Soft Dinosaur Tissue: The 60 Minutes Interview

This is one of the most interesting discoveries of the millennium: An un-fossilized T. rex bone. Soft, stretchy tissue, blood vessels and even blood cells discovered in the semi-fossilized remains of a long-dead T. rex in Montana. (Top picture shows apparent red blood cells in vessel and soft tissue, bottom shows soft tissue)

Watch 15-minute 60 Minutes Interview with Paleontologists Dr. Jack Horner and Dr. Mary Schweitzer from 2010
This and many other similar findings beg a question that evolutionists are trying to avoid: how old are these remains? Instead, Horner and Schweitzer have sought to answer the question: how could soft tissue and blood cells be preserved for over 70 million years without having completely decayed 2000 times over like forensic science predicts? Dr. Schweitzer says that this find shows how much we don't know about decay rates in organic material. However, there is plenty of observable, solid evidence (as Ian Juby points out, people are jailed and executed based upon this science) that these proteins could not survive tens of thousands of years, let alone 70 million (Start Genesis Week video at 6:35 mark). This is why scientists never thought to look for soft tissue! Even in a completely dry environment, the survival of proteins beyond 40,000 years has been thought to be impossible. Until now.  
 Instead of accepting this as evidence of the dinosaurs in question being killed recently (say a little over 4000 years ago as the Bible indicates) scientists like Schweitzer are scrambling to explain how the preservation of organic material could survive 70 million years. Why can't they consider this as evidence the of dinosaurs living more recently? The theory of evolution dictates that they HAD to have lived 60-80 million years ago. Evolution requires deep time to explain the arrival of complex life from nothing. Please don't try to tell me, "Well, Carbon 14 dating proves they are millions of years old!" This is one of the most uninformed arguments I have heard. Because C14 has a half-life of 5,730±40 years, if the dinosaurs were any older than 100,000 years we would find no measurable C14 in them. But when C14 IS measured in dinosaur remains, we DO find C14 in them. (1) Evolutionary scientists will always claim that the fossils must have been contaminated and reject the evidence that the fossils actually are young. Not only do evolutionists tend to throw out evidence contrary to their theory, they also don't look for it. Dinosaurs are never C14 dated because evolutionary scientists believe any C14 found would be a result of contamination. In case you didn't watch the interview, they had to cut it in half because it was too heavy for the helicopter to lift it off the cliff-side in one piece. It took a logistical necessity to justify cutting open the T. rex bone that yielded the soft tissue, not scientific inquiry.  "The problem is, for 300 years, we thought, 'Well, the organics are all gone, so why should we look for something that's not going to be there?' and nobody looks." Dr.  Schweitzer said in an interview with Live Science. Evolution is not good science, but a roadblock to good science!
Personally, I almost admire how Jack and Mary managed to keep the 60 Minutes interview from ever approaching idea that the bones might not actually be 70 million years old. They marvel at the idea of the material lasting so long and are quick to assure their watching peers that they are all about deep-time and evolution. Yes, evolutionist believe that the birds you see today actually ARE dinosaurs that never went extinct. No, you don't have to believe their fairy tale. The Bible says things are created and reproduce according to their kind; this is what we see now and can observe in the fossil record. It is observable and repeatable, unlike evolution. 
Of course, since the 60 Minutes interview took place over 3 years ago, Jack's dino-chicken should be available for pubic viewing in 2 years! Don't tell your kids though, because I am afraid they would only be disappointed. My hypothesis, based upon God's Word, is that he will only have a chicken (perhaps with a slightly malformed hind-end) when all is said and done. 
You may say "Big deal, they found soft tissue in ONE dinosaur bone!" No, many, many like findings have been discovered (2). This is remarkable since it is considered sacrilege in the community to cut open fully in-tact bones considering organic material was thought to be long-gone. Interestingly, you don't even need to cut into them to be able to observe how fresh these remains are:
Excerpt from Discover Magazine article by Barry Yeoman (read full article):
Once, when she (Dr. Schweitzer) was working with a T. rex skeleton harvested from Hell Creek (Montana), she noticed that the fossil exuded a distinctly organic odor. "It smelled just like one of the cadavers we had in the lab who had been treated with chemotherapy before he died," she says. Given the conventional wisdom that such fossils were made up entirely of minerals, Schweitzer was anxious when mentioning this to Horner. "But he said, 'Oh, yeah, all Hell Creek bones smell,'" she says. To most old-line paleontologists, the smell of death didn't even register. To Schweitzer, it meant that traces of life might still cling to those bones.  
She had already seen signs of exceptional preservation in the early 1990s, while she was studying the technical aspects of adhering fossil slices to microscope slides. One day a collaborator brought a T. rex slide to a conference and showed it to a pathologist, who examined it under a microscope. "The guy looked at it and said, 'Do you realize you've got red blood cells in that bone?' " Schweitzer remembers. "My colleague brought it back and showed me, and I just got goose bumps, because everyone knows these things don't last for 65 million years."
Remember, this is not about the age of the dinosaurs, it is about "exceptional preservation"; everyone knows these things don't last 65 million years! Of course Dr. Schweitzer had a hard time publishing her findings since this evidence is toxic to the evolutionary theory. However, now that these discoveries have been made and published, even more similar discoveries are bound to happen. Now, this doesn't mean we will use good, unbiased reason and science to interpret the findings, but for those of us free from the evolutionary mind-set, we can just smile (or weep) as the others twist, squirm, and invent new fairy tales to try and make the evidence fit into their worldview. Fresh dinosaur bones fit quite nicely with the Genesis creation and flood account. Massive dinosaur fossil beds like the Morison Formation that cover most of the Rocky Mountain states bear witness to a massive watery burial of dinosaurs. The evidence is rock-solid, except for the parts that still have not fossilized. ;-) 

