Dinosaur Soft Tissue

[australopithecus]

Then why hasn't it been banned yet?

This isn't a bot, I assure you. He's not nearly that intelligent, for a start.

If you want some howlers, his posting career as Jireh at Ratskep was almost worthy of the legendary JP22!

Well worth a search.

i like it when atheists desperately try to discredit me. Thats a good sign.

No one is banning you if you don't break the rules, so hop off your martyrbike for a second, yeah?

 

[Mr_Wilford]

So I emailed Mary to get some clarification on if she C14 dated her fossil. Quite interesting. It also shows Bob's claim of "They refused to date them because they don't want to disprove evolution" is complete bullshit.

Have you tested the samples for Carbon 14? I know it's an inappropriate method for fossils in most cases, but I keep hearing creationists saying your team was "afraid to test for Carbon 14."

i did not. first again, i didn't have access to that, but also, we use a buffer containing carbon compounds to demineralize the bone and liberate the vessels and cells, so i can promise you we would get a recent data for 14C tests on the soft tissues. However, i did have a colleague test a whole bone extract, ground up untreated. the bone was 14C dead, as expected. i am certainly not 'afraid' to test for it, but in addition to knowing that i use a carbon containing buffer for all that we do, i also know the vagaries of 14C dating, and the closer in age you get to the limit beyond which 14C is completely lost, the more inaccurate the dates are. and i know of studies where 3 different labs have dated the same sample and gotten three different dates. so, i wouldn't trust it anyway.

So, the soft tissue was contaminated anyways so any 14C date would be useless. But the fossil itself had no 14C.

So it's at least 50,000 years old.

 

[Collecemall]

Appears she is consistent then as I did the same and she gave the same basic answer.

 

[Inferno]

Appears she is consistent then as I did the same and she gave the same basic answer.

Why wouldn't she be?

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

 

[BobEnyart]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Thank you for your post Bob, and thank you for admitting your mistake. Because of that I don't see it as a waste of time. ...

Now, that being said, I would ask that he also consider my corrections on his website concerning Pelecanimimus and Archaeopteryx. I'll throw in my previous posts about those when I get a chance.

Isotelus, my deadlines are fast and furious, and I don't know how I'd find the time to review what you have, but yes, it's been on my mind that I'd like to see your info on these.

- Bob Enyart
Real Science Radio http://rsr.org

 

[DutchLiam84]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Thank you for your post Bob, and thank you for admitting your mistake. Because of that I don't see it as a waste of time. ...

Now, that being said, I would ask that he also consider my corrections on his website concerning Pelecanimimus and Archaeopteryx. I'll throw in my previous posts about those when I get a chance.

Isotelus, my deadlines are fast and furious, and I don't know how I'd find the time to review what you have, but yes, it's been on my mind that I'd like to see your info on these.

- Bob Enyart
Real Science Radio rsr.org

Can I ask you why your show is called "Real Science Radio", emphasis on real. Is there such a thing as fake science?

 

[WarK]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Can I ask you why your show is called "Real Science Radio", emphasis on real. Is there such a thing as fake science?

Not to mention that he's a science denialist.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

It gives it an air of authority.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Can I ask you why your show is called "Real Science Radio", emphasis on real. Is there such a thing as fake science?

Well, there are pseudosciences, such as homeopathy, phrenology, and creationism (just to name a few).

If I could venture a guess, it has to do with BobEnyart subconsciously knowing what he is promoting is not real science, thus he has to bolster it at every step. That is why the stuff I promote and do for a living is just called science. I already know it is real science, thus no bolstering of it needed.

 

[DutchLiam84]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Can I ask you why your show is called "Real Science Radio", emphasis on real. Is there such a thing as fake science?

Well, there are pseudosciences, such as homeopathy, phrenology, and creationism (just to name a few).

If I could venture a guess, it has to do with BobEnyart subconsciously knowing what he is promoting is not real science, thus he has to bolster it at every step. That is why the stuff I promote and do for a living is just called science. I already know it is real science, thus no bolstering of it needed.

I find homeopathy, phrenology, and creationism "fake science" in the same way I think an apple is a "fake banana", if you catch my drift.

My hypothesis is that Bob calls science that agrees with his preconceived bias "real science", anything that contradicts the Bible is "fake science".

And again, I still have no clue how the presence of soft tissue is evidence against evolution. Best case scenario for him is that paleontologists are wrong about decay rates and the extinction date of the larger dinosaurs.

I think it's the old "if one thing is wrong then EVERYTHING IS WRONG"-argument, you know that "argument" that creationists never apply to the Bible. They have ridiculous standards for science but practically none for their Bible when it comes to evidence.

 

[DutchLiam84]

Good watch!

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Yeah I don't get the whole "these bones must be young therefore the earth is young" canard.

The hell creek formation is an ancient formation of Cretaceous rocks still exposed to the surface, and it isn't uncommon for no new layers to form in certain areas. Only in a few sedimentary basins is the whole geologic column visible. I don't think it'd be impossible to have dinosaurs living in these areas of ancient rock well past 65mya, then die a lot later than we think and still be incorporated into the rock record due to being buried in a landslide or something. Might make us have to be cautious with using certain fossils as index fossils but the point is even if you could show some fossils are young that has no bearing on the age of the rocks themselves. No more than me burying my dog in Cretaceous sediment means my dog's bones are 65my old or the sediment was formed the second I buried the dog.

