Thursday, March 24, 2005
Tyrannosaur morsels
Look! A scrap of soft tissue extracted from dinosaur bone:
Demineralized fragments of endosteally derived tissues lining the marrow cavity of the T. rex femur. The demineralized fragment is flexible and resilient and, when stretched (arrow), returns to its original shape.
Dr GH has already promised to describe this new find in more detail on The Panda's Thumb, so I'm going to be very brief—keep an eye on The Thumb for more.
Anyway, it has been reported in Science this week that well-preserved soft tissues have been found deep within the bones of a T. rex, and also within some hadrosaur fossils. This is amazing stuff; fine structure has been known to be preserved to this level of detail before, but these specimens also show signs of retaining at least some of their organic composition. What the authors have done is to carefully dissolve away the mineral matrix of the bone, exposing delicate and still flexible scraps of tissue inside.
Here, for example, is a piece of endothelial tissue, or the tubelike epithelia that line blood vessels and form capillaries. It is compared to a similarly prepared piece from fresh ostrich bone; you can tell the T. rex fragment has undergone some changes, but it's comparable in size and organization to the bird sample.
(I) T. rex vessel fragment showing detail of branching pattern and structures morphologically consistent with endothelial cell nuclei (arrows) in vessel wall. (J) Ostrich blood vessel liberated from demineralized bone after treatment with collagenase shows branching pattern and clearly visible endothelial nuclei.
Looking more closely with a scanning electron microscope, here's a similar piece of T. rex blood vessel that has ruptured, spilling out its contents. Maybe those cells don't look perfectly preserved, but they're darned close.
Exploded T. rex vessel showing small round microstructures partially embedded in internal vessel walls.
And lastly, here's a closeup of the surface of that epithelia, compared with an ostrich epithelium. The cells here are very, very flat, and the nuclei are the thickest part, bulging up and giving the surface a pebbled appearance. The T. rex epithelium has a similar pebbly look, suggesting that just maybe there is even some subcellular structure preserved.
(E) Higher magnification of a portion of T. rex vessel wall, showing hypothesized endothelial nuclei (EN). (F) Similar structures visible on fixed ostrich vessel. Striations are seen in both (E) and (F) that may represent endothelial cell junctions or alternatively may be artifacts of the fixation/dehydration process.
How could this be? Here's the authors' explanation.
…we demonstrate the retention of pliable soft-tissue blood vessels with contents that are capable of being liberated from the bone matrix, while still retaining their flexibility, resilience, original hollow nature, and three-dimensionality. Additionally, we can isolate three-dimensional osteocytes with internal cellular contents and intact, supple filipodia that float freely in solution. This T. rex also contains flexible and fibrillar bone matrices that retain elasticity. The unusual preservation of the originally organic matrix may be due in part to the dense mineralization of dinosaur bone, because a certain portion of the organic matrix within extant bone is intracrystalline and therefore extremely resistant to degradation. These factors, combined with as yet undetermined geochemical and environmental factors, presumably also contribute to the preservation of soft-tissue vessels. Because they have not been embedded or subjected to other chemical treatments, the cells and vessels are capable of being analyzed further for the persistence of molecular or other chemical information.
So, basically, these cells were entombed in a thick mineral sarcophagus, protected from bacteria and other external insults. There have to have been other factors at play—cells are full of enzymes that trigger a very thorough self-destruct sequence at death—so I'm definitely looking forward to the molecular analysis. Even if their form was preserved, I expect these cells to be denatured monomer soup on the inside.
Schweitzer MH, Wittmeyer JL, Horner JR, Toporski JK (2005) Soft-Tissue Vessels and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307(5717):1952-1955.
Comments:
Well, as soon as I saw the headline on Yahoo I "ran" over here to get the real details. Several (dozen) clicks of the refresh button later, and I have my fix. Thanks, PZ!
So what's the big deal? By definition this can be no older than 4004 BC. Probably Satan made it look older to challenge our faith.
Or I could, seriously, find this a really exciting, very revealing and utterly fascinating bit of evidence that we are learning how to analyze bits of the past we've learned to examine, and explain.
No, on the other hand, thinking is hard. I say this can only be explained by Satan.
Somebody was actually given 1/4 of a page to explain this in a a local paper. Since it's owned by a large, nationwide syndicate, we know it has to be true.
I'm hoping this is all good, but I can't help but recall what happened the last time with Schweitzer and Horner's "rex blood" (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html)
I'm gonna hang on for more info before I get my hopes too high.
Dinosaur cells? Deadly theme park islands ahead!
N.Y. Times has an article online which will be appearing on Page One tomorrow. From the article:
Dr. Schweitzer and other scientists not connected with the research cautioned that further analysis of the specimens was required before they could be sure the tissues had indeed survived unaltered. They said the extraction of DNA for studies of dinosaur genetics and cloning experiments was only a long shot.
But in a separate article in Science, Dr. Lawrence Witmer, a paleontologist at Ohio University, who had no part in the research, said: "If we have tissues that are not fossilized, then we can potentially extract DNA. It's very exciting."
