Dinosaur Soft Tissue

[Visaki]

I don't know which surprices me more. That scietists like Schwitzer actually have time and effort reply when nobody like Collecemall (I'm not dissing you but I'm quessing that Schwitzer has never heard of you before your query) asks her about her work for the Nth time, or that creationists are so double thinking that they accept when Schwitzer says (well, when they think that...) something that makes their case but disagree with her when she debunks their claims about her works at the same time as they claim that their interpretation of her work is correct.

 

[Inferno]

I contacted a fair few researchers in previous debates and I found that they were quite happy to talk about their research.

 

[Collecemall]

I was surprised as well. She probably just replied because I'm charming and so damn good looking. Nobody my ass! :mrgreen:

 

[Deleted member 619]

I've never come across an instance of asking an honest question of a scientist and not receiving a response.

 

[BobEnyart]

Hello Collecmail, and he_who_is_nobody, inferno, et al.

Bob Enyart here, AronRa's old sparring partner.

Perhaps this quote from a 2014 paper in the Journal of Paleontology, at http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/13-003, will help clarify, regarding a pre-Cambrian (layer) marine worm fossil:

“The Sabellidites organic body is preserved without permineralization. Minerals have not replicated any part of the soft tissue and the carbonaceous material of the wall is primary, preserving the original layering of the wall, its texture, and fabrics.”

This quote is typical of the literature, and with this fossil being allegedly 550 million years old, it confirms a prediction we've previously made, on-air and documented, that endogenous biological material will be recoverable from fossils excavated out of layers of strata right down to the pre-Cambrian.

After my radio debate with AronRa, for the follow-up here at LoR, when Aron (and he_who_is_nobody, and as I recall, the regulars here at LoR) denied that the published papers were documenting original, biological tissue from dinosaurs and many other Jurassic, etc., fossils, I began to assemble what has since become the web's most complete catalogue of original biological material in allegedly 65+ million year old fossils. Just click on Google's top ranked page for: dinosaur soft tissue, and you'll find the dozens of examples.

I'll make another prediction, although this one is not scientific, but psychological. Since that debate with Aron, I've sparred on the radio with theoretical physicist (emphasis on the theoretical) Lawrence Krauss, who readily acknowledges what is now common knowledge among interested scientists, that original dinosaur soft tissue exists. Yet there are still many others whom we could refer to as science deniers, although I'd rather limit the description to: soft tissue deniers (which you can Google for a list). My prediction is that, after these couple years have passed, AronRa will never again deny that dinosaur soft tissue has indeed been discovered.

Thanks for talking about important things!

- Bob Enyart
Real Science Radio

 

[Rumraket]

Hello Collecmail, and he_who_is_nobody, inferno, et al.

Bob Enyart here, AronRa's old sparring partner.

Perhaps this quote from a 2014 paper in the Journal of Paleontology, at http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/13-003, will help clarify, regarding a pre-Cambrian (layer) marine worm fossil:

“The Sabellidites organic body is preserved without permineralization. Minerals have not replicated any part of the soft tissue and the carbonaceous material of the wall is primary, preserving the original layering of the wall, its texture, and fabrics.”

This quote is typical of the literature, and with this fossil being allegedly 550 million years old, it confirms a prediction we've previously made, on-air and documented, that endogenous biological material will be recoverable from fossils excavated out of layers of strata right down to the pre-Cambrian.

Your "endogenous biological material" is carbon atoms that simply haven't been replaced with minerals.

You are aware, are you not, that when a fossil forms, the original material doesn't just totally vanish from existence? Carbon atoms don't just mysteriously vanish into another dimension or something, I'm sure you've heard of the conservation of mass. Usually it is weathered away but actually still exists as it mixes with the surrounding environment, while the location it used to occupy is taken up by minerals instead. Some times not all of the original material is weathered away totally because local conditions had better preserving properties.
That's what has happened here, there are still some traces left of a carbonaceous material.

You will notice they don't actually have the original molecules. As they decomposed over time, only the spatial structures were retained.

This is not some earth shattering discovery. We have kerogens from microfossil structures that is over 2 billion years old, perfectly consistent with everything else we know. These have been known for decades. That makes your "pre"diction much less of a prediction. In fact it's a postdiction. Well done.

Also, when you say that "endogenous biological material will be recoverable" this mentions nothing about constraints on preservation. It's a practically useless prediction when, as I say, we already know of billion year old kerogenous carbons that would totally fit under your "endogenous biological material". Try making an actual testable prediction and one that isn't after the fact too.

After my radio debate with AronRa, for the follow-up here at LoR, when Aron (and he_who_is_nobody, and as I recall, the regulars here at LoR) denied that the published papers were documenting original, biological tissue from dinosaurs and many other Jurassic, etc., fossils

Then you remember wrong, because I was part of that discussion and never denied that the material was original. What I denied was that it was fully intact.