2 Peter Chapter 3 says that in the last days scoffers will come deliberately forgetting that: (NIV) ⁵...long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶ By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
The next verse is a clear warning to those who purposely forget the global flood, a judgement by God upon his creation when it had turned against him:
  ⁷By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
 Some of us are more stubborn than others, but God is patient with us and wants all to turn to him:
⁸ But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

What will happen to you when you die? And upon what authority do you base your decision? Is it just a hunch or a feeling that you will make the cut and get into heaven? Perhaps you don't believe there is a such person as God or a such thing as heaven. If God's word is true, you have no excuse; the "invisible" attributes of the Lord are clearly seen through his creation. The stakes couldn't be higher for you. YOU have to make the decision whether to take things into your own hands before a righteous, all-powerful and Holy God, or you can tell Him you are insufficient without the saving power of Jesus and ask Him to forgive you. The Bible makes it clear what God's plan for salvation is; we need to admit our sin and accept that HE is God of us and this universe. A good judge won't dismiss a criminal guilty of a crime because the defendant was a good person most of the time. Why would a  just God do so with us when we have broken the supreme law, God's law? Rather, because of his great love for us He sent His Son, Jesus, to pay our penalty (which is death) so that we may be forgiven of our crimes and be united with our Creator as designed from the beginning. You have a lot to lose or gain personally, won't you open your eyes and heart to ask God to reveal Himself to you? I promise you will never regret it.

(1)  
Check out my iPhones and Radiodating post or my Why I don't Believe in Evolution post to see why Radiodating is also skewed toward always giving long ages. 

(2)
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dinosaur.html#ixzz2n4ixMVfY http://www.sciencemag.org/content/3075717/1952 full
Schweitzer interview with Live Science: http://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html
Soft tissue in Triceratops horn: Armitage & Anderson, Acta Histochemica, Feb 13, 2013, DOI 10 1016/j acthis 20013.03.001

Update

I will continue on with my new series as I find the time, doing the research required to write a decent article about those topics takes a lot of time. Time that I don't find very frequently. So, when I have the time, I will be writing those posts about why we can trust the Bible as true. But if and when I get snippets of time I will be posting interesting (at least I think they are) articles and videos as I stumble across them. 
Thanks for reading!

NY Times Article--Scientific Community

The anti-creation crowd loves to throw out that science is an objective method that follows the trail of data, wherever it leads, to arrive at the facts. This is true in textbooks only; whenever people, money, egos, and prestige get involved, all bets are off. Read this article I stumbled across in the New York Times discussing how science is subject to bias, fraud and misconduct just as any other man-made institution is.
Article

It really would be nice if all data was considered, all presuppositions were left out, all agendas were checked and science just provided grounded conclusions that did not try to reach beyond its limits. However, what we see is a lot of motivation for scientists to appease political agenda (get more grant money) and maintain their school or organization prestige (don't ever suggest intelligent design!). Peer review is a great idea, but can easily become peer pressure if deliberate care is not taken to avoid this.