If the tissues are as well preserved as they seem, the scientists held out some hope of recovering intact proteins, which are less fragile and more abundant DNA. Proteins might provide clues to the evolutionary relationship of dinosaurs to other animals and possibly help solve the puzzle of dinosaur physiology: whether, as argued, dinosaurs were unlike other reptiles in being warm-blooded.
"If we can isolate certain proteins, we can address the issue of the physiology of dinosaurs," Dr. Schweitzer said.
What is this? Extra fortified freakin' cool science day?
Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
"Deadly theme park islands ahead!"
Ted Turner should give up his bison-meat restaurant chain, and start working on a ritzy chain serving vat-grown hadrosaur steaks.
Maybe it'd be easier to grow big hunks of meat, than it would be to grow functional organisms.
Also, they'd have more room for fudging. If it came down to it, they could put some hadrosaur DNA into alligator or ostrich eggs, and work from there. They'd just need to be able to grow slabs of meat, so it wouldn't matter if the result was effectively 99.99% ostrich meat. There'd be dinosaur in the mix, which would be enough for marketing purposes.
This is all assuming that they could obtain DNA, which is probably unlikely. But then, obtaining soft tissue at all was also unlikely.
Holy...freakin'...cow.
I had no idea this kind of preservation was possible. Even if there's not much more we're able to learn from this, I'll never be able to look at fossils the same way.
I suppose I should have known at least a little better, but I'm used to thinking of fossils as rocks that tell us wonderful tales of what once existed but that are, in and of themselves, barely worth calling "bones." Now I find they can be on the opposite end of the spectrum...almost like mummies. Suddenly I'm no longer holding a rock, but a genuine piece of some incredible animal millions of years gone.
To quote Syndrome: "I'm still geeking out about it."
It could be done. But who wants to eat ostrich meat? Or lizard steak? I see more of a market in the entertainment / biblical parks industry. Dinosaurs may have no resistance to bird diseases, chicken flu may extinguish them again.
I'm so glad I wasn't the first to wonder what T. rex taste like.
If it doesn't taste like chicken, does that mean birds aren't really dinosaurs?
"It could be done. But who wants to eat ostrich meat?"
Ostrich isn't bad, actually. Does *not* taste like chicken. There was a recent damp-squib boomlet in ostrich farming a few years back, because people thought it'd become a popular, healthier alternative to beef.
I'm sure there are exotic meat outlets online where you can buy alligator meat. Never tried that.
Clones! Clooooones!
I know. Sorry. I just couldn't help myself.
I don't know about alligator, but I had crocodile once, and I imagine they'd be similar. It was sort of like pork chops.
Alligator isn't far off of pork either. It's the other other other white meat.
I found alligator to be too chewy. I can imagine it surviving intact for 65 my, even unfossilized.
You're not supposed to eat the skin, Harry.
Good, no can somebody please nail down Michael Crichton?
So what's the big deal? By definition this can be no older than 4004 BC. Probably Satan made it look older to challenge our faith.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one who immediately thought that. YECs may be out to destroy science as we know it, but they're doing wonders for my sense of irony.
P.Z.
Do you have any images of the analogous structures from reptiles for further comparison?
So what are the creationists saying about this? I remember seeing news in recent years about the fossilisation of ancient soft tissue - dinosaur eggs, I recall, but not even semi-preservation of the tissues themselves. But, then, I'm an ex-physicist, so what do I know? I don't regard it as axiomatic that tissues can't be semi-preserved for a long, long, time - dried-out ancient bacteria seem to be discovered all the time these days - but it is amazing. Why didn't bacteria eat the tissue before fossilisation set in, or even afterwards? Is this really a first? Don't fossil collectors section some fossil bones as a matter of routine?
Certainly, there's some interesting scientific work ahead.
There are interesting comments and some speculation from a UK 'ancient bio-molecule' specialist about this matter on the BBC's web page reporting it - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4379577.stm. (Is there markup available here to make that a clickable link?)
Does anyone know if the tissue work can definitively address the issue of dinosaurs being warm- or cold-blooded?
Great stuff. You realize, of course, that I study vascular endothelial cells in my lab, because I'm interested in tumor angiogenesis. This gives me an idea for a grant proposal:
Dinosaur angiogenesis, anyone?
It would be interesting to see if the blood cells are nucleated.
JM, I'm sure the basic creationist response will be "See! It's UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for soft tissue to survive in any form for millions of years! CLEARLY this is consistent with what we see in 4000 year old specimens. Evolution has now been undeniably disproven!"
Orac, in the justification, you'll have to promise to cure dinosaurian cancer.
And I know creationists are going to be jumping all over this in their usual clueless, dumb-as-a-stick fashion. Rather than looking for a reasonable explanation for this observation within local phenomena, they'd rather use it as an excuse to throw out all of physics and geology.
PZ,
Of course. Why else would one want to study dinosaurian angiogenesis...