I was right.

, I began to assemble what has since become the web's most complete catalogue of original biological material in allegedly 65+ million year old fossils. Just click on Google's top ranked page for: dinosaur soft tissue, and you'll find the dozens of examples.

Congratulations but this changes nothing.

I'll make another prediction, although this one is not scientific, but psychological. Since that debate with Aron, I've sparred on the radio with theoretical physicist (emphasis on the theoretical) Lawrence Krauss

Why is that emphasis important? You know what a theory is right?

, who readily acknowledges what is now common knowledge among interested scientists, that original dinosaur soft tissue exists.

Why did you debate a theoretical physicist on a subject outside of his field? Why didn't you contact Schweizer et al. instead? Maybe some geologists?

Yet there are still many others whom we could refer to as science deniers, although I'd rather limit the description to: soft tissue deniers (which you can Google for a list). My prediction is that, after these couple years have passed, AronRa will never again deny that dinosaur soft tissue has indeed been discovered.

How bold of you to predict the obvious. It is unfortunate that you are incapable of appreciating why this discovery doesn't actually fit with your world model. If you can call deliberate denial a "world model".

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Hello Collecmail, and he_who_is_nobody, inferno, et al.

Ah. You remember me. That warms the heart.

After my radio debate with AronRa, for the follow-up here at LoR, when Aron (and he_who_is_nobody, and as I recall, the regulars here at LoR) denied that the published papers were documenting original, biological tissue from dinosaurs and many other Jurassic, etc., fossils, I began to assemble what has since become the web's most complete catalogue of original biological material in allegedly 65+ million year old fossils. Just click on Google's top ranked page for: dinosaur soft tissue, and you'll find the dozens of examples.

Well, as Rumraket pointed out above, you still have not found original endogenous biological material. Now, I will admit that at the time, I thought soft tissue was not discovered, and I was confused on your nonstandard terminology used for describing the soft tissue discoveries. However, after having a private discussion with another user of this forum, I learned I was wrong and soft tissue was discovered, though nothing like what the creationists claim have been discovered.

I'll make another prediction, although this one is not scientific, but psychological. Since that debate with Aron, I've sparred on the radio with theoretical physicist (emphasis on the theoretical) Lawrence Krauss, who readily acknowledges what is now common knowledge among interested scientists, that original dinosaur soft tissue exists. Yet there are still many others whom we could refer to as science deniers, although I'd rather limit the description to: soft tissue deniers (which you can Google for a list).

I see BobEnyart is still as arrogant as ever. I guess that and being factually wrong about the science he promotes will never change.

My prediction is that, after these couple years have passed, AronRa will never again deny that dinosaur soft tissue has indeed been discovered.

I see BobEnyart is still caring this corpse of an argument around with him.

AronRa[/url]"]As I already told you, I had already read Schweitzer's paper. I also know one of the guys on her team, and we talked a lot about a couple years ago. He told me that Schweitzer and Horner both liked to stir up controversy, but that what she found was none the less significant, because it forced a vast improvement of our earlier understanding of fossilization. My impression was this, she showed that very large bones, properly buried under the right conditions could effectively insulate the core sufficiently that isolated microscopic sections could contain original material not fully fossilized, meaning that demineralization might restore some original properties. Chemical decomposition would of course occur even then, (much the pity) so that these wouldn't be exactly what they were anymore, but the implications were still exciting to me at the time. That's when I saw a documentary wherein Schweitzer and Horner confirmed their hypothesis on a second very large femur buried under similar conditions.

The first I had ever heard of this was the story you cited "providing molecular support for the hypothesis that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs".Soon afterward came the creationists' claims of them having found actual blood cells and so on. But it turned out this never happened. Somehow creationists had turned "seven fragmentary chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins" into full-blown DNA ready for cloning.

I will grant that -once demineralized- these may again be 'soft' compared to the surrounding matrix, and I will grant that the word 'tissue' would apply to these structures regardless what they were made of. But you said these were original biological material, implying that they had not been fossilized at all, that they retained their original chemical composition, and were perhaps even still edible, and none of that is correct in any of the instances you listed. There are traces of original chemicals, especially hardier elements like metals and so on.

(Emphasis added)

As anyone can plainly see, AronRa, as of February 2012, has not made this claim. He might have on BobEnyart’s radio show, but has so far clarified his idea or made an outright correction. Either way, there is no reason why BobEnyart should be acting as if he is making some grand prediction unless his memory is terrible (thus, not remembering when AronRa said that in their written debate), did not read it (highly likely based on the fact that this will be the third time I alone have corrected BobEnyart on this since the debate ended), or is blatantly misrepresenting AronRa. Any of those possibilities do not hold you in a good light BobEnyart. Please check the plank in your eye.

