Dinosaur Soft Tissue, Blood, & DNA Catalog of Peer Reviewed Papers

by Perry 49 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Nickolas

  Hey Perry. Thanks for the chuckle.
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  MrFreeze
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  adamah

  Perry said-

  "I don't trust much of science falsely so-called... especially the science of the theoretical nature that can't be tested."

  Funny, since you seemingly prefer to trust what you cannot see, evidence you cannot behold: isn't that called "faith"? YOUR ENTIRE BELIEF SYSTEM requires accepting beliefs that can't be tested.

  I suspect you don't understand that by it's very definition, science is a SKEPTICAL endeavor: the rule is "SHOW ME", "PROVE IT", and if a scientist is unable to do that, we don't discard the current THEORIES to accept their hypothesis (fancy word for a guess), regardless of their reputation. In science, unproven hypotheses and DISPROVEN hypotheses are REJECTED, not CLUNG to.

  What you preceive as resistance from the scientific community IS actually SKEPTICISM in action, AKA scrutiny, examining the claim on the basis of the accompanying evidence, and not what you're insinuating it is: DOGMATISM, which is ACTUALLY what theology offers. A rejection of claims WITHOUT giving it any thought, done in the name of protecting one's Christian faith.

  I read that Discover article and looked at Dr Schweitzer's wikipedia page, and she's to be commended for "thinking outside the box", and for mixing methods used by different scientific sub-disciplines: she's actually a GREAT example of how science only moves forward by NOT going with the currently-accepted concensus and resting on the laurels of the status quo, but by CHALLENGING IT when you have a reasonable basis to believe that the current theories are wrong. Science, unlike religious beliefs, is NOT written in stone, but on a dry erase board.

  The article is a GREAT example of generating hypotheses, that "Eureka!" moment for scientists like Dr Schwitzer when a light turns on in their head, and they ask "I wonder if....." THEN they devise a method to TEST their hypothesis, and conduct RESEARCH to see if the hypothesis is validated by repeatable observations.

  It's also a great example that TRUTHS don't depend on the source: a Christian scientist's ideas are accepted, if they actually are a better model of reality. Scientists don't discard TRUTHS on the basis of where they come from, only on the strength of the evidence that supports them.

  Here's valid skepticism in action:

  On the flip side, Jeffrey Bada, an organic geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, cannot imagine soft tissue surviving millions of years. He says the cellular material Schweitzer found must be contamination from outside sources. Even if the T. rex had died in a colder, drier climate than Hell Creek, environmental radiation would have degraded its body, Bada says: "Bones absorb uranium and thorium like crazy. You've got an internal dose that will wipe out biomolecules."

  He's raising objections based on REPEATED AND VERIFIED OBSERVATIONS, on the basis of the currently-accepted model. So the question becomes, has Dr Schweitzer found an exception to the rule, perhaps a novel unknown method of preservation such that the samples are shielded from environmental radiation? OR, are her samples contaminated?

  Others question Schweitzer's thoroughness. "The pictures were stunning, but the paper fell quite short," says Hendrik Poinar, a molecular evolutionary geneticist at McMaster University in Ontario. Schweitzer has not proved that the elastic tissue she found actually consists of molecules from the original dinosaur. Poinar ticks off a list of tests Schweitzer could have conducted, including searching for the building blocks of proteins and then sequencing them to determine their origin. "I understand you want to get your papers out quick and flashy," Poinar says, "but I'm more in favor of longer work with slam-dunk authenticity."
  

  You likely don't know that Hendrik Poinar is the son of Dr. Cano's partner, and he also worked on the DNA extraction project conducted at Cal Poly which was verified and lauded by biologists worldwide. You'd better believe that Dr Schweitzer is aware of that fact, since he's the type of scientist that needs to be convinced by an objective evidence-based approach. Note that he offered ASSISTANCE, suggesting improvements in methodology that would help support her claim and stimulate other scientists to give it a closer look.

  I found the comments on believers interesting and revealing:

  While scientists struggled to make sense of the bones, another community had no doubt about how to interpret the results. The reports were quickly embraced by biblical literalists who believe God created life on Earth less than 10,000 years ago. For decades they have been working to place a scientific patina on their ideas. The Institute for Creation Research runs a graduate school near San Diego with 11 instructors who hold doctorates in biochemistry, geology, and other sciences. Conferences offer papers on topics like the physics of the Genesis flood. "Any time there's empirical evidence, that's gold for them," says Ronald Numbers, a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
  
  To Schweitzer, trying to prove your religious beliefs through empirical evidence is absurd, if not sacrilegious. "If God is who He says He is, He doesn't need us to twist and contort scientific data," she says. "The thing that's most important to God is our faith. Therefore, He's not going to allow Himself to be proven by scientific methodologies."
  
