It is really uncool for you to call me "deceptive" when I am trying my best to patiently explain why you are mistaken, and you wonder why I find you frustrating to talk to? I find it ironic that you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty when you are the guy talking about dino steaks!
You are being totally deceptive here and you know it. Is it possible to have cadaver stink from non-organic matter? Of course not. Everyone knows this. What do you hope to accomplish by suggesting otherwise?
A perfect example of why you are frustrating — you are accusing me of dishonesty because of something that I never claimed. I never said that the dinosaur bones did not have organic matter; I said the exact opposite! How can we have a productive conversation when you mischaracterize things so easily?
I am not the one claiming cadaver stink.
And I never disputed that the smell was reportedly reminiscent of a cadaver to Dr. Schweizter.
The article references Dr. Schweitzer and her "boss" Dr. Horner as confirming this, not me. Please stop calling it an odor as if you can somehow change the fact that it was cadaver stink.
An odor is not a stink? What are you talking about? I suppose Dr. Horner should stop calling it an odor too when he writes that "fossils from Hells Creek tend to have a strong odor" (How to Build a Dinosaur, 2009, p. 59). Dr. Horner should be ashamed of himself for using that deceptive word!
In order to make any sense at all, you would have to somehow show that cadaver stink can and does occur without rotting tissue.
I already explained this on the last page and Dr. Schweitzer goes into further detail in her articles. Since you still haven't grasped the point, let me really dumb it down for you. The tissue rotted. Yes, Virginia, it rotted! And rotting dead things stink .... like dead rotting things. When things rot, they decompose and degrade. But the stinky components the tissue rotted into were not replaced by stone (as in petrification). The particular chemical environment inside the buried stone preserved those stinky components by stopping their decomposition, most likely through the chemical changes that Dr. Schweitzer outlines (although there is much still to be learned about fossil taphonomy). The microenvironment inside the bone promoted stasis not decompositional change. So the bone contains the products of decomposition, and they stink! But there is not an active process of decomposition (a.k.a. "rotting"), which can also stink. The presence of stinky organic compounds does not necessarily imply that the tissue is currently rotting away.
Why was the odor (sorry, I mean a vile deathly stench) a big deal in the Discover article? It says that it was an indication that the bone was not "made up entirely of minerals". That's the big deal — that it contained organic compounds. That's not the same thing as saying that it was "rotting". What does Dr. Horner say? He says the "odor" (his word) "may have something to do with the organic material preserved" (p. 59). Interesting. That's pretty much the same thing I said in my previous posts.