Your "endogenous biological material" is carbon atoms that simply haven't been replaced with minerals.

Throughout this forum, BobEnyart has confused trace minerals (such as above) and soft tissue for original endogenous biological material. Now, both have been discovered, and the former has been known for decades, however, neither could be called original endogenous biological material. One is trace elements of what the organism was once made up of that have not been replaced or weathered/decomposed away. The other is trace amounts of biological material that is decomposed and could not be called original.

 

[Isotelus]

Hello Collecmail, and he_who_is_nobody, inferno, et al.

Bob Enyart here, AronRa's old sparring partner.

Perhaps this quote from a 2014 paper in the Journal of Paleontology, at http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/13-003, will help clarify, regarding a pre-Cambrian (layer) marine worm fossil:

“The Sabellidites organic body is preserved without permineralization. Minerals have not replicated any part of the soft tissue and the carbonaceous material of the wall is primary, preserving the original layering of the wall, its texture, and fabrics.”

This quote is typical of the literature, and with this fossil being allegedly 550 million years old, it confirms a prediction we've previously made, on-air and documented, that endogenous biological material will be recoverable from fossils excavated out of layers of strata right down to the pre-Cambrian.

Hi Bob,

Funny you should mention this. I had written a lengthy blog post about Sabellidites in the summer, but never completed it; indeed, it might never be. That being the case, I'll post an excerpt here, at least for the forum's sake (it also plays off Rumraket's response rather nicely):

The key point here is recognizing the fact that fossilization does not necessarily require alteration. Note that this does not mean a given fossil remains unchanged; only that certain mineral components and their chemical composition may not be significantly replaced or transformed over time, even as other, more susceptible substances degrade and are replaced or lost entirely. The fossilization of teeth is such an example, recalling that teeth are composed of considerable amounts of hydroxyapatite, a very hard mineral type of calcium apatite. As a result, both enamel and dentine are very resistant materials that can remain unaltered even over large periods of time (although they can change colour when exposed to certain conditions, such as increased heat). However, unmineralized organic material can similarity escape deterioration and/or replacement if it is sufficiently resistant and was preserved in optimal circumstances.

In the case of S. cambriensis, the fibres of the wall comprised of chitin and were enclosed in a proteinaceous matrix, which formed a durable and resilient structure (Moczydlowska et al., 2014):

They were originally soft and plastic as has been demonstrated by their post-mortem ductile deformation and the occasional preservation of twisted tubes without breakage. The tubes were sufficiently robust and thick-walled (Fig. 1.7) to be preserved in such a way and then extracted from the sediment without disintegrating.

With the use of new technology and improved sampling methods, new studies are beginning to show that chitin may still be detectable even after very long periods of time (Cody et al., 2011; Ehrlich et al. 2013). At its most basic, it is a strong, stable, and insoluble polymer sugar in crystalline form that is often incorporated as a structural component. The resistance of the organic material in the wall of Sabellidites was such that it withstood potentially destructive applications of the extremely potent hydrofluoric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, as well as oxidation baths in hydrogen peroxide and Schultze reagent (Moczydlowska et al., 2014). This indicated its resilience against burial and associated diagenetic processes, including exposure to water and mineral solutions. As evidence that degradation had occurred, the paper reported that kerogen was extracted from the sample containing the fossils, which resulted from the decay and deterioration of organic matter. Running samples through a Raman Index of Preservation (RIP) test resulted in a value of about 9, indicating a low level of metamorphic alteration.

The reasons given for the level of preservation present also certainly require consideration, as it is disingenuous to accept and tout one aspect of a scientific paper while either neglecting and/or dismissing others. It is also important to note that while the organic tube was preserved, the worms themselves were clearly not. In this way at least, the implication of such superb preservation is inconsistent with the state of the actual specimen. The environmental and depositional factors resulting in the fossilization of Sabellidites were also clearly noted in the paper. It is arguably common knowledge and intuitive that the highest degrees of fossilization are favoured by factors such as low-energy environments, lack of scavengers, etc. The Sabellidites fossils were found in a unit comprising of very fine-grained marine shales, mudstones, and siltstones, indicating deposition in a low-energy basinal setting protected from wave action. This allowed for the accumulation of bacterial colonies on the sediment surface that actually facilitated anaerobic conditions during burial, which functioned to protect Sabellidites from early diagenesis (Moczydlowska et al., 2014). In environments such as these, destructive processes such as reworking and decomposition are known to be effectively diminished. This particular process was actually common in the Ediacaran, although in the case of Sabellidites, much more than a simple cast was preserved. Tectonic activity over time was also negligible such that the rock layers and their constituent fossils remained relatively undisturbed. The environmental factors governing the preservation of the organic tube of S. cambriensis are evidently very well-understood, rather easily explainable, and actually simple to comprehend. As such, there is no valid basis to assert that doubt must be placed on the age of these specimens, especially if the degree of preservation has been exaggerated. To further support this point, numerous other studies are being published that attest to other biochemical means by which chitin can preserve over long periods of time, and such processes may eventually prove to be more common than originally thought (Cody et al., 2011; Weaver et al. 2011; Ehrlich et al., 2014).

