfOeI is a video clip made by the Paleochronolgy Group which discusses these eight dinosaurs and their carbon-14 ages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRojHXjwcOU is a clip showing a femur (upper leg bone) from a dinosaur being sawn in half. The femur actually belongs to the dinosaur labeled as hadrosaur (duckbill dinosaur) #2 in the previous clip. A sample was taken from the femur for carbon 14 dating. At the time of this video, these scientists did not know what to expect for the dating. Ultimately, the sample was tested by an independent laboratory at the University of Georgia and found to have a carbon-14 age of 23,000 years.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbdH3l1UjPQ is a clip of a formal presentation made by the Geochronology Group at an international geophysics conference held in Singapore in 2012. In this session the Geochronology Group presented the carbon-14 dating results discussed in the above video clip.

Although only about twenty people attended the Conference presentation, apparently one or more people in the audience took great offense to the presentation and complained to the Conference chairman. As a result, all mention of the presentation was pulled from the published Conference Proceedings. This was censorship in action.

 

http://dinosaurc14ages.com/singnotes.htm Hugh Miller of the Paleochronology Group discusses the Singapore presentation and the subsequent censorship. The problems facing the Paleochronology Group did not stop here. One of the laboratories that they used to perform the carbon 14 analyses for the group has since refused to date any more samples from the group, claiming in so many words that they were embarrassed by how the group was using the measurements they made.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fjjeyRxP9Q is a clip by Mark Armitage showing how he prepared a specimen of dinosaur tissue for viewing in an electron microscope as well as the results from it. Armitage is a specialist with unique skills in operating electron microscopes, with over 50 articles in peer reviewed journals published about his work. He was in charge of operating the electron microscope at the California State University at Northridge. While examining some fossil dinosaur soft tissues he had received, he sent a sample to the Paleochronology Group for carbon-14 dating. The sample came back as 31,000 years in age. He was fired from his job for talking about these results and their implications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxk3gts8PuA is a clip which discusses Armitage’s firing and its significance.

Creation Research Society Project

In recognition of the significance that fossil soft tissue has on the creation-evolution controversy, the Creation Research Society devoted an entire issue of its peer-reviewed journal, CRSQ Quarterly to the investigation of this topic https://www.creationresearch.org/index.php/crsq-journals/crsq-2010-to-present/969-crsq-2015-volume-51-number-4-pdf . Six articles were presented which spanned a total of 90 full-size pages. A thorough technical analysis was presented for each of six topics:

 

 1) Original Biomaterials in Fossils

 

 2)  Soft Bone Material from a Brow Horn of a Triceratops horridus….

 3) Dinosaur Tissue or Bacterial Biofilms?

 4) Dinosaur Peptide Preservation and Degradation

  5) The Hell Creek Formation: The Last Gasp of the Pre-Flood Dinosaurs

 

 6) Radiocarbon in Dinosaur and Other Fossils.

There is obviously far more material in these articles that can even be hinted at here. A person truly interested in this subject may consider getting a copy of this issue from the Creation Research Society (www.creationresearch.org).  

Evolutionists have fought this evidence from the beginning. Every effort conceivable has been made to find an alternative explanation to recent existence. As each of these has been worked through, their attempts have been unfruitful and their proposed explanations unrealistic.

All of the evidence we have to date points to one thing: these tissues are of very recent origin, not one of 65 or more million years. One advantage of all of the hostility of the evolutionists is that despite an intense effort to debunk the findings, they have not been successful at any point. As a result it is clearer than ever that the tissues are truly of recent origin. The main argument at one point was that it was “bacterial slime (biofilm).” That has been debunked because the tissues contain collagen, a protein not formed by bacteria. Their most recent effort is to attribute the preservation to a high iron concentration. That likewise makes no sense. The iron might preserve certain amino acids and certain peptide bonds in a protein, but would also attack others. These others show no signs of attack. There are many good, well-established reasons why these tissues could not survive 65 million years buried in the ground, but no reasonable basis that they could. Keep in mind how rapidly drugs and herbs in dry, mild environments naturally decay in a medicine cabinet or cupboard. Moreover, efforts to debunk the carbon-14 dating have been unsuccessful. Power plays have been made to suppress evidence, but this is not science.

A thorough discussion of the current arguments for and against this being young soft tissue are thoroughly discussed in the CRS Quarterly issue mentioned above. After a while, denying the truth of a recent origin of these dinosaur soft tissues would be like claiming that the Grand Canyon is really a grassland prairie and the amount of evidence to the contrary is irrelevant. A person who believes it does so against the evidence, not because of it.

The chronology of the Bible presents a world-wide flood in the days of Noah taking place about 4,500 years ago. This is still much more recent than the carbon-14 dates. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the technical issues of this value. However, there is a potentially simple explanation for this. We do not actually know the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere at the time of the flood. Even today, it fluctuates greatly. It is known that conditions were significantly different before the flood than after the flood. There are technical reasons for believing that the difference in time can be explained by this. The reader who is interested in this and has a technical background may contact Pastor Stout for references which discuss the issue. In the meantime, the important thing here is that there has now been discovered a wide-spread appearance of soft tissue in all kinds of fossils. These fossils have been found in rock layers claimed to be multiple tens of millions of years old. These claims are seriously challenged not only by the appearance of still flexible soft tissue in the fossils, but by numerous fossils form all over the world being carbon-14 dated to within the span of 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. This should be an interesting topic to observe over the next few years.

The Bible speaks in 2 Peter 3 of mockers who are willfully ignorant of the evidence God has provided concerning the testimony of the great flood in the days of Noah. In Romans 1:18-20, the Bible talks about those who are without excuse for suppressing the truth that the creation reveals a living, personal God. As one considers these Biblical passages, it becomes amazing to observe how accurately they describe the response of today’s mockers concerning the testimony of dinosaur soft tissue.