  Some creationists, noting Schweitzer's evangelical faith, have tried to pressure her into siding with them. "It is high time that the 'Scientific' community comes clean: meaning that the public is going to hold them ACCOUNTABLE when they find out that they have been misled," reads a recent e-mail message Schweitzer received. She has received dozens of similar notes, a few of them outright menacing.
  
  These religious attacks wound her far more than the scientific ones. "It rips my guts out," she says. "These people are claiming to represent the Christ that I love. They're not doing a very good job. It's no wonder that a lot of my colleagues are atheists." She told one zealot, "You know, if the only picture of Christ I had was your attitude towards me, I'd run."
  
  Ironically, the insides of Cretaceous-era dinosaur bones have only deepened Schweitzer's faith. "My God has gotten so much bigger since I've been a scientist," she says. "He doesn't stay in my boxes."

  As far as the possibility of recovering DNA:
  
  Schweitzer's research doesn't stay within familiar boundaries either. Now there is no clear limit to how far science can go in bringing back the past. In particular, the letters DNA are never far from anyone's lips. "If there's preservation of cells, maybe there's preservation of the constituents of the cells," anatomist Lawrence Witmer says. "It could allow some of the molecular and genetic studies done on modern animals to be potentially used on dinosaur samples." Although scientists consider DNA unstable, in 2003 Schweitzer published a paper outlining several proposed ways the molecule might be preserved. For example, the degradation process itself might produce complex polymers that slow the DNA's further destruction.
  
  At the mention of DNA, minds race to science fiction depictions of cloned dinosaurs. In 2005 a Scottish newspaper announced that, thanks to Schweitzer's work, "scientists are a step closer to . . . bringing the most savage predator ever to walk the earth back from extinction." Even the National Science Foundation blurred the line. When it awarded Horner a grant to study T. rex blood cells years ago, the agency timed the announcement to coincide with the theatrical release of Jurassic Park.
  
  Schweitzer scoffs at visions of dinosaur parks. If anyone ever finds dinosaur DNA, she says, it will be fragmented and incomplete. In the unlikely event that scientists could reconstruct a complete dinosaur genome, she doubts that any modern animal could produce an egg capable of growing a dinosaur embryo. And even if that hurdle could be crossed, a viable dinosaur might not last long in 2006: "As far as we know, the way the lung tissue functioned, the way the hemoglobin functioned, was designed for an atmosphere that's very different than today's."

  So EVEN IF completely undamaged dinosaur DNA were recovered (extremely unlikely, since DNA is susceptable to oxidative/radiation damage, as I've said above), she's referring to CHANGES IN THE ENVIRONMENT which have occurred since the time the dinosaur wandered the Earth, changes which mean a viable recreated dinosaur would have to live as a "bubble boy", unable to handle breathing in OUR lowered-oxygen concentration without being supplemented by bottled-oxygen. Dinosaurs evolved to fit in THEIR environmental conditions, not OURS which we live in and one which PAST HUMANS had evolved in, thus allowing us to breathe by adapting to the change(s).

  So Dr Schweitzer is ADMITTING that "as far as she knows", humans and dinosaurs could NOT co-exist.

  
  Truth is, Schweitzer hasn't even bothered to look for DNA. She has simply hunkered down to work in her characteristic way: keeping her eyes and her attitude wide open. "So many things are coming together that suggest preservation is far better than we've ever given it credit for," she says. "I think it's stupid to say, 'You're never going to get DNA out of dinosaur bone, you're never going to get proteins out of dinosaur bone, you're never going to do this, you're never going to do that.' As a scientist, I don't think you should ever use the word never."

  Sure, and perhaps that's the reason WHY scientists generally DON'T use the word "never" (or they use it, but with a mental asterisk attached when they actually mean "extremely improbable", since the language of science is statistics, the study of PROBABILITIES). There ARE no "sacred cows" in science, and ALL ideas (including EVOLUTION) are to be discarded like yesterday's stinky trash IF verifiable evidence is presented to toss it out, and if some improved model of reality is presented with evidence to support it.

  Adam
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  designs

  The Creationists are funny, they throw out 10,000 years as if the added 4000 years makes their case seem more plausible.
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  designs

  Ed Suominen and Robert Price have coauthored a book- Evolving Out Of Eden.

