tgamble

"I would like to see what the evolutionists think about all the unfossilised dinosaur bones that have been found . For example the T-rex bone in Montana , with mary Schweitzer finding what look to be red blood cells , and the fact that they were able to recover haemaglobin, proteins and some nucleic acids . Plus other finds where they have actually been able to recover DNA sequences . To go with this scientists in the fields such as microbiology using real science ( that take into account known rates of decay of such things as DNA) conclude that even under the most optimal conditions there would be no way that DNA could last even 100,000 years , 1 million years would be crazy , however the paelentologists still insist that the fossils tens of millions of years old in the case of the T-rex fossil 65million years old"
http://creationtalk.com/cgi-bin/bb/p...w+old+are+they|QUS|&replyto=0

I know I've seen this claim before and I know it's a distortion of the truth. I tried doing a search but mostly got cretinist sites useing it as another "proof" that evilutionists are all liars. Any info on this would be appretiated.

After all, if it was true, the evil evilutionist conspiracy would have covered it up!

Oolon Colluphid

I don’t how this is a problem for evolution. It certainly doesn’t make the dino ‘young’.

See the New Scientist articles: Dinosaur bones yield blood protein

and

Dinosaur bones yield blood protein

Palaeontologists don’t appear to be quaking in their boots:
-- says the first of those articles.

What the fossil may contain are haem compounds. Here’s the abstract of Schweitzer’s article (PNAS vol 94 p 6291, 10 June 1997):

Here’s the whole thing: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/94/12/6291.pdf

I haven’t spotted the bit where they say that the T rex’s bones were completely unfossilised, as might be the case with a rapid (flood) burial a mere 4,000 or so years ago; instead, the paper says that
The T rex came from the Hell Creek formation in Montana. And 28 separate analyses by 40Ar/39Ar radiometric dating put that at 64.8 +/- 0.1 my. Not a one-off test, but 28 separate analyses. Curious, no?

It looks to me entirely consistent that if anything at all should have survived from that long ago, it’d be pretty messed up -- as this is (if it even is what it’s claimed to be). The cretinist says that science claims DNA can’t last even 100,000 years. But there’s plenty of evidence that it can last the mere 6,000 they’d have the world be. Why is it so terribly knackered in this dino then?

DT

Ergaster

The article appeared in PNAS (1997, Vol. 94:6291-6296), and can be accessed for free:

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/94/12/6291.pdf

As you can see, it is not quite as the creationists claim.
Quelle surprise.

Other info can be found in:


and:

manderguy

Here’s from an old (3-3-2000) thread from talkorigins:

Posted by Honus (who in this case seems to be quoting the Science article)
___________________
"Eighteen months ago, Mary Schweitzer, a biology graduate student at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies, was examining a thin section of _Tyrannosaurus rex_ bone under her light microscope, when she noticed a series of peculiar structures. Round and tiny and nucleated, they were threaded through the bone like red blood cells in blood vessels. But blood cells in a dinosaur bone should have disappeared eons ago. "I got goose bumps," recalls Schweitzer. "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 millions years old. How could blood cells survive that long?'"

Yet even as she was doubting the evidence before her eyes, Schweitzer was moving ahead to another daring thought. If red blood cells had survived fossilization, it should be possible to get at the dinosaur's DNA.”

That was from an article by Virginia Morell, "Dino DNA: The Hunt and the Hype." _Science_, July 9, 1993, v. 261, p. 160-162.
______________

Anyone care to look up that Science article and update us on what Schweitzer was talking about?

Albion

Here's the e-mail conversation between a schoolkid and Jack Horner on the subject of the finding of haem fragments in dinosuar fossils:

http://homepages.ius.edu/adrian/g180/jackhorner.txt

I looked at the Science archives, but they only go back to 1995.

outtawork

Here is an e-mail that I got from Jack Horner when I asked him..


That ought to put a nail into this coffin.
Outtawork

Coragyps

Ah, but that's not counting the secret Science archives, for members of the Pinko Satanic Evilutionist Conspiracy only: they go back to 1880.
Seriously, if you have an individual or institutional AAAS membership, go to http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/member/ and sign in. Then select "JSTOR" from the sidebar and use the search engine there to find your article.
I did that for this one (thanks, manderguy!) - the article does talk about Schweitzer's enthusiasm, but balances it with some pessimism on whether blood cells were what she saw, and on the huge difficulties in trying to extract DNA from anything even a fraction that old. Morell mentions "Jurassic Park" several times - it was on the big screen that summer - and she may have been a little too enthusiastic about the possibilities of dinosaur DNA. I can certainly see why the YEC quote-miners loved the article.
The passage manderguy gave is the only quote from Schweitzer in the article, and it is (mirabile dictu! ) in context.

Dr.GH

I am about a week (if I only knew which week) away from finishing an article on "dino blood." I had an interesting chat with Schweitzer on the phone about 3 months ago. She deeply regrets ever feeding the creationists with the "You've got blood cells!" line that fuels creatos, inspite of being a Christian herself. The creato favorite is :

M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter,
1997 'The Real Jurassic Park', Earth , June pp. 55-57.

It took a while to locate a copy. It is the "scientific" source for the AiG “articles.” Earth was actually a popular magazine that folded after 3 years.

Dr.GH

Some creationist dino blood sites:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4232cen_s1997.asp

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0325rbcs.asp

Answers in Genesis has five or so more related items.

