Category Creation vs Evolution

Contact: Tracey Peake
tracey_peake@ncsu.edu
9190515-3470
North Carolina State University

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/ncsu-nss032405.php retrieved October 6, 2006

Conventional wisdom among paleontologists states that when dinosaurs died and became fossilized, soft tissues didn’t preserve – the bones were essentially transformed into “rocks” through a gradual replacement of all organic material by minerals. New research by a North Carolina State University paleontologist, however, could literally turn that theory inside out.

Dr. Mary Schweitzer, assistant professor of paleontology with a joint appointment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, has succeeded in isolating soft tissue from the femur of a 68-million-year-old dinosaur. Not only is the tissue largely intact, it’s still transparent and pliable, and microscopic interior structures resembling blood vessels and even cells are still present.
In a paper published in the March 25 edition of the journal Science, Schweitzer describes the process by which she and her technician, Jennifer Wittmeyer, isolated soft organic tissue from the leg bone of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex.
Schweitzer was interested in studying the microstructure and organic components of a dinosaur’s bone. All bone is made up of a combination of protein (and other organic molecules) and minerals. In modern bone, removing the minerals leaves supple, soft organic materials that are much easier to work with in a lab. In contrast, fossilized bone is believed to be completely mineralized, meaning no organics are present. Attempting to dissolve the minerals from a piece of fossilized bone, so the theory goes, would merely dissolve the entire fossil.
But the team was surprised by what actually happened when they removed the minerals from the T. rex femur fragment. The removal process left behind stretchy bone matrix material that, when examined microscopically, seemed to show blood vessels, osteocytes, or bone building cells, and other recognizable organic features.
Since current data indicates that living birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than any other group, Schweitzer compared the findings from the T. rex with structures found in modern-day ostriches. In both samples, transparent branching blood vessels were present, and many of the small microstructures present in the T. rex sample displayed the same appearance as the blood and bone cells from the ostrich sample.
Schweitzer then duplicated her findings with at least three other well-preserved dinosaur specimens, one 80-million-year-old hadrosaur and two 65-million-year-old tyrannosaurs. All of these specimens preserved vessels, cell-like structures, or flexible matrix that resembled bone collagen from modern specimens.
Current theories about fossil preservation hold that organic molecules should not preserve beyond 100,000 years. Schweitzer hopes that further research will reveal exactly what the soft structures isolated from these bones are made of. Do they consist of the original cells, and if so, do the cells still contain genetic information? Her early studies of the material suggest that at least some fragments of the dinosaurs’ original molecular material may still be present.
“We may not really know as much about how fossils are preserved as we think,” says Schweitzer. “Our preliminary research shows that antibodies that recognize collagen react to chemical extracts of this fossil bone. If further studies confirm this, we may have the potential to learn more not only about the dinosaurs themselves, but also about how and why they were preserved in the first place.”

The research was funded by NC State, the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the National Science Foundation.
Note to editors: An abstract of the paper follows.
“Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex”
Authors: Mary H. Schweitzer and Jennifer L. Wittmeyer, North Carolina State University; John R. Horner, Montana State University; Jan B. Toporski, Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory Published: March 25, 2005, in Science
Abstract: Soft tissues are preserved within hindlimb elements of Tyrannosaurus rex (Museum of the Rockies specimen 1125). Removal of the mineral phase reveals transparent, flexible, hollow blood vessels containing small round microstructures that can be expressed from the vessels into solution. Some regions of the demineralized bone matrix are highly fibrous, and the matrix possesses elasticity and resilience. Three populations of microstructures have cell-like morphology. Thus, some dinosaurian soft tissues may retain some of their original flexibility, elasticity and resilience.

Still soft and stretchy

Dinosaur soft tissue find—a stunning rebuttal of “millions of years”

by Dr Carl Wieland, AiG–Australia

Courtesy of www.Answersingenesis.org

Science via AP (From www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/) A: The arrow points to a tissue fragment that is still elastic. It beggars belief that elastic tissue like this could have lasted for 65 million years. B: Another instance of ‘fresh appearance’ which similarly makes it hard to believe in the ‘millions of years’. C: Regions of bone showing where the fibrous structure is still present, compared to most fossil bones which lack this structure. But these bones are claimed to be 65 million years old, yet they manage to retain this structure.

