As part of the scientific examination of dinosaur bones, scientists will periodically turn up some very interesting items. One of those items recently discovered absolutely floored the scientific community. During the excavation of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, its leg was broken in pieces. The inside of these pieces revealed something that confounded the paleontologists working on it. There were still blood vessels, red blood cells, and capillaries still inside the bone. This was an incredible find, because, based on the evolutionary timescale, the bone should have been in the dirt too long for soft tissue to preserve. This article will be an excavation into the claims surrounding the dinosaur soft tissue and how it impacts the origins debate.
The above research was first published in 2005. Since that time, dozens of other dinosaur bones have been found to contain soft tissue of one form or other. Evolutionists were stunned by the discoveries since soft tissue was assumed to not last more than a million years in the ground. They immediately scrambled to find an answer for why a 75 million year old fossil contained soft tissue less than a million years old. Their solution was iron. Iron is a major component of blood. It helps the blood carry oxygen. Further it is found trapped in various body tissues. However, upon the death of an organism, this iron is released. When this iron is released in hemoglobin molecules, according to evolutionary theory, it acts like formaldehyde, preserving the soft tissue just as formaldehyde does for laboratory specimens. However, there are significant problems with this theory.
Perhaps the most obvious problem with the evolutionary theory for the preservation of dinosaur soft tissue is the experiment done to mimic the decomposition of bone. The researchers who first discovered the soft tissue tested two solutions of capillaries. One was soaked in water, the other in pure hemoglobin. As might be expected, the one soaked in water broke apart quickly. The one soaked in hemoglobin retained it shape for the two years the experiment was conducted. This was considered evidence that hemoglobin was used to preserve soft tissue. However, this jumps past several logical problems. First of all, pure hemoglobin would not be found on the inside of dinosaur bones. When an animal dies, more than just its blood vessels break down. So to do its lymph vessels and cells. Each of these contain fluid as well. Cells contain cytoplasm which is liquid. Between cells there is a lubricating liquid called interstitial fluid. Lymph vessels contain a liquid called lymph. All these liquids would mix with liquid hemoglobin, making a cocktail of sorts when an animal died. Thus it is unreasonable to expect that the inside of a bone would only be touched by pure hemoglobin, rather than this chemical cocktail. A second problem with the experiment is the time element. The two years the experiment lasted is not remotely close to a million years, let alone the seventy million that the bone is supposed to have been in the dirt. The only thing this experiment proves is that pure hemoglobin makes a good short term preservative. Long term has not been tested. Further, even if the hemoglobin functioned as a preservative, all preservatives do is slow the decay of cells. They do not stop decay. No matter how much the process is slowed, the decay will eventually consume all the cells.
A second problem apart from the experimental issues is related to the environment in which many fossils, but particularly the T. rex in question was found. The bones were dug up from sandstone, which is highly permeable to water. This would have meant that, as the bones sat in the dirt for 70 million years, they would have repeatedly received rain water, in some cases enough to immerse the bone. This would have also diluted the hemoglobin and, given enough time, would have completely broken down the soft tissue inside the bone.
A third issue has to do with the movement of molecules. Anything above 0 degrees Kelvin, the coldest temperature possible, contains molecules that are moving. Even if they are vibrating in place as they do in solids, they are still moving. This movement would eventually result in a break down of the tissues anyway, no matter how well preserved, due to simple wear and tear. They could not have lasted 70 million years.
The takeaway from the above listed issues is quite clear. No soft tissue could last seventy million years. It simply violates the laws of chemistry and biology to advance such a claim. However, the evolutionists may have accidentally advance the cause of creation, by discovering the short term preservative properties of pure hemoglobin. This might help explain how blood vessels and blood cells last for around four thousand years. That aside, dinosaur soft tissue is a critical blow to evolutionary theory. Blood, collagen and capillaries do not survive millions of years in the dirt and evolution’s attempted explanation does more to help the creationist than it does the evolutionists. Evolutionists have no explanation for dinosaur soft tissue, but they must find one. If they cannot, then their theory fails. Creationists, with their much younger earth hypothesis, expect to find dinosaur soft tissue because they only died out a few thousand years ago. These discoveries merely confirm creationists belief in an all knowing Creator.
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