Dinosaur Tissues Found

Ms. Schweitzer responded, “Absolutely,” then a moment later added, “It, it just does not seem to be possible. But yes, you can actually take the vessels and they do have internal components, and so you can take a probe and can kind of squeeze those components out into solution and the vessels are fine. It's just, I, I can't explain it, to be honest.”

Dinosaur Tissues

The dating of dinosaur fossils has recently become much more interesting. MSNBC has a fascinating story about a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil that yielded soft tissue including blood vessels, bone matrix and possibly remnants of red blood cells. The story, along with pictures and two video interviews, can be found at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/

This story is not widely known to the public but it ought to be because of its spectacular nature and its possible implications on the dating of dinosaurs. Discovering soft tissues in dinosaurs is a puzzle to evolutionists who claim that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. Therefore the obvious question is, "How can such an old creature still have soft parts which are flexible and when stretched return to their original shape?"

North Carolina State University professor Mary Schweitzer is the leader of the discovery team that found the specimens and she is in the first MSNBC video interview. The reporter asked Ms. Schweitzer, “Is that amazing to find this kind of soft tissue in a fossil this old? And what can soft tissue really tell us?” Ms. Schweitzer responded, “Ah, well it, it is very amazing. It's utterly shocking actually, because it flies in the face of everything that we understand about how tissues and cells degrade. It is not something that any one of us could ever predict or hope for.” Ms. Schweitzer is careful to make clear at this point that more testing needs to be done to verify the features found, but she adds, “It looks like blood vessels. It looks like, um, bone matrix and it certainly looks like cells and acts like cells. But we haven't done the chemical analysis to let us say what it is for sure.”

Now what is odd is the only variable that is mentioned for explaining this paleontology enigma is that there must be something wrong with the way scientists have understood the process of fossilization. How else could one explain a 70-million-year-old dinosaur with soft parts? Well, another variable would be to consider questioning the assumed 70-million-year age of the dinosaur. Looking at the evidence alone, wouldn't it be more reasonable for the bone material to be more like thousands of years old? But this option is completely outside of the evolutionary view of life which theorizes that birds evolved from dinosaurs. If a scientist was to publicly consider the dating of dinosaurs in the thousands-of-years range such an admission would likely be detrimental to the career of that scientist.

Later in the video interview, one of the reporters suggested, “so you have to sort of rewrite the book as far as fossilization goes” to solve this puzzle. Ms. Schweitzer responds, “And, um like I said, a lot of our science doesn't allow for this. All of the chemistry and all of the molecular breakdown experiments that we have done don't allow for this. So if this material turns out to be actual remnants of the dinosaur, then yes, I think we will have to do some, um certainly rethinking some of the basics of some of the model of fossilization.”

As shown later in the MSNBC article and in the subsequent video interview, this T. Rex is not the only source for soft tissues. The article states, “Since the discovery, she has found similar samples of soft tissue in two other Tyrannosaur fossils and a hadrosaur.” On the video one of the reporters commented, “You know Mary, Mary, when I was reading about the story, I was amazed that in some of the capillaries, that's when you went to pull them, they snapped right back. Are you amazed at the quality of these remains?" Ms. Schweitzer responded, “Absolutely,” then a moment later added, “It, it just does not seem to be possible. But yes, you can actually take the vessels and they do have internal components, and so you can take a probe and can kind of squeeze those components out into solution and the vessels are fine. It's just, I, I can't explain it, to be honest.”

The debate over evolution and Intelligent Design is a hot debate in the news these days. One of the most persistent and vocal claims is that there is no evidence for creation or its "tuxedo-wearing brother," Intelligent Design. This web site is here to present evidence. To hear from you go to the new blog Creation Evidence.

Is dinosaur soft tissue simply a problem with how scientists have understood fossilization? Or is this an example of the media and evolutionary bias that prevents the public from seeing fundamental problems with dates in the millions and billions of years? Suppose that these dinosaurs were not 65-70 million years old but were really 4-6 thousand years old. What would be the evolutionary implications of such a fact?

For additional research on this topic see:
Sensational dinosaur blood report!

Evolutionist questions AiG report

T. rex fossil has 'soft tissues'