The first two parts of this series showed discoveries of dinosaur egg clutches and dinosaur tracks that were not formed during a global catastrophic flood as YEC have proposed. Scientists were surprised by the discovery of fragments of soft tissue in dinosaur bones that are over 100 million years old. YEC seize on this and claim that such soft tissue proves that the dinosaur bones are from Noah’s flood, even if they cannot explain other features like the egg clutches or tracks. This video discusses this claim and how science has learned some of the ways such tissue can last a long, long time.
In most cases, animal bones are destroyed by natural decay processes. In order to preserve the many types of dinosaur tissue that have been found for even the 4000 years that YEC advocate, normal decay must have been halted. If isolated or “sequestered” for such a period of time, how long could it be protected? How long something will last without decaying away, depends a lot on what the conditions were from the start to the present.
In this video, I use a paper by paleontologist, Dr. Philip Senter to discuss some of the important processes discovered so far. This 2022 article is titled, “Soft Tissues in Fossil Bone” and reference information is below. I have tried to simplify some of his language that is no doubt already simplified for non-biochemists like me. Some terms are included without explanation. One should not expect to find answers to geochemical preservation issues without some technical language. Suffice to say that processes have been identified and tested that demonstrate how some dinosaur tissue was preserved. No doubt other processes and details will be recognized over time.
The identification of mechanisms by which tissue can be preserved for millions of years is unlikely to change the minds of most YEC. The existence of such mechanisms does not prove that the bones are millions of years old. It does mean that this argument really should not be used as an argument for a young earth. To make such an argument effective, one would have to demonstrate that the proposed mechanisms did not take place in the dinosaur bones where soft tissue has been reported. That would mean demonstrating the history of these bones in terms of preservation and geochemistry. It would mean demonstrating that processes that preserved tissue for 4000 years would not work for longer periods of time. If they expect to convince geologists that dinosaur bones were deposited relatively recently in a global stratigraphic flood, especially when processes exist that might preserve tissue for long periods of time, they will need to explain how the dinosaur egg clutches formed that I described in Part 1 and how dinosaurs walked around growing trees in a flood and how mudcracks developed in such a flood as described in Part 2. Just because God chose to act differently than some people claim should not cause us to doubt God or His Word. He created the world in ways He chose and in His time.
References:
Armitage, Mark. 2021. “First Report of Peripheral Nerves in Bone from Triceratops Horridus Occipital Condyle.” Microscopy Today 29 (March): 2. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1551929521000468.
Bailleul, Alida M, Wenxia Zheng, John R Horner, Brian K Hall, Casey M Holliday, and Mary H Schweitzer. 2020. “Evidence of Proteins, Chromosomes and Chemical Markers of DNA in Exceptionally Preserved Dinosaur Cartilage.” National Science Review 7 (4): 815–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwz206.
Boatman, Elizabeth M., Mark B. Goodwin, Hoi-Ying N. Holman, Sirine Fakra, Wenxia Zheng, Ronald Gronsky, and Mary H. Schweitzer. 2019. “Mechanisms of Soft Tissue and Protein Preservation in Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Scientific Reports 9 (1): 15678. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-51680-1.
Clarey, Dr Timothy. 2020. Carved in Stone: Geologic Evidence of the Worldwide Flood. ICR Institute for Creation Research.
DSTRI. 2023. “Dinosaur Soft Tissue Research Institute.” March 7, 2023. https://dstri.org/.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2018. A Texas- Sized Challenge to Young Earth Creation and Flood Geology: A Christian Geologist Looks for Answers. Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Rana, Fazale. 2016. Dinosaur Blood and the Age of the Earth. Edited by Joe Aguirre and Sandra Dimas. First Edition. RTB Press.
Schweitzer, Mary, Jennifer Wittmeyer, John Horner, and Jan Toporski. 2005. “Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 307 (April): 1952–55. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1108397.
Senter, Philip J. 2022. “Soft Tissues in Fossil Bone.” 2022. https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2022/3739-soft-tissues-in-fossil-bone.
Snelling, Andrew A. 2009. Earth’s Catastrophic Past. Institute for Creation Research. http://isgenesishistory.s3.amazonaws.com/digital%20downloads/earth-catastrophic-past-1-preview.pdf.
Vail, Peter R., R. M. Mitchum Jr, and Sam Thompson III. 1977. “Seismic Stratigraphy and Global Changes of Sea Level: Part 4. Global Cycles of Relative Changes of Sea Level.: Section 2. Application of Seismic Reflection Configuration to Stratigraphic Interpretation.” https://archives.datapages.com/data/specpubs/seismic1/data/a165/a165/0001/0050/0083.htm.
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