 

[Isotelus]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Thank you for your post Bob, and thank you for admitting your mistake. Because of that I don't see it as a waste of time. ...

Now, that being said, I would ask that he also consider my corrections on his website concerning Pelecanimimus and Archaeopteryx. I'll throw in my previous posts about those when I get a chance.

Isotelus, my deadlines are fast and furious, and I don't know how I'd find the time to review what you have, but yes, it's been on my mind that I'd like to see your info on these.

- Bob Enyart
Real Science Radio http://rsr.org

What in particular is on your mind? For Pelecanimimus I was responding a while back to this quote:

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.

The soft tissue was replaced by iron carbonate in some areas, and as phosphatized microbrial mats in others. In both cases the soft tissue is mineralized; i.e. not original. Concerning Archaeopteryx, I'm guessing you have the feather tissue remnants vs. impressions in mind?

Yeah I don't get the whole "these bones must be young therefore the earth is young" canard.

The hell creek formation is an ancient formation of Cretaceous rocks still exposed to the surface, and it isn't uncommon for no new layers to form in certain areas. Only in a few sedimentary basins is the whole geologic column visible. I don't think it'd be impossible to have dinosaurs living in these areas of ancient rock well past 65mya, then die a lot later than we think and still be incorporated into the rock record due to being buried in a landslide or something. Might make us have to be cautious with using certain fossils as index fossils but the point is even if you could show some fossils are young that has no bearing on the age of the rocks themselves. No more than me burying my dog in Cretaceous sediment means my dog's bones are 65my old or the sediment was formed the second I buried the dog.

Indeed! It's entirely possible that at least some dinosaurs survived past the KPg boundary, and definitely, there are natural processes that can mess around with that sort of thing. That being said, the Hell Creek formation actually extends past the Cretaceous and into the early Paleogene. Younger sediments were almost certainly deposited over top but these were removed during the last major glaciation. More of this record exists farther north in Alberta in the Scollard (Cretaceous/Paleocene) and Paskapoo (Paleocene) formations. In the Paleocene sequences here and in the Hell Creek there are a good number of well-preserved fossil plants and animals that survived the KPg, but no dinosaurs. In the rare instances where a dinosaur bone was found in an apparently younger layer, there's usually been good evidence of reworking from an older unit. At least for now, non-avian dinosaurs seem to be strictly Mesozoic.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Re: creationist's error on dinosaur, etc., soft tissue

Indeed! It's entirely possible that at least some dinosaurs survived past the KPg boundary, and definitely, there are natural processes that can mess around with that sort of thing. That being said, the Hell Creek formation actually extends past the Cretaceous and into the early Paleogene. Younger sediments were almost certainly deposited over top but these were removed during the last major glaciation. More of this record exists farther north in Alberta in the Scollard (Cretaceous/Paleocene) and Paskapoo (Paleocene) formations. In the Paleocene sequences here and in the Hell Creek there are a good number of well-preserved fossil plants and animals that survived the KPg, but no dinosaurs. In the rare instances where a dinosaur bone was found in an apparently younger layer, there's usually been good evidence of reworking from an older unit. At least for now, non-avian dinosaurs seem to be strictly Mesozoic.

Ah well, thank you for correcting me on that.

 

[Isotelus]

So this paper was published very recently. I was able to read it and thought I'd give a (very) brief summary here.

The authors used a variety of techniques to independently confirm that purported soft tissue structures found a few years earlier in a Brachylophosaurus canadensis specimen are not a result of mircobial biofilms. And yes, they showed pretty darn well that those are remnants of blood vessels! Not completely preserved mind you; they're still degraded. We've suspected for a while that at least some of these fossils are preserving soft tissues without substantial mineralization, and this is significant as it establishes that these techniques work and perhaps can shed further light on exactly how these things are preserving. I suspect some creationists will tout it as the death-knell in the soft tissue debate; this is bona fide endogenous soft tissue; the earth is young, bla bla. If they do, then let's hope they don't omit a key part of this paper, and that's the fact that those peptide sequences detected in the dinosaur are essentially identical to those in modern archosaurs. i.e. crocs and birds. They also constructed a tree using myosin that, in spite of it being a conversative sequence, recovered Brachylophosaurus in a basal position between alligators and birds--precisely as we would predict based on our understanding of Archosauria as a whole...and our understanding of evolution. How will creationists handle that aspect of the study? I guess we'll find out (though I have my own suspicions)?

If anyone has any other questions about the paper, let me know, seeing as I'm not sure many people here can get a hold of it.

 

[Mr_Wilford]

Nice. Here's the figure of the tree, if anyone's intrested:

 

[Elshamah]

Recently a new paper has been published in regard of soft tissue in dinos.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00675

 

[SpecialFrog]

Recently a new paper has been published in regard of soft tissue in dinos.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00675

You mean the one Isotelus linked two posts above?

 

[Dustnite]

Recently a new paper has been published in regard of soft tissue in dinos.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00675

You couldn't be bothered to read a couple posts up to see this already linked? I guess I should be surprised that you didn't just copy paste the article as your own work.