References

Cody, G.D., Gupta, N.S., Briggs, D.G., Kilcoyne, L.D., Summons, R.E., Kenig, F., Plothick, R.E., Scott, A. 2011. Molecular signature of chitin-protein complex in Paleozoic. Geology, 39:255–258.

Ehrlich, H., et al. 2014. Discovery of 505-million-year old chitin in the basal demosponge Vauxia gracilenta. Scientific Reports 3: 1-6.

Moczydlowska, M., Estall, F., Foucher, F. 2014. Microstructure and Biogeochemistry of the Organically Preserved Ediacaran Metazoan Sabellidites. Journal of Paleontology. 88 (2): 224-239.

Weaver, P. G. et al. 2011. Characterization of Organics Consistent with β-Chitin Preserved in the Late Eocene Cuttlefish Mississaepia mississippiensis. PLoS ONE 6 (11): 1-9.

After my radio debate with AronRa, for the follow-up here at LoR, when Aron (and he_who_is_nobody, and as I recall, the regulars here at LoR) denied that the published papers were documenting original, biological tissue from dinosaurs and many other Jurassic, etc., fossils

Then you remember wrong, because I was part of that discussion and never denied that the material was original. What I denied was that it was fully intact.

I was right.

Seconded. We also can't forget that some of the examples present were not in fact tissue at all. I can at least recall one example of biological tissue being conflated with metals such as zinc.
Edit: Apparently Hwin remembers that too.

 

[BobEnyart]

Your "endogenous biological material" is carbon atoms that simply haven't been replaced with minerals.

Throughout this forum, BobEnyart has confused trace minerals (such as above) and soft tissue for original endogenous biological material. Now, both have been discovered, and the former has been known for decades, however, neither could be called original endogenous biological material. One is trace elements of what the organism was once made up of that have not been replaced or weathered/decomposed away. The other is trace amounts of biological material that is decomposed and could not be called original.

Hi guys!

if you review the literature, you'll see that a number of dinosaur proteins have already been sequenced, including some by a team from Harvard. So far, the biological material found in fossils from dinosaur-layer strata down to pre-Cambrian include many various proteins such as the microtubule building block tubulin, collagen, the cytoskeleton component actin, and hemoglobin. They've also recovered original [dinosaur] bone maintenance osteocyte cells, flexible and transparent blood vessels, red blood cells, and powerful evidence [multiple tests, including a double-helix test] for DNA [from a hadrosaur and a T. rex].

The dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures that have yielded endogenous biological material are hadrosaur, titanosaur, ornithomimosaur [ostrich-like dinosaurs], mosasaur, triceratops, Lufengosaurs, T. rex, and Archaeopteryx.

To review the literature, just Google: dinosaur soft tissue, Then click on the top ranked site, which should be dedicated to LoR, because you guys inspired it!

- Bob Enyart

p.s. It's kind of you, he_who_is_nobody (who actually, is somebody, very important to God, and even to me of course), to acknowledge what you wrote above, "I will admit that at the time, I thought soft tissue was not discovered, and I was confused on your nonstandard terminology used for describing the soft tissue discoveries." hwin, just fyi, at the time I did link to the original papers, and I tried to use the same terminology that I was copying right out of those publications (those that are now in our RSR catalogue of peer-reviewed dinosaur soft tissue papers), descriptions including: soft, still soft, flexible, transparent, original, endogenous, not permineralized, etc.

 

[BobEnyart]

Guys, something else you might want to consider, is that original biological material from Archeopteryx, dinos, etc., is not being found only deep inside of large bones, and in just certain kinds of sediments, but all over the place, and in tiny bones, skin, feathers, etc. The way we can find in Egyptian mummies tiny bits of biological tissue and (not bacterial contamination but) original complex biological molecules that still have not decomposed, that is the kinds of finds that are being widely admitted from dinosaurs, etc. But realize that it's not just the still sequenceable proteins, etc., that must be explained, but also, other findings in such fossils of short half-life materials, including carbon-14, (too high a percentage of) left-handed amino acids, and DNA.

For example, a recent paper: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/10/05/rspb.2012.1745
gave a half life of DNA at 521 years. See also:
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

See our catalogue of dinosaur soft tissue papers for the 14c found in a small mosasaur bone, which bone ALSO had original biological material, making the claim of 14c contamination harder, since an environment that yields contamination should make it impossible to preserve original biological material for 80 million years. No?