We previously announced the discovery of what seemed to be microscopic red blood cells (and immunological evidence of hemoglobin) in dinosaur bone (see Sensational dinosaur blood report! and response to critic).1 Now a further announcement, involving the same scientist (Montana State University’s Dr Mary Schweitzer2) stretches (pun intentional) the long-age paradigm beyond belief.

Not only have more blood cells been found, but also soft, fibrous tissue, and complete blood vessels. The fact that this really is unfossilized soft tissue from a dinosaur is in this instance so obvious to the naked eye that any scepticism directed at the previous discovery is completely “history”.

One description of a portion of the tissue was that it is “flexible and resilient and when stretched returns to its original shape”.3

The exciting discovery was apparently made when researchers were forced to break open the leg bone of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil to lift it by helicopter. The bone was still largely hollow and not filled up with minerals as is usual. Dr Schweitzer used chemicals to dissolve the bony matrix, revealing the soft tissue still present.4

She has been cited as saying that the blood vessels were flexible, and that in some instances, one could squeeze out their contents. Furthermore, she said, “The microstructures that look like cells are preserved in every way.” She also is reported as commenting that “preservation of this extent, where you still have this flexibility and transparency, has never been seen in a dinosaur before.”

It appears that this sort of thing has not been found before mainly because it was never looked for. Schweitzer was probably alert to the possibility because of her previous serendipitous discovery of T. rex blood cells. (It appears that the fossils were sent to her to look for soft tissues, prior to preservative being applied, because of her known interest.) In fact, Schweitzer has since found similar soft tissue in several other dinosaur specimens!

CREDIT: M. H. Schweitzer
Left: The flexible branching structures in the T. rex bone were justifiably identified as “blood vessels”. Soft tissues like blood vessels should not be there if the bones were 65 million years old.
Right: These microscopic structures were able to be squeezed out of some of the blood vessels, and can be seen to “look like cells” as the researchers said. So once again there is scope for Dr Schweitzer to ask the same question, “How could these cells last for 65 million years?”

The reason that this possibility has long been overlooked seems obvious: the overriding belief in “millions of years”. The long-age paradigm (dominant belief system) blinded researchers to the possibility, as it were. It is inconceivable that such things should be preserved for (in this case) “70 million years”.

Will they now be convinced?

Unfortunately, the long-age paradigm is so dominant that facts alone will not readily overturn it. As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn pointed out,5 what generally happens when a discovery contradicts a paradigm is that the paradigm is not discarded but modified, usually by making secondary assumptions, to accommodate the new evidence.

That’s just what appears to have happened in this case. When Schweitzer first found what appeared to be blood cells in a T. Rex specimen, she said, “It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it. I said to the lab technician: “The bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?’”6 Notice that her first reaction was to question the evidence, not the paradigm. That is in a way quite understandable and human, and is how science works in reality (though when creationists do that, it’s caricatured as non-scientific).

So will this new evidence cause anyone to stand up and say there’s something funny about the emperor’s clothes? Not likely. Instead, it will almost certainly become an “accepted” phenomenon that even “stretchy” soft tissues must be somehow capable of surviving for millions of years. (Because, after all, we “know” that this specimen is “70 million years old”.) See how it works?

Schweitzer’s mentor, the famous “Dinosaur Jack” Horner (upon whom Sam Neill’s lead character in the Jurassic Park movies was modeled) is already urging museums to consider cracking open some of the bones in their existing dinosaur fossils in the hope of finding more such “Squishosaurus” remains. He is excited about the potential to learn more about dinosaurs, of course. But—nothing about questioning the millions of years—sigh!

I invite the reader to step back and contemplate the obvious. This discovery gives immensely powerful support to the proposition that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most.7

The entire Clergy Letter Project (below) is what led to the celebration of evolution Sunday. It demonstrates the sad compromise that many churches are taking. The letter below reminds us of the words of Peter who says in 2 Peter 3:3-7:

“Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” (2 Peter 3:3-3:7)

The article was retrieved August 20, 2006 from: http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/religion_science_collaboration.htm

An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science

We’ve reached our goal of gathering 10,000 clergy signatures. 

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

Signatures are current as of 18 August 2006
10,366 signatures collected to date

Knowing the Creator

Perhaps you have seen from reading posts on my site that there is no need to compromise the Bible with the theory of evolution. I think that even Darwin would be happy that the two are no longer confused in your mind! Let me now encourage you that God’s Word, the Bible, is accurate, true, and trustworthy in all that it says. If you are already a Christian, then be encouraged that God loves you, and He rejoices in your resolve to believe His Word to the fullest. He has many wonderful promises in store for you that are written in the pages of the Bible.

