Unfossilised dinosaur bones. Proof that the Creationists are right.

[Cainkane1]

Creationists say that the discovery of dinosaur bones in Alaska that are not obviously fossilized are proof that humans and dinosaurs lived at the sane time. Organs and other tissue from these creatures have apparently been discovered.

What are the scientists saying about this? I see very little rebuttle on the net.

[Cuddles]

Do you have a link to where anyone is saying this?

[H'ethetheth]

Creationists say that the discovery of dinosaur bones in Alaska that are not obviously fossilized are proof that humans and dinosaurs lived at the sane time. Organs and other tissue from these creatures have apparently been discovered.

What are the scientists saying about this? I see very little rebuttle on the net.I haven't looked into it, but I imagine I'll find they're fossilized organs and other tissues.

Edit: Okay, I should really learn to read. Sorry about that. Looking into it...

[Cainkane1]

Do you have a link to where anyone is saying this?
http://www.ggoutdoors.org/product_detail.php?id=253&PHPSESSID=d618e4800c52f804655ff26582104053

For the record I'm a evolutionist and an old earth advocate. I'm a lifelong atheist. I just want to know if the scientific community has addressed this nonsense.

[H3LL]

Quick search and it would seem:

More lies!...Oh! What a surprise!

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Unfossilized_dinosaur_bones

This I found the most revealing:

The claims of these creationists is further suspect because, in their book, which was published in 1998, they claimed that the "unfossilized" dinosaur bones would undergo extensive tests to validate their "unfossilizedness." As to date, 2007, no results have yet to be published.

The comments could be wrong and Wiki may not be the most reliable source, but as with every single claim made by creationists, evidence is VERY thin on the ground and they are not unknown to lie a bit.

If I were in their shoes, and the claims had any basis in reality, I would be on prime TV ASAP, with some famous paleontologists, handing them some bones for testing. It is a massive story that would go global overnight.

Anyway, why shouldn't we believe the paleontologistic expertise of a sculptor (how suspicious can you get), a maths teacher, a shop owner, a dentist and someone with an MS from ICR.

At least they wouldn't confuse drift-wood with fossils...No!...Wait....!!!



.

[Cuddles]

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Unfossilized_dinosaur_bones

I suspect that the main reason the scientific community hasn't addressed this is because even most creationists don't seem to take it seriously. A few unqualified people who can't tell the difference between a bone and a piece of wood claim to have found unfossilised dinosaur bones but fail to do anything about it for over 10 years. Creationists aren't generally stupid, they want things that sound good to the layperson, not obvious crap like this.

As for the organs and tissue, that doesn't seem to be a claim made here. I suspect you have the bone nonsense mixed up with the real discovery of fossilised soft tissue. It's very rare, but certainly real and is extremely interesting since previously all study of dinosaur tissue was based on assumptions and extrapolations from modern animals.

It's also worth noting that it is quite common for people to mix up dinosaurs with other prehistoric things like mammoths. It is entirely possible to find remains from the last ice age that are entirely unfossilised. Unfortunately, DNA tends to degrade even when frozen, so attempts to clone a mammoth have, so far, been unsucessful, but there is nothing strange about finding bones or soft tissue that is tens of thousands of years old, but not tens of millions. The Evowiki link mentions that it is quite possible the creationists here have mixed up ice age remains with dinosaur remains.

Edit: Note to self - must type faster.

[shadron]

Ummmmm.... Just imagine:

Five Souls, huddle against the aching cold of Alaska's wilderness. On a hunt for the truth amid the shrieks of wild animals, the clouds overhead race swiftly. Locked in a remote, frozen wasteland where man has rarely been, lie the remains of creatures so mysterious, science can scarcely believe the truth. A team of scientists and researchers endured incredible hardships to reach a site many would rather avoid the Alaskan wilderness and in the process, uncovered unfossilized dinosaur bones! The implications are enormous, for how can dinosaurs be 65 million years old if their bones are still unfossilized? Join the team and thrill at the photographs and stories of danger, as The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure drops a bombshell on the scientific community!