There's certainly hope that more than monomers remain. "Spongy organic material" likely means proteins have survived. It's going to take some kickass biochemistry to pull them out and determine the original amino acids sequence, true, but damn, what a goal!!
Boy, are you guys slow. AIG almost scooped you on this one:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0325Dino_tissue.asp
So will this new evidence cause anyone to stand up and say there’s something funny about the emperor’s clothes? Not likely. Instead, it will almost certainly become an “accepted” phenomenon that even “stretchy” soft tissues must be somehow capable of surviving for millions of years. (Because, after all, we “know” that this specimen is “70 million years old”.) See how it works?
Schweitzer’s mentor, the famous “Dinosaur Jack” Horner (upon whom Sam Neill’s lead character in the Jurassic Park movies was modeled) is already urging museums to consider cracking open some of the bones in their existing dinosaur fossils in the hope of finding more such “Squishosaurus” remains. He is excited about the potential to learn more about dinosaurs, of course. But—nothing about questioning the millions of years—sigh!
I invite the reader to step back and contemplate the obvious. This discovery gives immensely powerful support to the proposition that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most.
Foucault
Why do you wonder what creationists will think of it? Because you know deep down that this particular bit of evidence fits their model better than the long ages of evolution.
But instead of making up ridiculous parodies of creationists' responses, see what they really say at http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0325Dino_tissue.asp
My prediction is fulfilled. Rather than trying to understand the mechanism of preservation, the creationists propose invalidating physics in order to make excuses for their ridiculous 6000 year old earth dogma.
PZMyers wrote:
My prediction is fulfilled. Rather than trying to understand the mechanism of preservation, the creationists propose invalidating physics in order to make excuses for their ridiculous 6000 year old earth dogma.
The same sort of criticism can be levelled at the evolutionsts, as the AiG article did (my bolding):
Unfortunately, the long-age paradigm is so dominant that facts alone will not readily overturn it. As philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn pointed out, what generally happens when a discovery contradicts a paradigm is that the paradigm is not discarded but modified, usually by making secondary assumptions, to accommodate the new evidence.What physics have supposedly been invalidated by the creationists? I presume you are referring to radiometric dating, but can you show where creationists propose invalidating physics to question the date? I reckon you can't.
That’s just what appears to have happened in this case. When Schweitzer first found what appeared to be blood cells in a T. Rex specimen, she said, “It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it. I said to the lab technician: “The bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?’” Notice that her first reaction was to question the evidence, not the paradigm. That is in a way quite understandable and human, and is how science works in reality (though when creationists do that, it’s caricatured as non-scientific).
So will this new evidence cause anyone to stand up and say there’s something funny about the emperor’s clothes? Not likely. Instead, it will almost certainly become an “accepted” phenomenon that even “stretchy” soft tissues must be somehow capable of surviving for millions of years. (Because, after all, we “know” that this specimen is “70 million years old”.) See how it works?
We always question the evidence. That's no surprise.
The determination that the earth is 4.5 billion years old is the work of physicists and geologists, not biologists. Anyone who wants to claim it is only 6000 years old had better be prepared to address the issues their ludicrous claims raise in those disciplines.
Unfortunately, the long-age paradigm is so dominant that facts alone will not readily overturn it.
The age of the Earth is a measurement, not a "doctrine" or a "paradigm". Anyone who claims otherwise will have to show why the physicists can't do the measuerments they've shown they can do.
But instead of making up ridiculous parodies of creationists' responses...
Parodies of creationists = coals to Newcastle. In the arena of ridiculousness, we are but the rankest of amateurs compared to them.
I presume you are referring to radiometric dating, but can you show where creationists propose invalidating physics to question the date? I reckon you can't.
It's easy when you realise that the figure of 6000 years is totally arbitrary. It's arrived at by summing the approximate ages of Biblical characters. Why not base the figure on the number of times Allah is mentioned in the Koran, or the number of e's in Through The Looking Glass? Why not just claim that the universe is 30 years old, and the rest is a Matrix style illusion? Skyhooks, my friend.
I may have missed someone else mentioning it, but this discovery was pure serendipity, and I'm not referring to finding the bone. It seems, at least according to the artiicle I read, that the bone was too big to fit into the truck to carry it back to their camp, so they broke it in two. Only then did they discover that it contained soft tissue. I can now see every paleontologist in the world with a collection of fossil dinosaur bones cracking them open one by one like some predator looking for a meal of marrow in his/her quest for a major discovery.
PZ Myers wrote:
We always question the evidence. That's no surprise.You missed the rest of the sentence: "[but] not the paradigm".
PZ Myers wrote:
Anyone who wants to claim it is only 6000 years old had better be prepared to address the issues their ... claims raise in those disciplines.They do.
And I notice that you ignored my challenge to back up the claims you made.
euan wrote:
The age of the Earth is a measurement, not a "doctrine" or a "paradigm".You cannot measure age. You measure isotopes and determine an age from that, based on several assumptions, including assumptions that deny the Biblical record. That puts it in the category of a doctrine.