Also, as I offered paleontologist Jack Horner a $23,000 grant (you could hear Jack taking my phone call offering this; just Google it) to carbon date the first soft-tissue T. rex they found, so far, (just like with diamonds, coal, oil, and natural gas), every dinosaur bone that I know of that has been so dated has yielded significant quantities of 14c . (Also consider, if we can purify our specimen from a dinosaur bone to get pure collagen, then as the inventor of carbon dating pointed out, the 14C in collagen and other similar molecular biological chains cannot be atoms floating in from contamination, but they must be original, endogenous atoms, put in place by the dinosaur organism when it was alive, because when such molecules break down, random carbon atoms cannot take the place of original atoms within the collagen matrix.) And also, some of the scientists doing such dating on dinosaur bones took my suggestion and also had them tested for uranium and thorium, to see if all the 14c was coming from neutron capture. Their samples, though rich in 14c, had virtually no U or Th, and anyway, to account for all the 14c in those dino bones by neutron capture, the bone would have had to have been permineralized into almost pure Uranium.

And then there are the dinosaur eggs with so many unracemized, left-handed amino acids, that (just like with soft tissue), it's led scientists to conclude: Wow, racemization doesn't take thousands of years, as we've been assuming when we've dated whale carcasses based on racemization of the initially left-handed amino acids; apparently, they can remain left-handed for tens and hundreds of of millions of years.

It seems to me that a trend is building.

- Bob Enyart

 

[Mugnuts]

Mr. Enyart, regarding your posts:
Is it the position that these finds you are citing are making the claim or is it you asserting that the tissue is not millions of years old and rather quite recent?

I'm not understanding your links about DNA half life corresponds with these discoveries other than the context of "soft tissue means fresh therefore it's recent, and DNA can't last much longer than a thousand years yada yada yada.". As for your "google Soft Dinosaur Tissue" yes the first link is the 2006 article. Did you notice the second link below that that has a 2013 updated and further tested review of the finds. You won't have to google it, I'll put that link below.

http://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html

I'm sure you'll find this quite interesting how it is noted specifically that "They've even found chemicals consistent with being DNA...".

A quote you will have no problem in using, just don't forget the rest of it "...though Schweitzer is quick to note that she hasn't proven they really are DNA. The iron-removing techniques should allow paleontologists to search more effectively for soft tissue, and to test it when they find it.

You still just don't get it do you? You are making claims citing several facts mixed with camouflaged untruth. All we are getting here is a repeat of the AronRa debate where you throw reading comprehension out the window and make grandiose claims arising from a preconceived conclusion shoehorning anything you can to make it all fit that conclusion rather that allowing the conclusion to follow from the evidence.

As for your "debate" with Lawrence Krauss, when you kept bringing up things outside of his realm of expertise, he was honest and said I don't know or withheld his position which is the honest thing to do. Then when you went into his backyard regarding the physics, you sounded ridiculous. I'm surprised he stayed on the phone with you that long.

Good Job Sir. Thanx for the LoLz. Keep up the good work.

 

[Rumraket]

Hi guys!

if you review the literature, you'll see that a number of dinosaur proteins have already been sequenced

Citation needed.

, including some by a team from Harvard.

Citation needed.

So far, the biological material found in fossils from dinosaur-layer strata

Define "dinosaur-layer strata" and give a citation.

down to pre-Cambrian

Sequenced protein from the pre-cambrian? Bullshit. Citation needed.

include many various proteins such as the microtubule building block tubulin

Citation needed.

, collagen

Citation needed.

, the cytoskeleton component actin

Citation needed.

, and hemoglobin.

Citation needed.

They've also recovered original [dinosaur] bone maintenance osteocyte cells, flexible and transparent blood vessels, red blood cells

Yes, this was reported already in the first Schweitzer papers. They weren't intact by any stretch of the imagination

, and powerful evidence [multiple tests, including a double-helix test]

A "double helix test" ? What the fuck is that? Citation needed.

for DNA [from a hadrosaur and a T. rex].

Citation needed.

Hey Bob, I don't believe anything you say before you provide references for your claims. I also don't believe you understand any of the crap you're spewing off here. If you can provide references that substantiate your claims, I will happily change my mind.

 

[Isotelus]

Touching on some the most glaring issues in these particular claims:

The dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures that have yielded endogenous biological material are hadrosaur, titanosaur, ornithomimosaur [ostrich-like dinosaurs], mosasaur, triceratops, Lufengosaurs, T. rex, and Archaeopteryx.