  Ed is an engineer by trying and was a devout Christian with a conservative Lutheran branch, Robert is a Bible Scholar. Ed's change of mind about Genesis and the claims of Original Sin started with his work using artifical chromosomes, evolutionary computation.
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  MrFreeze

  The difference between scientists and Christians is scientists base their beliefs on what the evidence says while Christians base the evidence on what their belief says.

  Do you realize that bones and fossils are not the same thing?
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  Vidiot

  designs - "Science and Social issues are often at odds with the modern Fundamentalist."

  Personally, I'd say it was the other way around...

  ...the "modern Fundamentalist" (oxymoron?) is the one who's often at odds with science and social issues.

  It could be worse, though...

  ... they'd always be at odds if the Fundy didn't have to sleep sometimes.
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  designs

  Just remember Darwin took it all back on his deathbed and Pat Robertson never took all those donated millions and sunk them in a diamond mine
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  Nickolas

  What it comes down to, Perry, is you know you are right because you have read the truth in a holy book and you know, in advance, that nothing on Earth will budge you from your belief. The book is true, and if the evidence - no matter how overwhelming - seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast people believe in evolution because they have studied and understand the evidence. And, yes, we get most of what we believe from reading books on the subject. But books about evolution are believed not because they are holy but because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence that anyone can verify. But nobody who seriously seeks to comprehend evolution through natural selection will take anything he reads on face value, very unlike someone who harbours an unshakeable, unquestioning belief in a holy book. Noone I know thinks books on evolution are perfect. There will be errors. But when something in a book on evolution or any other science book for that matter is found to be wrong the mistake is invariably corrected and understanding is expanded. It doesn't matter anyway. What matters is your happiness. If what you believe makes you happy then that's cool, even if what you believe is silly. It gave me a chuckle, so by posting it you made me happy too. Win/win.
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  Perry

  What it comes down to, Perry, is you know you are right because you have read the truth in a holy book....And, yes, we get most of what we believe from reading books

  It seems obvious that your books dictate what you believe and forces you to suspend common sense and facts that don't support your forgone conclusions. There is more than enough evidence to seriously doubt the "Millions of Years" dogma.

  You have the evidence of your own eyes.... soft dinosaur tissue that couldn't possible last for millions of years anywhere, much less pourous limestome. It's impossible to demonstrate otherwise. We are simply asked to believe.

  You have the evidence of your own nose.... smelling the stench of rotting flesh when dinosaur bones are cracked open. Again, people are asked to just ignore common sense and believe.

  You have the evidence of researchers that have tested the age of the organic material inside of of dinosaur bones:

  Material Tested Triceratops,MT Triceratops,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,MT Hadrosaur,AK Allosaurus.CO Allosaurus,CO Acrocanthosaurus,TX Acrocanthosaurus,TX

  RadioCarbon age 30,890 +/-200 33,830 +2910/-1960 22,380 +/-800 22,990 +/-130 25,670 +/-220 25,170 +/-230 23,170 +/-170 2,560 +/-70 31,050 +230/-200 16,220 +/- 220 31,360 +/-100 23,760 +/-270 25,760 +/-280

  Fraction measured Collagen, modified Longin Method, AMS Organics, pretreated acid, alkali, acid,CL Organics, pretreated acid, alkali, acid.CL Organics, pretreated acid, alkali, acid,AMS Bioapatite, AMS Charred bone,AMS Collagen Modified longin method.AMS Humic acid alkali fraction,AMS Purified organics Bio-apatite,C Bio-apatite (purified with HAc),AMS Bio-apatite,AMS Bio-apatite,AMS

  Sample from Internal bone material Outer bone material Internal bone material Outer bone material Internal bone material Internal bone material Internal bone material Internal bone material ------------- -- ----------------- ----------------- bone surface scraping very large sample size

  Again, we are asked to ignore this evidence and just believe otherwise.

  Secularists also, ask us to believe life came from non-life... something that is simply fanciful and foreign to ANY known science or testing. For all of some scientists' pomp and special pleading, they are yet to produce even one living twig on their own. Yet, this failure to demonstrate doesn't stop the faithful from pronouncing their views as fact or likely probability.

  And you have the evidence of Dr. Jack Horner in the phone interview above who seems anything but open to ideas different than his own. He reminds me of a JW elder who has just been challenged by someone knowledgeable, they just feign superiority, because well, they feel superior. They imagine that circular reasoning is thier friend, but it isn't; it is their abyss that affords them a view of only themselves. But, I don't want to pick on only these groups. This condition of the mind focused only on the self is a species-wide phenomana.

  The human mind seems absolutely pre-disposed to self-deception. This is a fundamental teaching of Christianity:

  "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,"