Neil wrote:
Parodies of creationists = coals to Newcastle. In the arena of ridiculousness, we are but the rankest of amateurs compared to them.More bluster, no substance.
I wrote:
I presume you are referring to radiometric dating, but can you show where creationists propose invalidating physics to question the date? I reckon you can't.Ben responded:
It's easy ...So why didn't you do it, instead of raising a new issue? Perhaps it's not so easy after all?
Ben continued:
...when you realise that the figure of 6000 years is totally arbitrary. It's arrived at by summing the approximate ages of Biblical characters.Incorrect. It is derived by adding the ages of Biblical characters when they had their offspring. And that makes perfect mathematical sense. What is "arbitrary" about adding up consecutive periods of time to derive a total period of time? Whereas your alternatives are arbitrary, as they have nothing to do with adding consecutive periods of time.
Incorrect. It is derived by adding the ages of Biblical characters when they had their offspring. And that makes perfect mathematical sense. What is "arbitrary" about adding up consecutive periods of time to derive a total period of time?
Because you're not taking into account the fact that the source you're using to formulate the figure has ever been proven to be anything more than a popular work of fiction. Is the Bible any more credible a source than a random work by Lewis Carroll because it covers a greater time period? Nope, they're both equally pertinant to the issue of calculating the age of the universe: not at all.
The age of the Earth is a measurement, not a "doctrine" or a "paradigm".
You cannot measure age. You measure isotopes and determine an age from that, based on several assumptions,
Any constant-rate process produces an age, and nuclear decays are measured as constant rate processes.
including assumptions that deny the Biblical record. That puts it in the category of a doctrine.
Now who's blustering, Mr Hypocrite?
I think he's asserting that spurious and arbitrary data can be transmogrified into reasonable and accurate results as long as the method of analysis is sound. More skyhooks.
Ben wrote:
Because you're not taking into account the fact that the source you're using to formulate the figure has ever been proven to be anything more than a popular work of fiction.The accuracy or otherwise of the Bible (which has been shown in many parts many times over) is a separate issue than the arbitrariness or otherwise of totalling time periods. Does switching arguments an acknowledgement that the argument of it being arbitrary holds no water?
euan wrote:
Any constant-rate process produces an age, and nuclear decays are measured as constant rate processes.No, a constant-rate process produces the daughter product of the process. I already indicated that the process can be measured, but as I said, deriving an age from that depends on a number of assumptions. This is clear from the fact that derived ages don't always agree, and in these cases the different ages are often harmonised by modifying some of those assumptions.
Additionally, the methods have often been shown to be wrong on rocks of a known age, so why should they be trusted on rocks of an unknown age?
euan also wrote:
Now who's blustering, Mr Hypocrite?Name-calling now? And how is what I said "bluster"?
I garbled a sentence of mine in the previous post. It should have read: "Is switching arguments an acknowledgement that the claim of it being arbitrary holds no water?"
The accuracy or otherwise of the Bible (which has been shown in many parts many times over) is a separate issue than the arbitrariness or otherwise of totalling time periods.
Are you insane? The accuracy of the source is the FOUNDATION of whether or not data, and hence the arguments, are arbitrary. Explain to me how using the aforementioned method of analysis on the ages of Biblical characters has any bearing on the age of the universe, and I'll show you how the number of replies in this thread has any bearing on the dimensions of my bedroom.
Ben kindly asked:
Are you insane?No.
Ben wrote:
The accuracy of the source is the FOUNDATION of whether or not data, and hence the arguments, are arbitrary. Explain to me how using the aforementioned method of analysis on the ages of Biblical characters has any bearing on the age of the universe, and I'll show you how the number of replies in this thread has any bearing on the dimensions of my bedroom.If you use a correct method on bad data, you will get a bad result. But that doesn't therefore mean that it was not a correct method to use if the data was correct. Adding up the numbers of years since birth until the next measured offspring of a series of generations that claim to begin at the beginning of creation is therefore a valid—and therefore not "arbitrary"—method of calculating the age of the Earth and will therefore give a correct result if the ages are correct and do begin with creation. I know that you disagree with the last point, but that is a separate issue to whether or not the method itself is arbitrary.
I will be interested to see your explanation of how the number of replies in this thread are related to the dimensions of your bedroom, considering that the number of replies in this thread keeps changing. You must have an interesting bedroom!
Adding up the numbers of years since birth until the next measured offspring of a series of generations that claim to begin at the beginning of creation is therefore a valid—and therefore not "arbitrary"—method of calculating the age of the Earth and will therefore give a correct result if the ages are correct and do begin with creation.
Creation is an assumption. The correctness of Biblical ages is an assumption. The relevance of anything Biblical to the issue of the age of the Earth is an assumption. Any data or arguments extrapolated from these sources is arbitrary. The METHOD isn't arbitrary (I never said it was), but the DATA and the RESULTS are. As I said, you seem to be asserting that spurious and arbitrary data can be transmogrified into reasonable and accurate results as long as the method of analysis is sound. You'll need to do a better job of explaining how this is logically possible, or else your argument remains nonsensical.