You will need to remove the ornithimimosaur in question, Pelecanimimus, from that list. The paper on your site is not the paper that did the original description of the specimen. The correct article you should be citing is titled: The mineralization of dinosaur soft tissue in the Lower Cretaceous of Las Hoyas, Spain. They reported that the soft tissue is replaced by the mineral iron carbonate (aka siderite). No endogenous biological material.

Barring the fact that the Archaeopteryx study found only trace elements, you have a picture of the Berlin Archaeopteryx on your site, but the study you quoted looked at the Thermopolis specimen. May as well be consistent.

Regarding the Titanosaur, it’s worth noting this quote as confirmation of the positions of the users on this forum that what material is left is not unaltered, as well as a cautionary statement on making tenuous assumptions:

Finally, while the organic material extracted from dinosaur eggshells shows characteristics consistent with extant material similarly derived, it is recognized that the antigenic material may or may not be derived from proteinaceous precursors, and is surely diagenetically altered from its original state. We do not claim here that this material represents complete proteins. Indeed, epitopes are known to be only a few amino acids in length (Child & Pollard 1992); therefore, it is possible that antigenic response may be owing to selective preservation of a few peptides, or even altered, fossilized derivatives of peptides.

And Lufengosaurus:

This made it possible to detect the preservation of organic residues, probably direct products of the decay of complex proteins, within both the fast-growing embryonic bone tissue and the margins of the vascular spaces.

See our catalogue of dinosaur soft tissue papers for the 14c found in a small mosasaur bone, which bone ALSO had original biological material, making the claim of 14c contamination harder, since an environment that yields contamination should make it impossible to preserve original biological material for 80 million years. No?

No.

From your site:

the amount of finite carbon was corresponding to 4.68% +/- 0.1 of modern 14C activity (yielding an age of 24 600 BP), and most likely reflect bacterial activity near the outer surface of the bone (although no bacterial proteins or hopanoids were detected, one bacterial DNA sequence was amplified by PCR…)

From the paper:

Likewise, the amount of finite carbon was exceedingly small, corresponding to 4.68%±0.1 of modern 14C activity (yielding an age of 24 600 BP), and most likely reflect bacterial activity near the outer surface of the bone (although no bacterial proteins or hopanoids were detected, one bacterial DNA sequence was amplified by PCR, and microscopic clusters of bone-boring cyanobacteria were seen in places along the perimeter of the diaphyseal cortex).

Might want to fix that quote on your site because it’s missing some key information. Not only was the bone sitting in collections for years, but they even found evidence of recent bacterial activity along with DNA, which has no relation to the original environment the bone was sitting in for millions of years. The claim of contamination is by far the most likely explanation.

 

[Rumraket]

Also, as I offered paleontologist Jack Horner a $23,000 grant (you could hear Jack taking my phone call offering this; just Google it) to carbon date the first soft-tissue T. rex they found, so far, (just like with diamonds, coal, oil, and natural gas)

The C14 found in fossil fuels is in extremely small quantities, nowhere near modern levels.

, every dinosaur bone that I know of that has been so dated has yielded significant quantities of 14c .

Hey Bob, how do you square that claim with Schweitzer's claim earlier in this thread:

w/r/t radiometric dating, there are a lot of problems with the methods. 14C, the most common method, is notoriously inaccurate as you approach the limits of its viability. but, we HAVE used this method on our material, and no detectable 14C was found, to the best recollection i have.

that means that it is older than the limits of that method.

(Also consider, if we can purify our specimen from a dinosaur bone to get pure collagen

Can we actually do that? In what state is that supposed collagen? Citation needed.

You're making a lot of vague and unreferenced claims here, Bob. That seems to be an issue with most of your writings on this subject.

, then as the inventor of carbon dating pointed out

What did he point out specifically? Give a reference.

, the 14C in collagen and other similar molecular biological chains cannot be atoms floating in from contamination, but they must be original, endogenous atoms, put in place by the dinosaur organism when it was alive

I don't think this is what the "inventor of carbon dating" pointed out. Among other reasons because it doesn't logically follow.

, because when such molecules break down, random carbon atoms cannot take the place of original atoms within the collagen matrix.)

No, but C12 and C13 can be made into C14 by neutron capture. So you strictly wouldn't need the original carbon to be "replaced".

And also, some of the scientists doing such dating on dinosaur bones took my suggestion and also had them tested for uranium and thorium

Which scientists did that? Where did you suggest it to them? Why the fuck would they test the bones themselves for uranium and thorium when the surrounding ROCK is what usually contains Uranium and thorium? It is a known fact that a local uranium mine can create measurable quantities of C14 in natural coal and oil deposits. That doesn't mean the Uranium has to be "inside" the actual coal, it only has to be a local source of radiation.

, to see if all the 14c was coming from neutron capture. Their samples, though rich in 14c, had virtually no U or Th, and anyway, to account for all the 14c in those dino bones by neutron capture, the bone would have had to have been permineralized into almost pure Uranium.