 Are you putting more stock in the fallible ideas and postulation (postulation is a huge chunk origins science) of man or in the written word of God, the creator of the universe? When examined in a historical, scientific and philosophical light, the Bible checks out and provides a very reliable account of the history of our planet.
And no, the Bible is not peer reviewed. God has no peer!

New Blog Series, Part I: God's Word is Truth

God’s word is under attack today like no other time in history. The number of churches that handle the sword (cover term for Bible, for all my military friends) correctly is dwindling. Preachers use it to push their own agenda, rather than letting it push their agenda. I constantly hear non-believers decry the bible as brutal, evil, homophobic, a bunch of fairy tales, and false. And rather than investigating the truth of the Bible for themselves, even Christians try to explain away the “unpopular” or convicting passages by all kinds of very creative and illogical means. I hear people say that there are many different ways to interpret the Bible, so why should anyone insist that a certain doctrine or teaching must be interpreted a certain way? Now, granted there are certain matters of personal discretion that the Bible affords, such as drinking. We shouldn’t ostracize other believers for drinking or not drinking but just encourage them to hold to their own personal convictions from the Lord (Romans 14). Some matters of doctrine can be divisive (not the Bible’s fault but our own) if Christians aren’t careful to treat one another with love and keep things in reasonable perspective. However, the Word is very clear on all of the major teachings and should be used as a unifying source, rather than one of division. If the Bible is not taken seriously in America, supposed by many to be a Christian nation, and isn’t even held closely to by Christians, how do you suppose it is viewed in other parts of the world or by non-believers? Christians must realize that without God’s Word this world is hopeless. There would be no instruction from our creator in how we should live, govern, treat one another, and there would be no hope for anything beyond this cruel death-stricken world. Maybe if we treated the Bible how it should be treated--by doing  what it says—others would recognize it as the beacon of hope that it is.

Luke 6:49

(NIV)
^{49 “}But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

I readily admit that there are very difficult passages of scripture to interpret, but I have never come across a passage or verse that I could not find a reasonable, well researched explanation for. I see people throw out Old Testament verses from Leviticus or Numbers that at first glance can be very confusing or even disturbing to our 21^st Century American worldview. I want to touch on the 3 main categories of Bible challenges that I see thrown at us today. As I am granted time, I hope to cover the following topics in individual blog posts:

Old Testament Laws

Contradictions

Miracles and Scientific/Historical Inaccuracies

I want to be fair and not pick the low hanging fruit, so if you have had difficulty with a challenging passage, topic or teaching, feel free to suggest a topic in the comment box below or on Facebook if we are friends. Same goes for my atheist/skeptic friends out there! I don’t have all the answers, but I know I can find them.

I also hope to write a post on the evidence I hold to in knowing that the Bible is true, God’s word, and the only source of truth and hope for this world.

I pray that He will strengthen our trust in Him, and that we would show others the reason for the hope we have in Him. Above all, I pray we would hear His word and obey it, placing our hope firmly on Him as our Rock and solid foundation.

And remember:

Hebrews 4:12
(NIV)
¹² For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

iPhones and Radiodating

I really enjoy my iPhone. I had an old flip phone up until last January when I upgraded to this. It has really been an awesome tool for researching and growing in The Lord. When I'm driving my 30 min commute I can tune in to my favorite YouTube channels and or listen to sermons, etc. Great way to  always learn new things without taking time from family or work. I highly recommend upgrading if you have not yet. We signed up with virgin and bought our phones up front cash. The long term savings is amazing. Plus now we are hip. Nothing can substitute hipness. With that said, check out this video from Ian Juby's YouTube channel. He did a really good job explaining how we date lava flows with radio-metric dating. He has touched on this subject in the past but this was a very clear explanation. He also talks about the very strong geological evidence for a young earth in line with the biblical flood model. Very very compelling! My evolutionist brother wants to study to become a geologist and I am thrilled because he is brilliant and was once convinced of the global flood. I know thy unless he blinds himself he will see the evidence for himself and reconsider his position (again)!
Genesis Week

Why no new Posts?