No, a constant-rate process produces the daughter product of the process. I already indicated that the process can be measured, but as I said, deriving an age from that depends on a number of assumptions.
That the time of day can be derived fom counting the ticks of a clock is deriving an age from a constant rate process. That this doesn't apply to rocks is simply special pleading
This is clear from the fact that derived ages don't always agree, and in these cases the different ages are often harmonised by modifying some of those assumptions.
Really? Where is this happening? Which rocks? Which assumptions? By being vague about this you are not arguing with facts but with the bluster you deride in other people.
Additionally, the methods have often been shown to be wrong on rocks of a known age, so why should they be trusted on rocks of an unknown age?
Often? Can you produce many such an examples, or is this just you and AIG making shit up?
Name-calling now? And how is what I said "bluster"?
Because you offered no proof, only your own egotistic certainty.
Ben wrote:
Creation is an assumption. The correctness of Biblical ages is an assumption. The relevance of anything Biblical to the issue of the age of the Earth is an assumption.Both sides have assumptions. But at least creationists acknowledge theirs.
Ben wrote:
Any data or arguments extrapolated from these sources is arbitrary. The METHOD isn't arbitrary (I never said it was), but the DATA and the RESULTS are. As I said, you seem to be asserting that spurious and arbitrary data can be transmogrified into reasonable and accurate results as long as the method of analysis is sound.You indicated that the result was arbitrary because of the choice of method. That amounts to the same thing. How can you claim that I argue that "spurious and arbitrary data can be transmogrified into reasonable and accurate results as long as the method of analysis is sound" when I specifically said that the accuracy of the results depended on the accuracy of the data?
euan wrote:
That the time of day can be derived fom counting the ticks of a clock is deriving an age from a constant rate process. That this doesn't apply to rocks is simply special pleadingNice analogy! So you've never known a clock to be wrong?
euan wrote:
Really? Where is this happening? Which rocks? Which assumptions? By being vague about this you are not arguing with facts but with the bluster you deride in other people.Not putting all the details in one post is not the same as throwing insults as a defence of an argument.
For starters, consider any of the arguments made to explain away evidence of wrong dates that creationists put forward. For example, from Talk.Origins:
Other factors can produce false isochrons (Stassen 1998; Zheng 1989). For example:
* Protracted fractionation. This requires slow cooling (over millions of years) and produces only a small error.
* Inherited ages as from partial melting. The age given by this method is the age of the source material. Furthermore, this factor requires unusual conditions and usually produces scatter in the isochron plot.
* Metamorphosism. This produces apparent ages younger than the age of the source material.
In other words, there are proposed to be various factors that need to be taken into account before the derived ages can be accepted. You do not simply measure an age. You measure isotope ratios and make a calculation based on what is believed to be the initial quantities, the likelihood of material leaching out or washing in, the likelihood of inclusions of other materials that affect the result, the likelihood of decay rates remaining constant over millions or billions of years, etc. etc. These factors are not directly measurable, as they are past events, so they remain assumptions, reasonable or otherwise. How reasonable are those factors? That depends on your paradigm—uniformitarianism or creationism.
euan wrote:
Often? Can you produce many such an examples, or is this just you and AIG making [deleted] up?The examples I would quote are ones from AiG as detailed in various articles here. No, I'm not making them up, and neither is AiG. Most if not all the dates they quote are calculated by secular laboratories; they are not "made up". Do you have any hard evidence for your insinuation of fraud?
Good night; it's time for me to go to bed.
"Nice analogy! So you've never known a clock to be wrong?"
I once saw a clock that stopped at 12:04:02 AM. Therefore, the evidence that the day is 24 hours long is inconsistent, and it may in fact be only four minutes long.
Four minutes and two seconds. This is SCIENCE, so accuracy counts.
Both sides have assumptions.
Alright, let's hear 'em. I'm in a patient mood.
You indicated that the result was arbitrary because of the choice of method.
Um, I've said about four fucking times now that the results are arbitrary because the source (ie, the data) is assumed to have anything to do with the issue, in this case the cast of Biblical characters with the age of the planet. Would you like me to say it a fifth time? Fuck it, I'll just copy/paste what I originally wrote.
<style illusion? Skyhooks, my friend.</blockquote>
I'm glad that you realise that the accuracy of the data is important. Now explain how you can tell how any of the Biblical data you're using is accurate. THEN tell me hwo it's pertinant to cosmology. WITHOUT using the words "belief" or "faith", and without circular logic. If you can't, then you're blatantly contradicting yourself.
Now you know why I don't use blockquotes very often.
<style illusion? Skyhooks, my friend. </blockquote>
And another thing...
Nice analogy! So you've never known a clock to be wrong?
You dump on his analogy, then you make a dick of yourself by using it in a totally ridiculous way? Sure, the radioisotopic decay stops when the rock's battery goes flat. Moron.