If you have come to the conclusion that God’s Word is faithful and accurate in all that it says but are not a Christian, then I would like to invite you to enter into a relationship with the God who created everything. God is awesome and mighty – just imagine how He made everything in only six days! Nevertheless, even more amazing is that He paid for our sins in less than one day! Jesus paid the price that our original parents, Adam and Eve, brought upon the world through their disobedience. But He also paid for your and my personal sin. Put your trust in Him now and receive a new life. You can trust the word that He speaks to you:

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again […] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21, emphasis mine)

Jesus Himself also invites you to believe in Him: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26).

If you believe that Jesus died for your sins, as the Scriptures clearly say, then you can have eternal life. I invite you to receive His gift of life to you and then to rest in the promise that you are a new creation and will live forever with Christ. If you would like pray or to speak with me one on one, please don’t hesitate to write or call!

The co-occurrence of men and dinosaur would dispel an Earth with vast antiquity. The entire history of creation, including the day of rest, could be accommodated in the seven biblical days of the Genesis myth. Evolution would be vanquished.  (Louis Jacobs, 1993: 261, Former President of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology)

There are carvings and figurines from around the world that show that the artists must have seen a living dinosaur from time to time.

Natural Bridges National Park, Utah, The park literature attributes the petroglyphs to the Anasazi who inhabited the area from approximately 400 A.D. to 1300 A.D..  (Courtesy of Dr. Don Patton www.bible.ca)

Acambaro, Mexico Figurines

In 1945, Waldemar Julsrud, discovered a collection of 20,000 or more ceramic figurines in the village of Acambaro (a few hundred miles from Guadalajara), Mexico which, unlike the Ica Stones, can be dated easily and with a fair amount of accuracy since they are made of clay.  The figurines ( See Picture 8 ) most likely originated from the Chupicauro civilization that flourished from approximately 500 B.C. to 500 A.D..  This amazing collection contains at least 23 known types of dinosaurs and others that are still unknown.

Because thousands of figurines strongly suggest that ancient man actually saw living dinosaurs, the discovery was quickly claimed to be a hoax.  Dr. Swift notes the measures taken to determine conclusively that the figurines were not a hoax as claimed, but are in fact authentic:

In 1955 Charles Hapgood, respected Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, conducted an elaborate investigation including extensive radiometric dating. He was accompanied by Earl Stanley Gardner, former District Attorney of the city of Los Angeles, California and the creator of Perry Mason. They falsified the claim that Julsrud manufactured the figurines, by excavating under the house of the Chief of Police, which was built 25 years before Julsrud arrived in Mexico. Forty three more examples of the same type were found. Three radiocarbon tests were performed by Isotopes Incorporated of New Jersey resulting in dates of 1640 B.C., 4530 B.C. and 1110 B.C.. Eighteen samples were subjected to thermo luminescent testing by the University of Pennsylvania,all of which gave dates of approximately 2500 B.C.. These results were subsequently withdrawn when it was learned that some of the samples were from dinosaurs. (Swift 2006, emphasis mine)

Acambaro Dinosaur Figurine  (Courtesy of Dr. Don Patton www.bible.ca)

Carving in Cambodia

In January of 2006, Drs. Patton and Swift journeyed to Cambodia to the temple monastery, Ta Prohm.  The temple was built by Jayavarman VII in honor of his mother and dedicated in 1186 A.D. (See Picture 9 Temple Monastery Ta Prohm).  The walls of the monastery were decorated with hundreds of all kinds of animals, one of which was a creature that closely resembles a stegosaurus.  Drs. Patton and Swift note that the likeness of a stegosaurus has also been observed by two magazines.  One of the magazines states, “Along the vertical strip of roundels in the angle between the south wall of the porch and the east wall of the main body of the gopura there is even a very convincing representation of a stegosaur.” (Ancient Angor 1999) [iii]

Temple Monastery Ta Prohm (Courtesy of Dr. Don Patton www.bible.ca)

Stegosaurus-Looking Creature  (Courtesy of Dr. Don Patton www.bible.ca)

Three Possible Answers

Thus, we are left with essentially three possibilities regarding the evidence showing men and dinosaurs together.  The first is that man and dinosaurs actually lived together 65 (plus) million years ago.  This, of course, is unacceptable to the evolutionary model and is obviously contradictory to the belief in a recent, literal, six-day creation.  The second possibility is that dinosaurs did not die out 65 million years ago, but rather continued until the time of early man one million years ago according to the evolutionary time scale.  The third is simply that man and dinosaurs lived together in the relatively near past (less than 10,000 years ago).  None of these options is very acceptable to evolutionists; but the evidence that men and dinosaurs coexisted is ample though it is only visible to those willing to see.