For all of my regular blog readers, I apologize for my updating in so long! I am in the military and I just received orders to move to a new base. This is exciting but also very time consuming and I have had no free time to put together any decent thoughts. Once things settle down I hope to get some new content out. Thanks for reading! 

Why I don't Believe in Evolution:

As you probably know by now, I don’t believe in evolution. Now, I’ve heard some people say, “I don’t just believe in evolution, I know it as a fact. It is just science.” So let me be clear: I don’t believe in the molecules-to-man evolution myth. So why don’t I believe it? Do I think the science community has created a massive, insidious conspiracy against truth and God? No. I believe the vast majority of modern scientists are very competent, objective and unbiased in how they approach their work. In fact, the overwhelming majority of science work done has nothing or little to do with the origins controversy. For example, developing a new rocket, curing cancer, even studying and observing fossils can be done without any opinion on how human life arose. When people like Bill Nye (the Science Guy) claim that the creationist core of America is holding us back in the scientific realm, I laugh (not really though). He says we need our children to grow up believing in evolution (he calls it science) so we can grow engineers and scientists to keep our edge in science and innovation.

 

Perhaps the Science Guy never heard the global broadcast from the Moon in which the Apollo 11 astronauts read the Genesis creation account after they accomplished what no other human being had ever done. Or maybe he never learned about Galeleo, Kepler, Newton, or Faraday: their scientific contributions and creationist beliefs. Their belief in a creator did not stop them from revolutionizing science forever. I suggest instead that what is holding us back in science is our lack of quality education for our young people—math and science (true sciences like biology, chemistry, physics, etc) are both areas that take effort and drive to excel in. Our young people (thankfully there are still plenty of exceptions out there) in general seem more content to free-load than to contribute, more content to pass than to excel, and more apt to cut corners than to go the extra mile. There is reason for concern in regards to our nation’s scientific and innovative health, but how one interprets the billions of dead things found buried all over our globe has nothing to do with one’s ability to conduct good science and to innovate.

I believe the Bible gives the best explanation as to how the universe came into being. So how do I think today’s scientific community with all their great minds has come to the wrong conclusion? Science has handicapped itself in the search for truth by tying one hand behind its own back. The scientific community has leant itself to searching out naturalistic causes for what we see today. This makes complete sense! But this also means that even the thought or consideration of a designer or God being responsible for anything we see is completely dismissed as non-science and discarded. If faced with a conundrum, science will always either come up with a very improbable but perhaps plausible explanation or even say “we don’t know” rather than “maybe God did it”. Science has given itself a very narrow field of view when it comes to origins, only accepting naturalistic causes and forsaking anything that is outside this realm. What is wrong with that? Well, I don’t really have a problem with that, except that they claim to have come the correct answer and refuse to consider anything other than their answer. Science tries to find plausible natural causes, not the truth. A lot of the time a plausible natural cause IS the truth. However, when science can’t explain the first life (life coming from non-life defies the law of biogenesis ) or how matter was created out of nothing (defying the law of conservation of matter), science will never provide the truth. However, as it stands today, if you believe anything other than the religiously scientific community’s conclusion on the matter, you are dumb and probably also believe that the world is flat (that is what they seem to say more often than not, haha). I suggest that the science community’s answer for the origin of life and the universe should come with the caveat “considering only naturalistic causes we believe … may have happened”. I believe “Science” needs to be put back in its place, seeing as it has in a way taken the place of God in our society. Evolution is not just a theory today, it is also a worldview in which there is no moral absolute and no God to live for, just yourself and humanity. In contrast, past leading scientists used science to know God the creator better. Johann Kepler viewed science as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him”.

So why has molecules-to-man evolution over billions of years become so widely accepted in the scientific community? I tell you it is not for evidence that this is the theory of popular choice, but for it being the most palatable (remember, science has to explain everything without God). How else might someone explain the human brain or eye coming together without a designer? The ONLY way to make a natural cause even somewhat believable is if you break the development up into tiny, palatable bites to be eaten over a very long period of time.