Now you know why I never use blockquotes.
<blockheadquote>That depends on your paradigm—uniformitarianism or creationism.</blockheadquote>
Homework for PJ Rayment: write a two-paragraph essay explaining why the above sentence proves you have no idea what you're talking about.
Do I get to grade these homework assignments?
I was assuming they'd be juried. But if you don't have enough homework to grade, have at it... assuming any of them ever turn in any of their assignments.
"The examples I would quote are ones from AiG [...]. No, I'm not making them up, and neither is AiG. Most if not all the dates they quote are calculated by secular laboratories ..."
Ahem. SECULAR laboratories?
I wonder why they used SECULAR laboratories? I mean, hey, if you're making a Christian argument, why not use laboratories run by CHRISTIAN Scientists?
Hey, Philip, you know what?
Ain't nobody here who has the JOB of educating you. All the knowledge, all the information, is out there. It's as close as your nearest library. There’s probably nearby junior high school students who could explain this stuff to you.
The real problem here is that if there's a brightly-lit place somewhere on Earth where only the truth gets told, you're a thousand miles away in the darkness. Telling lies, talking nonsense.
You're flat-out WRONG. Not because of anything any one person here says, but because you’re actually FIGHTING TO FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THE FACTS.
And because you think WINNING an argument, cowing your opposition, is what determines the truth of the proposition under discussion.
That's just dumb as all hell, boy.
Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you're going to go away from here telling yourself "I sure showed those atheist science assholes a thing or two."
But I hope you don’t. Because you didn’t show anybody anything. You defeated yourself. You’re continuing to defeat yourself, because you DON’T WANT TO LEARN anything about the subject under discussion.
You’re afraid.
For some reason, you find this field of knowledge threatening. And that’s the REAL challenge you face, bucko.
The question is not “Why can’t I make these people understand?” The real question is “What have I let into my head that’s made me so afraid?”
Really.
Hank that was a first rate summary of the situation.
It was really hard to keep reading:
"Your data may be wrong since you pulled it from a fairy tale", Ben.
"My method is not wrong. My data cant be wrong because I already said that bad data produces bad results. My method is not wrong", PJR
repeat..
Ben, please finish them off quicker in the future. I hate watching cats play with mice instead of just eating them. Well maybe not in a metaphorical sense.
Philip scrawled:
More bluster, no substance.
Phillp, me lad, you've stepped into it here. You have blustered on about "assumptions", even quoting from Talk Origins. The problem you have overlooked is that at the end of the day, assumptions must be testable. The radiometric ages determined for rocks must agree with the relative ages determined for the same rocks. Isochron plots are diagnostic diagrams that allow us to test if assumptions of lack of original daughter, or loss of radiogenic daughter hold up.
The typical YEC claims about 'incorrect' radiometric dates in the literature are yet classic examples of the rank dishonesty among creationists:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-geochronology.html
I swear, creationist Bibles must be leaving out the 9th commandment!
Philip Rayment: " It(the age of the earth = 6k years) is derived by adding the ages of Biblical characters..."
Gen1:1 "God created the heavens and the earth"
Gen1:16 " Then God made two great lights... He made the stars also."
Look up at the night sky and pick out any deep space object, say M31. The light that forms the image of that galaxy in your brain left that galaxy over 2 million years ago. And since the Bible says the earth was created BEFORE the stars, then the earth is AT LEAST 2 million years old, NOT 6000.
Nice sarcastic letter to the editor:
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/2253732p-8633667c.html
Phillip, what kind of catastrophe could've possibly fossilized such remains in a very short timespan without destroying them completely?
You wrote the alleged date of creation is derived by adding the ages of Biblical characters when they had their offspring. And that makes perfect mathematical sense
That's sheer BS. The date -- supposedly, 4004 BC -- came from Bishop James Usshar of Armagh, Ireland, in the 1600s. It's pure fiction, even using the ages given in Genesis.
Have you ever actually tried ADDING the numbers in Genesis together? I have. If you assume a starting date of about 1300 BCE (when the historical record can document early Hebrew occupation of Israel, clearly something that had to happen BEFORE Genesis was written down) and work back from there, adding the numbers together takes you back over 8000 years. In other words, not 6000 years ago, but over 11,000 years ago. Logically, you'd also have to add more time to account for the many years Genesis must've been an oral story before it was first written, but we have no way to know how long that was.
Why should we listen to YOU when you can't even check your own "facts", never mind accept other sources of evidence that the writers of that book simply didn't know about then? They were ignorant, but not by choice.
Genesis is simply one culture's story of how they believed they came to be in the world, just like thousands of others worldwide. The fact that it's known by far more people than most other myths and written in a very popular (and badly edited) book does not make it true.
What's more, the infamous date of 4004 BC did not come from adding up the ages of the patriarchs -- it's numerology, pure and simple. Just as there were 7 days in the Creation, there were to be 7 ages of a thousand years each, culminating in the Apocalypse or whatever and a last thousand year kingdom with Jesus back in the saddle. Why 4004 BC? Because Jesus was supposedly born in 4 BC, and all the ages are supposed to be precisely a thousand years long, with 4 ages preceding him.