I would like to see a calculation to substantiate that claim. How much C14 is made by neutron radiation? How close does the source of radiation have to be to the target to produce how much C14? How much C14 was detected and as a corollary, how much would there have to be in order to produce the measured C14 amounts? Would it really have to be "permineralized into almost pure Uranium"? How pure is "almost pure"? Which Uranium isotope, by the way?

Give references for all the claims.

 

[Mugnuts]

Here Bob, I'll throw you a bone here on the collagen.

http://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html[/url]"]
"Then, in 2007, Schweitzer and her colleagues analyzed the chemistry of the T. rex proteins. They found the proteins really did come from dinosaur soft tissue. The tissue was collagen, they reported in the journal Science, and it shared similarities with bird collagen — which makes sense, as modern birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs such as T. rex."

Bonus points if you read this and actually understand it.



On a side note, it seems that Collecemall has some scary summoning powers...ooooh. Like creationist Pokemon...poof. Gotta collect them all :lol:

Try and get Frank Turek next.

 

[Rumraket]

Here Bob, I'll throw you a bone here on the collagen.

http://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html[/url]"]
"Then, in 2007, Schweitzer and her colleagues analyzed the chemistry of the T. rex proteins. They found the proteins really did come from dinosaur soft tissue. The tissue was collagen, they reported in the journal Science, and it shared similarities with bird collagen — which makes sense, as modern birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs such as T. rex."

Bonus points if you read this and actually understand it.

Last I checked, the "proteins" were never sequenced as Bob claims, they were simply reckognized in an immunoessay by an antibody targeted against collagen. That means the fragments could be as small as 6-8 amino acids in length and possibly even altered. As Schweitzer also notes herself, antibodies only target very small portions of the full protein.

But Bob claims they were sequenced.

 

[Rumraket]

I dug through the references and found out they were in fact sequenced by mass spectrometry.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5822/280.full
Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry

John M. Asara, Mary H. Schweitzer, Lisa M. Freimark, Matthew Phillips, Lewis C. Cantley

ABSTRACT
Fossilized bones from extinct taxa harbor the potential for obtaining protein or DNA sequences that could reveal evolutionary links to extant species. We used mass spectrometry to obtain protein sequences from bones of a 160,000- to 600,000-year-old extinct mastodon (Mammut americanum) and a 68-million-year-old dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus rex). The presence of T. rex sequences indicates that their peptide bonds were remarkably stable. Mass spectrometry can thus be used to determine unique sequences from ancient organisms from peptide fragmentation patterns, a valuable tool to study the evolution and adaptation of ancient taxa from which genomic sequences are unlikely to be obtained.

They did find peptide sequences consistent with collagen fragments , though they were small (15-20 amino acids in length). The sequences detected can be see in the supplemental material. It wasn't intact collagen. They also explain the mechanism most probably responsible for preserving the material.

The MS/MS spectra obtained from processed T. rex bone extracts revealed seven total collagen peptide sequences that could be aligned with predicted fragmentation patterns of collagen α1t1, α2t1, or α1t2 sequences from extant vertebrate taxa in the public protein database (Table 2). These sequences could be reproduced from multiple LC/MS/MS experiments; however, different peptides were sequenced from five different sample preparations of T. rex protein extract over a 1.5-year period. The last two extractions yielded less sequence information than earlier extractions, probably because of degradation of the fossil over time after removal from its well-preserved native environment (22). As in the extant ostrich and extinct mastodon, most of the peptides contained hydroxyl modifications on proline, lysine, or glycine residues. Sediment and buffer control samples were analyzed, and no sequences from collagen were found, although bacterial peptides were also present in sediment.

Note how once the material was removed from it's protective environment it also started degrading much faster, which is further evidence that the conditions in the bone were uniquely preserving. Bob needs to explain why this evidence is not consistent with the theory that the material is 68 million years old.

 

[Mugnuts]

Last I checked, the "proteins" were never sequenced as Bob claims, they were simply reckognized in an immunoessay by an antibody targeted against collagen. That means the fragments could be as small as 6-8 amino acids in length and possibly even altered. As Schweitzer also notes herself, antibodies only target very small portions of the full protein.

But Bob claims they were sequenced.

I wanted to see if he would be able to pull out the past tense of 'was collagen' an expose his flawed interpretation that it 'is collagen', but you ruined it with a mass overkill of facts. Thanx :lol:

 

[Rumraket]

For example, a recent paper: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/10/05/rspb.2012.1745
gave a half life of DNA at 521 years. See also:
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-has-a-521-year-half-life-1.11555

First of all, that is a half-life of 521 years for DNA stored under the conditions of the tests. That doesn't mean there are no other conditions that further stabilizes DNA.