This selective vision caused by the evolutionary paradigm has prevented many people from reaching the conclusion that dinosaurs (etc.) did not die out millions and millions of years ago – in spite of continual discoveries of living species thought to have died out millions of years ago.  In 1938, a fish, the Coelacanth, which was believed to have died out with the dinosaurs, was discovered as still living.  Keith S. Thomson, Executive Officer, Academy of Natural Sciences states that:

Off the coast of southern Africa, in the winter of 1938, a fishing boat called The Nerine dragged from the Indian Ocean near the Chalumna River a fish thought to be extinct for 70 million years. The fish was a coelacanth, an animal that thrived concurrently with dinosaurs. (Thompson 1991 book cover, emphasis mine)

Thompson also notes concerning the Dawn Redwood that it was “thought to be extinct worldwide until living specimens were found in central China in 1945” (Thompson 1991: 72).

A similar example is in a 1994 article entitled: Newfound Pine Goes Back in Time – It was Believed to be Extinct.  The tree was thought to have been extinct for 100 million years.

David Noble was out on a holiday hike when he stepped off the beaten path and into the prehistoric age. Venturing into an isolated grove in a rain-forest preserve 125 miles from Sydney, the Parks and Wildlife Service officer suddenly found himself in a real-life ‘Jurassic Park’-standing amid trees thought to have disappeared 150 million years ago. “The discovery is the equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth,” said Carrick Chambers, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens.  “The biggest tree towers 180 feet with a 10-foot girth, indicating that it is at least 150 years old. The trees are covered in dense, waxy foliage and have a knobby bark that makes them look like they are coated with bubbly chocolate.”

Barbara Briggs, the botanic gardens’ scientific director, hailed the find as one of Australia’s most outstanding discoveries of the century […] “The closest relatives of the Wollemi Pines died out in the Jurassic Period, 190 million to 135 million years ago, and the Cretaceous Period, 140 million to 65 million years ago.” (Salt Lake City Tribune, December 15, 1994, p. A10, from Associated Press, emphasis mine)

All three examples are surprise discoveries merely because the billions of years of evolution are considered to be an established (and uncontestable) fact.  Fish and trees thought to have coexisted (and died out) with the dinosaurs have been found to still exist.  Perhaps there is so much surprise because the paradigm of when the dinosaurs lived and died out is wrong.  We saw that the Bible plainly talks about dinosaurs under names such as tanninim, behemoth, and Leviathan. According to the Bible, God created dinosaurs during the first six days along with man.  If we read the first six days in Genesis as literal days, we are not surprised by such discoveries; we anticipate them and are strengthened by them.  Furthermore men and dinosaurs carved on stones are not a problem, but a simple confirmation of what God has already revealed.

[i] See: http://www.skepdic.com/icastones.html and http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-07/hoaxes.html

[ii] The reader is encouraged to study Marvin Lubenow’s Bones of Contention as mentioned earlier as well as Jack Cuozzo’s Buried Alive (2003) to examine the evidence.

[iii] “Ancient Angkor was first published in Thailand in 1999 by River Books Ltd., Bangkok.” Pg. 144.  They also state: “The large, beautiful 320 page book, Angkor, Cities And Temples, by the same author and photographer, includes a half page picture of the stegosaur sculpture.” On page 213 the author describes it as “an animal which bears a striking resemblance to a stegosaurus.” See bible.ca/tracks/dino-art.htm

The First Six Days Video (Requires VLC Player to view)

Compare the evidence of the Acambaro Figurines and the Ta Prahm Monestary with the latest in dinosaur research and decide for yourself if you believe that men and dinosaurs lived together.

The following pictures are from www.bible.ca courtesy of Dr Patton.

Ta Prahm Monestary, Cambodia

Two of thousands of dinosaur clay-figurines from Acambaro, Mexico.
Click here to see more at bible.ca