Soft tissue in fossils
Fossils are the remains of buried organisms. The fossilization process begins after the object is buried and the organic remains are put through a long fossilization process called taphonomy. The fossils original substances are slowly replaced with materials that harden into the same shape as the original organism. The organism must be buried rapidly or else it will not fossilize. A corpse exposed to the wild will be decomposed by other animals for food or weathered away by the elements leaving nothing to fossilize. The existence of fossils at all is a demonstration of rapid burial, sedimentation rates vastly higher than rates seen today, and a disproof of uniformitarianism. [1]
Small creatures can also be fossilized by being encased in amber. Amber is hardened tree sap that the organism became stuck in and fossilized over the course of many years. Animals in very dry, hot places, like deserts die and dry out due to sun exposure. Animal body parts and organs become mummified and preserved for thousands of years. Fossils that are frozen are very rare, but the best way of preservation. This exact way is hard to find because for a fossil to stay intact, it has to be frozen from death, to recovery. This means that an organism must be both frozen and undisturbed by any heat for many years. [2]
How Was Soft Tissue In Fossils Discovered?
It is widely claimed Mary Schweitzer was the first to discover soft tissues in fossils but this is incorrect. As recorded in the List of Biometerial Fossil Papers maintained by Brian Thomas Ph.D and and Joel Tay of the Institute for Creation Research[3] the first discovery of soft tissue was in 1954 where Devonian alanine, glutamic, & glycine amino acids were discovered in several fossils[4] followed by the discovery of collagen fibers in Dremotherium in 1962 [5] The topic of soft tissues in fossils continued largely unnoticed in its significance until Mary Schwietzer's discoveries and the controversy surrounding them.
Schweitzer is a paleontologist located in North Carolina and a professor of paleontology. Schweitzer discovered blood vessels, blood cells and collagen in a tyrannosaurus Rex fossil thought by naturalists to be 68 million year old. Soft tissue is unable to survive under any condition for millions of years. Mary Schweitzer's findings were attacked by her naturalist colleagues as a hoax for many years because of the significance of her finding in overthrowing the Geologic Column and its assumed Geologic Ages. An attempt at explaining away these findings was made but fails to provide evidence these tissues can last for 65 million years because a test can only show the tissues can last in certain special conditions for as long as the test has been running. This test was only run a few years. [6]
Ramifications
The discovery of relatively short-lived biomaterials in fossils has numerous ramifications affecting many angles of the creation evolution debate.
Geologic Column and ages
The Geologic Column was largely the foundation of modern evolutionary belief. It is what was used to establish in scientific circles and culture the idea the earth has existed for millions of years. This was believed not from evidence but from the naturalist religious doctrine of Uniformitarianism. It dictated that present rates of sediment deposit have been the same throughout all history and therefore the depth of the earth could only have been built up over a very long period of time and that the depth of the earth correlated with time. The deeper a fossil the older it must be. This is a belief based on faith. It excluded the possibility of a Global Flood not based on evidence but based on philosophical grounds.
The discovery of relatively short-lived biomaterials that could not last the claimed millions of years overthrows the geologic ages as this belief of millions of years cannot fit the evidence. A rock cannot be older than the fossil it is encasing. Unless a naturalist will claim that Satan put these fossils there to trick them into believing the earth is young then they will need to accept the geologic ages have collapsed down to only thousands of years.
Uniformitarianism
Further building on the ramifications for the Geologic Column and ages the doctrine of uniformitarianism has been proven false as the ages predicted by it through currently observed rock sedimentation rates have failed to match the evidence.
Evolution
Further building on the ramifications for the Geologic Column and ages the belief in evolution by natural selection came only after millions of years was accepted by the scientific community as evolution is stated to require millions of years for minor changes to accumulate. Since the presence of soft tissues across various created kinds demonstrates they lived very recently then this removes the possibility evolution has occurred across the kinds.
Flood
These findings provide further confirmation of a recent large scale rapid-sedimentation event to bury these creatures and produce fossils.
Naturalist attempts at explanation
One attempt by Mary Schweitzer to explain her finding was to appeal to iron in the blood of the corpse causing proteins and cell membranes to "tie in knots" for preservation, acting like formaldehyde. [7] The research supporting this however has only demonstrated this effect could preserve tissues for a few years. It has yet to be shown it could resolve the naturalist's problem of soft tissues.
Another attempted explanation states that the destructive enzymes for breaking down cells were taken away by the sandstone that fossilized the animal. This theory was tested on an ostrich and the outcome demonstrated similar results.[8] This explanation also fails to explain the vast number of biologic material findings in fossils from numerous environments. See: List of Fossils with Soft Tissues
Rates of decay
The soft parts of a carcass can decay in two to three weeks, but cell damage begins in minutes. [9]
Books on the topic
- "Evolutionists Say the Oddest Things Surprising Admissions From Leading Scientists" by Lita Cosner, Editor 1
- "Ancient and Fossil Bone Collagen Remnants" by Dr. Brian Thomas 1 2
- "Biblical Geology 101" By Michael J Oard and Robert Carter 1
See Also
- List_of_Fossils_with_Soft_Tissues
- Unfossilized_dinosaur_bone
- dinosaurs-lived-recently-and-died-in-noahs-flood
Quotes
| “ | "Traditionally, there was little hope that biomolecules might be recovered from bone more than a few thousand years old." [10] | ” |
References
- ↑ What Are Fossils? about. last visited November 30, 2016. Author Unknown
- ↑ How are dinosaurs formed? facts-and-finds. last visited November 30, 2016. Author Unknown
- ↑ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BSM-oQJXxhYBlsLE3gGl3bz8GXgtoLy-oLOsSNF_Lhw/edit#gid=0
- ↑ Abelson, Paleobiochemistry: Organic constituents of fossils, Carnegie Inst.
- ↑ Little, K., M. Kelly, and A. Courts. Studies on bone matrix in normal and osteoporetic bone. J. Bone and Joint Surg. 44-B(3): 503
- ↑ Pappas, Stephanie.Controversial T. Rex Soft Tissue Find Finally Explained livescience. Published November 26, 2013.
- ↑ Pappas, Stephanie .Controversial T. Rex Soft Tissue Find Finally Explained livescience. Published November 26, 2013.
- ↑ Buchanan, Scott. “Soft Tissue” in Dinosaur Bones: What Does the Evidence Really Say? BioLogos. published October 19, 2015.
- ↑ Schweitzer, M.H., Soft tissue preservation in terrestrial Mesozoic vertebrates, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science, 39: 187-216, 2011.
- ↑ Schweitzer et al., Heme compounds in dinosaur trabecular bone, p. 6291.
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