All sorts of funky wild stuff should have hit the fan in 1996. I missed it.
Given the time he said he had to go to bed, I get the feeling he's in my approximate time zone (unless he's nocturnal). I forgot that it's Easter Sunday and they're all probably at church now. Damn. I should've slept in.
Reading the posts, I feel the creationists above have succeeded in drawing the discussion into a place we have nothing to do. They caused serious scientists compute the generations of Adam and the position of the stars at the first day of Creation. It is ridiculous. PZ is right: this issue was settled a hundred years ago, and no scientist with a minimum of self-respect keeps discussing with people who do not bother to study the basics.
On the other hand, I read the Wedge Project of Discovery Institute, and it is a serious effort that has to be addressed. The basic argument is that the godless, materialistic culture of the 19th Century has generated a hellish 20th Century, so better we go back to former religious ideologies. At this time, more than negating evolutionary biology and other natural sciences, they want to make a place for religions based on the Bible. Scientists debating biblical chronology is what they intend to achieve at this time. The Wedge Project is attacking science and strives to introduce doubt in its completeness not because they find fault with science in itself but because they think its political consequences are bad. They are a political or social movement and the battleground is neither on the science ground nor on the biblical literalicy, but on the political arena.
Ben wrote:
Both sides have assumptions.I'm not about to attempt to list them all, but for starters, creationists assume that the Bible is true, and evolutionists assume that uniformitarianism is true. Both also assume that our senses are reliable enough to study this stuff.
Alright, let's hear 'em. I'm in a patient mood.
Ben wrote:
Nice analogy! So you've never known a clock to be wrong?There are other ways a clock can be wrong. Something might interfere with the mechanism. It might not have been set to the correct time to start with. There's other possibilities also.
You dump on his analogy, then you make a [deleted] of yourself by using it in a totally ridiculous way? Sure, the radioisotopic decay stops when the rock's battery goes flat. Moron.
"Most if not all the dates they quote are calculated by secular laboratories ..." Ahem. SECULAR laboratories?Because you blokes would immediately jump on that and say that creationists invented their own figures. But if they used figures from sources accepted by non-creationists, it makes it harder for you to reject them (or you look sillier doing so).
I wonder why they used SECULAR laboratories? I mean, hey, if you're making a Christian argument, why not use laboratories run by CHRISTIAN Scientists?
Hank Fox wrote an extended piece in which he attempts to read my mind and discover my motives. It added nothing to the discussion except insults and unfounded (and incorrect) speculation.
Neil wrote:
The problem you have overlooked is that at the end of the day, assumptions must be testable.Then they wouldn't be assumptions. Some assumptions are simply not testable, so they must remain assumptions.
Neil wrote:
The typical YEC claims about 'incorrect' radiometric dates in the literature are yet classic examples of the rank dishonesty among creationists:The link was to a paper that disagreed with a creationist paper, and although the author did accuse this particular creationist of not being fully honest, the thrust was not primarily of dishonesty and certainly not "rank dishonesty".
SteveR wrote:
Look up at the night sky and pick out any deep space object, say M31. The light that forms the image of that galaxy in your brain left that galaxy over 2 million years ago. And since the Bible says the earth was created BEFORE the stars, then the earth is AT LEAST 2 million years old, NOT 6000.The stars are over 2 million light-years away, but that is a measure of distance, not time. It only becomes a measure of time with some assumptions, such as the constancy of the speed of light over time (which I am not disagreeing with to any significant extent) and, more generally, the whole Big Bang hypothesis. Creationist cosmologies that explain that apparent paradox have been developed, but that is really getting off the subject.
Gus wrote:
You wrote the alleged date of creation is derived by adding the ages of Biblical characters when they had their offspring. And that makes perfect mathematical senseArchbishop Ussher—just one of many people to come up with a similar date—derived his date by the method I described.
That's sheer [deleted]. The date -- supposedly, 4004 BC -- came from Bishop James Usshar of Armagh, Ireland, in the 1600s. It's pure fiction, even using the ages given in Genesis.
Gus wrote:
Have you ever actually tried ADDING the numbers in Genesis together? I have. If you assume a starting date of about 1300 BCE ... and work back from there, adding the numbers together takes you back over 8000 years.I don't know how you got that figure (perhaps you added their ages at death instead of their ages at the birth of their offspring?) See here for the actual figures. From Adam to Abraham adds up to just over 2000 years.
Gus added:
Why should we listen to YOU when you can't even check your own "facts", ...Hmmm.
PZ Myers wrote:
What's more, the infamous date of 4004 BC did not come from adding up the ages of the patriarchs...Yes it did. Adding their ages at the births of their offspring is precisely how Ussher did it.
jaimito wrote:
Reading the posts, I feel the creationists above have succeeded in drawing the discussion into a place we have nothing to do.Creationists? I've not noticed any others. Anyway, it wouldn't have gone this way if several different anti-creationists didn't bring creationary beliefs into the discussion in a derisory way.