Apparently the "team of scientists and researchers" has decoded that the best way to publicized such enormously implicated finds are to publish a short book through a Christian publisher.

I actually found it on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Great-Alaskan-Dinosaur-Adventure/dp/0890512329). The reviews are really something, go read them and see the wonder. Why, they even mention "a dinosaur bone" in there with the hazards of trekking in Alaska in July and the prayers.

"Dang, Jim, put that old thing down - it smells like it died last week." (My Parody, obviously.)

[H'ethetheth]

Here's (http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Unfossilized_dinosaur_bones) a snippet of rebuttal. Also here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/blood.html), and here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dinosaur/flesh.html). The summary is here: (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC371.html).

Edit:

Note to self: Must type even faster.

[Goshawk]

Wait, you gotta put it like this...

Five Souls, huddle against the aching cold of Alaska's wilderness. On a hunt for the truth amid the shrieks of wild animals, the clouds overhead race swiftly by. Locked in a remote, frozen wasteland where man has rarely been, lie the remains of creatures so mysterious, science can scarcely believe the truth...




It's the voiceover for a movie trailer, guys. :D I think I saw it, actually. Jennifer Beals? One of the Baldwins?

[H3LL]

Wait, you gotta put it like this...


Purple prose at its best.

:D

.

[Goshawk]

Solely on the basis of this wonderful sentence from the blurb--"On a hunt for the truth amid the shrieks of wild animals, the clouds overhead race swiftly by", which has clouds on a hunt for the truth--I have ordered a (used) copy online. Sounds like an excellent Boys Own Paper winter evening's read. :D

Also I'm deeply curious to find out what kind of "incredible hardships" they endured to reach the "Alaskan wilderness". I'm guessing it's going to be more along the lines of, "We had to hike in!" and "We ran out of toilet paper!" rather than, "We lost fingers and toes to frostbite, and were attacked by grizzly bears and wolves, and ran out of food and had to eat our boots." Jack London's To Build A Fire--now that's hardship.

[flume]

I thought it would be this one:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0328discovery.asp
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/science/12cnd-dino.html?pagewanted=print

But they already know that fossilization can happen in a few short years; here's proof:

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/rapid-fossils-rapid-petrifaction.htm

[bluecollarscientist]

I live in Alaska, and I've met many of the people, and most of the PIs, who have dug dinosaurs out of the ground over the last ten years here. Most if not all of the dinosaur digs are on the north slope (there are some Mesozoic marine fossil sites elsewhere in the state, but I don't know of dinosaur sites except on the slope), and most of those are on the Colville River. I've been on that river, a few miles from the site, but I've not been on the site itself.

Several thoughts:

Also I'm deeply curious to find out what kind of "incredible hardships" they endured to reach the "Alaskan wilderness".

What the real paleontologists say is that the real hardship is funding! They use small planes and helicopters to get to this site, and it's very expensive.

The kind of hardships you'd face: It's going to be very windy - usually upwards of 25mph, and pretty continuous. It's going to be cold by most peoples' standards, staying in the 30's F in June. Its wet. You aren't going to have toilets, not even porta-johns. You aren't going to have hospitals you can get to within 12 hours. Bears are genuinely interested in eating people in this area, and they don't warn you they are coming by shrieking. Wolves are generally harmless. When the wind does let up, there are nineteen billion mosquitos per cubic foot of air in the mid summer.

It really is a pretty unpleasant environment by most peoples' standards, and it is an objectively more dangerous environment than most dig sites.

The Colville site is mostly known for hadrosaurs. My understanding is that some of the discoveries there have significantly aided understanding of the fossilization process, but my memory is a bit hazy on that. There have been a few spectacularly preserved finds, mostly partials, but I've never heard anyone with credibility refer to unfossilized bones coming out of these beds.

There's a timeline for the Colville digs on the web (do a search - forum won't let me post links), which peters out in 2002 for some reason. More recent information can be found at the "Colville Virtual Base Camp" (again - can't link) website, where they have podcasts and everything. As you can see, the research these days is ecosystem oriented, and they are working hard on outreach and education. Perhaps that's response enough to the unfossilized dinosaur claims.

