Friday, March 25, 2005

Rex regorum Creator est

Soft Tissues Recovered from Ancient Dinosaur

They just don't get it, do they? Dinosaur flesh doesn't sit around for 70 million years and still come out of the ground soft. Sorry, but it just doesn't happen.

[the] dinosaur bone...contain[s]...blood vessels and other soft tissues

It's a scientific impossibility that this animal's remains have been so perfectly preserved for so long.

The bone came from a T. Rex that died some 70 million years ago, and its tissues should be long gone by now.

Naw, really? Of course it shouldn't be there--but it is. And what do they do? Here are the choices:

  1. Question that the bone really is 70 million years old, and therefore question the scientific model that requires the bone to be 70 million years old.
  2. Find some miraculous conditions at the time of burial and the time in the ground (in the intervening eons) that would enable this humble bone to defy the principles of science.
  3. Simply say "It is; according to our models, it shouldn't be; but it still is; so why question anything?"
  4. Ignore the evidence completely, either by denying the legitimacy of the research or by keeping oneself willfully ignorant of recent developments.

Being the perceptive, logical folks they are, NPR and the scientists involved have chosen #3 (until, of course, an adequate #2 can be fabricated). I'm glad the scientific community is still committed to objective analysis of evidence, without clinging to any specific models/theories when they're negated by facts. Like this fellow, Dr Ralph Molnar, who's a paleontologist for the Queensland Museum. He says of Megalania:

One of the things that we have is a part of the hip bone or pelvis. Now this specimen actually looks like it had come from an animal that looks like it died two or threehundred years ago. All dry, chalky, this sort of thing. Doesn’t actually mean it died two or three hundred years ago. In Montana, I’ve seen dinosaur bones that look like they’ve come from animals that died two or three hundred years ago, and I know very well that they died much longer than that. It gives the suggestion that Megalania may have been alive fairly recently.
‘Into the Unknown,’ Discovery Channel, 21 October 1997.

Let's look at that again..."this specimen...looks like it had come from an animal that...died two or three hundred years ago." Okay, so the evidence is that the bone is relatively young (it's "All dry, chalky, this sort of thing"). He says that even some dinosaur bones have these attributes. But "I know very well that they died much longer than that." Well, now, sonny--you just crossed the line. Before, you were looking at the evidence and drawing a conclusion from it--bones are young, so animal died (relatively) recently. Now, you're saying that the same rules don't apply for bones you know must be older than that. Nevermind the evidence, you're picking option #3 when it comes to dinosaurs. But wait! Since Megalania doesn't quite fall into the same category, you're willing to entertain "the suggestion that Megalania may have been alive fairly recently." So now you're taking option #1! (Except he won't question his high priest, the almighty Theory Hypothesis of Evolution.) Inconsistent? I think so.

Same deal here with these well-preserved dinosaur bones. New discovery, dinosaur bones have all the trappings of being young. But since we know that they're old, this must be a miracle of preservation conditions! Never will they question the presuppositions that cause them to think something (that they're 70 million years old) that is out of line with the evidence (that they're much younger). Therefore, they have crossed from the realm of science to interpretation based on a religious dogma. Evolution will never be questioned, so there will never be an objective analysis of the evidence. What's the use, then? The whole pursuit of science has now been nullified.

Edit (03/29): AiG has published a brief article on this find here.