But there must be evidence for evolution, right?

If evolution were true, the fossil record should be chalked full of intermediate species and missing links. Actually, if evolution were true, we should see a continuum of species from least to most complex, with such small, subtle differences between “species” that one couldn’t even categorize them except by time of existence. Rather, what we have seen is evolutionists and paleontologists failing to find any suitable “missing links” and instead either faking finds, or using very incomplete fossils to inspire an artist’s rendition of what the creature could have looked like, etc. The severe problem of not finding intermediate fossils in the record has not caused the evolutionists to lose faith! Instead they suppose that the changes from one kind to another were so rapid that the fossil record had no time to capture the intermediates. The proof of this concept is that there is no proof! Instead of deducting that since there is no evidence for evolution, it didn’t happen, they come up with a new theory that doesn’t need the evidence. Because remember, evolution is a known fact and if you don’t believe it, you are an idiot and probably don’t believe in gravity either (I will admit, that is a dangerous unbelief). And if you work for a school or scientific organization with any dignity, you can expect to be fired, shunned and never hired into another similar organization again (watch Expelled if you don’t believe me).

Evolution is cute and all, some random mutation that so-happens to give the creature an advantage over the others, thus preserving and transmitting this new improvement to future generations. But how practical is this? In order for humans to be what we are today, rather than still being simple pond scum, natural selection needs to be a stronger force than mutation is a negative force. Birth defects (bad mutations) in the heart, brain, respiratory system, immune system, reproductive system, etc, must be less substantial than mutations that create a better heart, brain, respiratory system, immune system, reproductive system, etc. So since evolution is fact and all, why do people get genetic screenings for their kids? Is it to check out and see all the cool new gizmos and gadgets their kids will bring to the human race? No! Reality check: if given the choice between having a kid with 1000 mutations (a genetic copy error) or 0 mutations, parents would always choose 0. People don’t really believe in evolution. Evolutionary scientists tell people evolution happened and people are too trusting (or lazy) to think for themselves with any sort of rational thought. Dr. John Sanford, a geneticist, professor at Cornell University, and creationist explains human evolution as down, not up (Start this short video at the 1:30 mark). These genetic copy errors, or mutations are polluting our race at a great rate and this is bringing about more genetic problems for each new generation. Makes sense, right? If you keep copying information over and over, random copying errors add up to detract from the original message, not improve it.

So then, what is the evidence for the earth being billions of years old? Doesn’t radiometric dating prove that the rocks on planet Earth are millions and billions of years old? Radiometric dating is extremely limited when it comes to dating new rocks. Instances of rocks with known recent ages (recently formed in observed volcanic eruptions) have been assigned ages in the hundreds of millions of years using radiometric dating methods. Radiometric dating will NEVER show a rock to be 6,000 years old. Watch the following 10 min video for more details and how radiometric dating works. I am sure I will write more about this topic as well as Carbon-14 dating in the future.

I am not suggesting that evolution is a giant conspiracy created to destroy religion. Although sometimes it does seem that way, I believe that the vast majority of evolutionists are operating out of pure intentions and are just trying to be successful in their fields. Today’s science community should learn from past history and not be so quick to dismiss anyone who dissents from the majority opinion as being wrong or deceitful. Science has been wrong in the past, why should we think that it won’t happen again? What about you? Have you objectively looked at the “data” available to you from all sides and made an informed decision? Have you, like science, disregarded any possibility of God being the answer? Or perhaps you have been raised as a Christian and have tried to avoid anything to do with dinosaurs, evolution or the origins debate for fear that it would weaken your faith. If the Bible is true, we should only be reassured when we investigate God’s creation, past and present. I have researched many different topics and issues in the origins debate and I must testify that I am continually blown away at how accurate and complete the Bible is when it comes to our planet’s history. The only explanation for this is that the Bible truly is God’s word, given to us that we might know our creator personally and live our lives in grateful appreciation for what He has done for us.

I plan to write plenty more on this issue, highlighting certain issues or topics as I come across them. If you have any questions or recommendations for future topics, let me know! In the near future I plan to write about why we can trust the Bible as accurate (discussing supposed contradictions and other commonly leveled accusations), and also why Christians should not accept molecules-to-man evolution.

Thanks for reading!