[Wowbagger]

What do they mean by "not fossilized"? Did they find dinosaurs that are still alive?

[fishbob]

What do they mean by "not fossilized"? Did they find dinosaurs that are still alive?

I read about these guys a couple of years ago. I recall that they made a float trip down the Colville River.

What they meant by "not fossilized" is "stuff we made up".

[fuelair]

http://www.ggoutdoors.org/product_detail.php?id=253&PHPSESSID=d618e4800c52f804655ff26582104053

For the record I'm a evolutionist and an old earth advocate. I'm a lifelong atheist. I just want to know if the scientific community has addressed this nonsense.

As soon as I spotted and checked that site, I smelled fecal matter. I went through two pages of Dogpile searches on the topic and used up a case of TP on my computer monitor. I will see going through if anyone else has had better luck, But what I have seen is more feces than a cattleyard. A really big one. Next to the world's largest hog farm, down the street from a chicken ranch and just up the road from an unsanitary land fill. I mean a load of fecal matter here folks!!!:eek::jaw-dropp:jaw-dropp:eek:

[Dr Adequate]

I think what they mean by "unfossilised" is that they're not mineralized.

Some fossils are indeed preserved without mineralization. (To a paleontologist, a fossil is just something you dig up, taking it to mean "mineralized fossil" is a common error.)

To this the creationists add the proposition, which they made up, that a bone can't survive millions of years without mineralization.

Yes it can. There are two conditions necessary for this: (a) that conditions are wrong for mineralization (b) that conditions are also wrong for decay. Under these circumstances, what you get is a non-mineralized bone which has not decayed.

[Cuddles]

I think what they mean by "unfossilised" is that they're not mineralized.

Some fossils are indeed preserved without mineralization. (To a paleontologist, a fossil is just something you dig up, taking it to mean "mineralized fossil" is a common error.)

To this the creationists add the proposition, which they made up, that a bone can't survive millions of years without mineralization.

Yes it can. There are two conditions necessary for this: (a) that conditions are wrong for mineralization (b) that conditions are also wrong for decay. Under these circumstances, what you get is a non-mineralized bone which has not decayed.

It's theoretically possible, but has it ever actually been observed? I'm by no means an expert, but I've never heard of non-mineralised dinosaur bones.

[Loss Leader]

I, for one, believe the claim that unfossilized bones and organs were discovered.

I believe any claim that makes Jurassic Park more likely.

Let's close some velociraptors already!

[Deetee]

Real tough.......
"This adventure is so tough you can taste it, as every meal, every drink of water was filled with mosquitoes"

[MG1962]

I think what they mean by "unfossilised" is that they're not mineralized.

Some fossils are indeed preserved without mineralization. (To a paleontologist, a fossil is just something you dig up, taking it to mean "mineralized fossil" is a common error.)

To this the creationists add the proposition, which they made up, that a bone can't survive millions of years without mineralization.

Yes it can. There are two conditions necessary for this: (a) that conditions are wrong for mineralization (b) that conditions are also wrong for decay. Under these circumstances, what you get is a non-mineralized bone which has not decayed.

Has there been examples however that date back as far as the Cretaceous period. I am guessing statisically it could happen, but have their been any legitimate recorded finidngs?

[bluecollarscientist]

The people claiming unmineralized dinosaur bones point to (when they point to anything at all) this paper:

G. Muyzer, P. Sandberg, M.H.J. Knapen, C. Vermeer, M. Collins, and P. Westbroek, "Preservation of the Bone Protein Osteocalcin in Dinosaurs," Geology 1992, vol. 20, pp. 871-874.

Talk.origins does the takedown, showing that these bones were definitely mineralized.

So what is osteocalcin exactly? Is it "mineralized" to begin with, as I would expect of something that has a bunch of calcium in it? (My live-in biologist/medicine consultant is currently at work.)