Second, if you mean to imply that fossils putatively older than the "6.8 million years" maximum age for DNA implied in these tests, exists, I would like to see references that actual DNA of these ages have been found (what was that "double-helix test" you spoke of earlier? I've tried googling the term and can find nothing of relevance). And then I would like you to explain how it is not possible that there are, as I suggested above, uniquely preserving conditions that can make DNA survive longer than implied in these tests.

You see Bob, there are two compething hypotheses that need reevaluation when we find material preserved longer than we normally thought it could be:

1. No biological material of the relevant type can survive that long under any circumstances.

2. The material in which it was found is not as old as we thought.

It seems to me, Bob, that you are not even trying to see if hypothesis 1 is the false one. You jump straight to 2 without even considering 1. It also seems to me, Bob, that given the weight of the evidence in favor of the age of rocks, the Earth, universe and everything, it is a lot more likely a priori that hypothesis 1 is the false one, since "organic material preservation" really isn't the most mature field of science. In stark contrast to the fields of geology and astronomy, which have over a century of accumulated knowledge behind them.

That means you have a hell of a lot of work before you, Bob, if you think you can falsify basically all of geology and astronomy, with a few degraded fragments of collagen in the core of some Dinosaur femurs. You're not going to accomplish that with a stream of vague, unreferenced claims and deceptively short quotes that lack context.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

(Emphasis added)

As anyone can plainly see, AronRa, as of February 2012, has not made this claim. He might have on BobEnyart’s radio show, but has so far clarified his idea or made an outright correction. Either way, there is no reason why BobEnyart should be acting as if he is making some grand prediction unless his memory is terrible (thus, not remembering when AronRa said that in their written debate), did not read it (highly likely based on the fact that this will be the third time I alone have corrected BobEnyart on this since the debate ended), or is blatantly misrepresenting AronRa. Any of those possibilities do not hold you in a good light BobEnyart. Please check the plank in your eye.

[sarcasm]Why thank you he_who_is_nobody. I must have missed that the first time I read AronRa’s post in the debate and the other two times you pointed it out to me. I will stop using this talking point and make any corrections where needed.[/sarcasm]

Oh, sorry. Above is what BobEnyart should have written, but did not. It is amazing that BobEnyart keeps caring around this corpse of an argument with him when AronRa acknowledged (in writing) that soft tissue was found over two years ago. As I said before, this is the third time I have corrected him on that point and one can only wonder how many times BobEnyart has brought this talking point up if he has done it three times on this forum alone.

p.s. It's kind of you, he_who_is_nobody (who actually, is somebody, very important to God, and even to me of course), to acknowledge what you wrote above, "I will admit that at the time, I thought soft tissue was not discovered, and I was confused on your nonstandard terminology used for describing the soft tissue discoveries." hwin, just fyi, at the time I did link to the original papers, and I tried to use the same terminology that I was copying right out of those publications (those that are now in our RSR catalogue of peer-reviewed dinosaur soft tissue papers), descriptions including: soft, still soft, flexible, transparent, original, endogenous, not permineralized, etc.

Your proselytizing aside, I will make myself a little clearer. My main issue is the term soft tissue. I would not have thought of calling a few amino acids and some break down collagen soft tissue, but it is in fact the correct term for those things. However, the larger issue here is your insistence in mincing different findings to suit your narrative. As I have already pointed out, both soft tissues and original trace minerals/elements have been found. The soft tissue is not original, because it has all gone through some level of decay (explaining why there are only a few amino acids left). The original trace minerals/elements cannot be considered soft because of what they are (i.e. elements and minerals). BobEnyart, please stop mixing the two; they are not the same. We have "dinosaur-layer strata" (to use your ignorant term) soft tissues and original trace minerals/elements, not original endogenous soft tissue. Again, your mistake is in mixing the two different findings together as if they were the same thing because it suits your narrative.

... 14c... 14C... 14c... 14c...

:facepalm:

It would help if you stopped using an argument that AronRa debunked over two years ago.

It seems to me that a trend is building.

Yes. That trend is our assumptions of how fossilization happened were wrong. None of this brings into doubt the established dating methods. If you want to cast doubt on those, you need to deal with them head on and not beat around the bush with irrelevance. I for one would love how you explain the concordance between all the different dating methods.

It would be nice if BobEnyart found the time to answer this question asked over two years ago:

Inferno[/url]"]As indeed it already has. As one of the articles Bob Enyart cites:

In addition, both studies found similarities between the dino sample and the bone collagen of chickens, providing molecular support for the hypothesis that modern birds are descended from dinosaurs.

How does that fit with your creationism, Bob and TheOnlyThing2Fear and YesYouNeedJesus? Booyakasha!