Umm... back to dinosaur bone marrow preserved after 65 million years in an oxidizing atmosphere...
I'm very skeptical about this.
Yes, it's soft tissue of something.
I think they should go in there and do some PCR with conserved primers or mass spec peptide sequencing and do a BLAST at NCBI.
That might be a little more revealing as to what critter this tissue is really from.
Phillip, you don't seem to be grasping one fundamental fact:
When you're in a hole, stop digging.
Then they wouldn't be assumptions. Some assumptions are simply not testable, so they must remain assumptions.
Oooooookkkkkayy...so, when plotting isotope ratios on an isochron diagram, we assume that there was no original daughter and that there was no loss of radiometric daughter. When there are enough points, we test these assumptions by fitting the isochron. If it's a straight line, the assumptions have been tested and (pending further data) are valid. If there's scatter, then the assumptions weren't valid.
Ultimately, we make assumptions to get a result that can be compared with reality. That comparison is the test of the assumptions. This is a concept I readily explain to bright HS students. Let's stay with the program, eh?
The link was to a paper that disagreed with a creationist paper, and although the author did accuse this particular creationist of not being fully honest, the thrust was not primarily of dishonesty and certainly not "rank dishonesty".
Quotes from Schimmrich's paper on Woodmorappe's work (each is from a different section):
"This is a deliberate misquotation of McKee and Noble and this example alone would be enough to prevent publication of this paper in any reputable scientific journal."
"Woodmorappe's quotation of Wasserburg and Lanphere's work was incomplete and misleading."
"Therefore, this data point does not, in any way, support Woodmorappe's thesis that present-day techniques of radiometric dating are unreliable."
"Why didn't Woodmorappe discuss the 40 glauconite dates listed in the data table of this paper that were well within 10% of the expected geologic age?"
"...but if he accuses the authors of "fudging" data he has a responsibility to at least discuss it and to explain why he disagrees."
"The large amount of evidence carefully discussed and referenced by Higgins was totally ignored as if it never existed."
Keep in mind the author of the review is an evangelical Christian! Once or twice might be an honest mistake, but repeated like this it is clearly a case of, uh, design. If I were to receive a paper to review with analogous problems, I'd be on the phone to the editor in an instant.
evolutionists assume that uniformitarianism is true.
Wrong.
It would help your credibility immensely if you stopped arguing against 19th-century science.
OK, no it wouldn't. But it would give people who know what they're talkiing about one less reason to write you off as an ignorant fool.
Philip J. Rament writes: "It only becomes a measure of time with some assumptions, such as the constancy of the speed of light over time (which I am not disagreeing with to any significant extent)..."
If you're not disagreeing, then IT IS a measure of time. And don't forget, I picked a relatively close messier object. 'Slight variations in the speed of light' could easily be overcome by selecting much more distant objects.
Philip J. Rament: " Creationist cosmologies that explain that apparent paradox have been developed .."
I'd be interested to know what they are. Can you provide links?
I'm not about to attempt to list them all, but for starters, creationists assume that the Bible is true, and evolutionists assume that uniformitarianism is true. Both also assume that our senses are reliable enough to study this stuff.
Even if you're right about uniformitarianism (which you're not), don't creationists always rely on that one extra assumption? You also have to "rely" on uniformitarianism, and the reliability of your own senses. Why not use Occham's Razor to slice that superfluous assumption away?
It's all a moot point, however. Your uniformitarianism charge is a lie, and the "reliability of the senses" canard has been debunked by me and others in previous entries as unfalsifiable.
There are other ways a clock can be wrong. Something might interfere with the mechanism. It might not have been set to the correct time to start with. There's other possibilities also.
That's the problem with analogies. They're often the most expedient method of proving beyond all doubt that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Is this the best you can do? Isn't lying a sin in that dusty old book you claim to be the complete moral, historical and scientific history of the universe? I recommend abandoning your little tangent of ignorance and starting all over again. Present your case for the scientific nature of creationism, and we'll start taking it seriously. Until then, it remains a figment of the collective religious imagination whose sole aim is to sucker in gullible fools like yourself.
Now are you unwilling to present that case for creationism without lying, or unable?
Ussher not only determined the age of Creation in years, he also asserted that it began at 9:30 a.m.
Hard to derive that by summing up the length of the generations, unless he had copies of all the birth certificates.
Is that Greenwich Mean Time?
Neil wrote:
Phillip, you don't seem to be grasping one fundamental fact:But I'm not in a hole. Just because you blokes look down on me doesn't mean I'm in a hole.
When you're in a hole, stop digging.
Neil wrote:
Oooooookkkkkayy...so, when plotting isotope ratios on an isochron diagram, we assume that there was no original daughter and that there was no loss of radiometric daughter. When there are enough points, we test these
Again and again, Dr. Myers, you bring out my latent science geek. I'm going to end up dropping out of my current program and going back to school in bio.