Here is a Christian critique of Ken Ham's Answer Book which included a mention of Schweitzer's work.

http://www.bibleandscience.com/ken%20ham.htm


In Six Days John Ashton ed. , has one piece that mentions dinosaur osteocalcin as "proving" that dinosaurs are recent, if not modern. I have already finished a first draft for this part of my article. :

A common YEC misinterpretation of the discovery of surviving organic peptides, and organometalics in dinosaur bone is that this “proves” that the Earth is young. Their argument being that they don’t think that organic molecules can last a long while. The
material in question are fragments of hemoglobin, and osteocalcin extracted from dinosaur bone Muyzer et al (1992), and Schweitzer & Staedter (1997), Schweitzer et al (1997a, 1997b).

Douglas the YEC posted, “Actually, the Genesis Creation account fits the evidence perfectly. Far better than the theory of evolution, certainly. For one thing, all the evidence suggesting a young Earth fits the Creation account and essentially disproves evolution - for example, how is it that some fossilized dinosaur remains contain blood (or something) that could not exist for millions of years even in a fossilized state (see page 236 of "In Six Days" for the specific claim)?” ... “Look, my point about fossilized dinosaur bones being found with "recognizable bone protein" is completely "scientifically relevant" to the issue of the age of the Earth. Here's the exact quote from the book (Chapter 24 of "In Six Days", that chapter being authored by John R. Baumgardner, ...) :

"There are other processes which are not as easy to express in quantitative terms, such as the degradation of protein in a geological environment, that also point to a much shorter time scale for the geological record. It is now well established that unmineralized dinosaur bone still containing recognizable bone protein exists in MANY LOCATIONS (bold not in original) around the world. [17] From my own firsthand experience with such material, it is inconceivable that bone containing such well-preserved protein could possibly have survived for more than a few thousand years in the geological settings in which they are found.

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


In Six Days (remaindered and used copies available at Amazon- mine only cost $14) was published in 2001 and based on my own first hand experience, the manuscripts would have been submitted about a year before publication. Just to be far more than fair, I will limit my criticism of Baumgardner on this point to relevant scientific literature published prior to 2001, although this only excluded two papers, The survival of Organic Matter in Bone: A Review Collins et al (2002) which I received as a preprint from the senior author, and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Study of Ca2+-Binding to Osteocalcin, Mizuguchi et al 2001.

Just for openers, Baumgardner is arguing merely from personal incredulity about a topic that he has done no professional research. Thus, his statement “ From my own firsthand experience with such material...” is more or less the same as saying that “based on nothing ...” Baumgardner claims that the identified protein, osteocalcin, was “well-preserved” and that based on his unspecified personal experience this must have
been from material less than a few thousand years old under “the geological settings in which they are found.” Baumgardner has no professional experience in paleontology,
and he seems to have not followed the published research on osteocalcin. His reference to Muyzer et al (1992) is the sole information on this topic he apparently has at his disposal. And he uses this lack of understanding to support his carte blanc rejection of radiometric dating.

In fact, Baumgardner has not even understood the major points of the relevant article he cited. Baumgardner says that “dinosaur bone still containing recognizable bone protein exists in MANY LOCATIONS (bold not in original) around the world.” The dinosaur specimens tested by Muyzer et al (1992) came only from Alberta Canada, and unknown, Upper cretaceous. For another example, no where in Muyzer et al (1992) do they argue that the ostecalcin they report was “well preserved.” From their abstract, “Two different immunological assays were used to identify the remains of a bone matrix protein, osteocalcin (OC), in the bones of dinosaurs and other fossil vertebrates.”

Not one fossil bone showed the equal degree of protein integrity as modern bone (table 2). There is actually little detailed information provided about the burial conditions of the samples analized by Muyzer et al 1992, and as Baumgradner can offer no additional data or references, his qualification “in the geological settings in which they were found.” is the purest fabrication. The only samples that received any detailed stratgraphic discussion in the original publication were two approximately
contemporaneous fossils from the Upper Cretaceous designated F38, and F39. These data indicated that the slightly younger bone (2.25 Ma younger) experienced greater absolute temperatures and higher matrix permeability. Significantly, the younger bone showed no preservation of osteocalcin. The foregoing was demonstration that Baumgradner claims without basis that the presence of osteocalcin fragments in ancient bone could provide any support for his conclusions that A) the Earth is merely thousands of years old, and B) we should reject radiometric dating as a consequence of his (shown to be bogus)interpretation. This is demonstrated merely from a careful and
competent reading of the article that Baumgardner claims to have read himself.

There is a further argument to be made for the lack of diligence of Baumgardner and his followers; they do not even bother to maintain familiarity with current literature Other than some background data I have limited my use of the literature to articles clearly available to Baumgardner prior to his completion of John R. Baumgardner, Chapter 24, in in six days (2001).

Rather than repeat long sections on the biochemistry of osteocalcin, I recommend that the reader consult the opening sections of Measurement of Osteocalcin Lee et al (2000), (easily available to Baumgardner)with particular attention to Figures 1, and 3. Osteocalcin (syn. Bone Gla Protein, ) is a relatively small protein 49 amino acids long. Confirmation of the presence of osteocalcin by Muyzer et al 1992 was the detection of g-carboxyglutamic acid. This uniquely vertebrate amino acid gamma-Carboxy-glutamyl, is produced by the gamma-carboxylation of glutamyl residues at positions 17, 21 and 24
of osteocalcin and confers a greater affinity to bind to Ca+2, and consequently bone hydroxyapatite. (While probably not available to Baumgardner, the reader is referred to Mizuguchi et al (2001) for an extended discussion of osteocalcin calcium binding). Non-serum Osteocalcin (the majority) is deposited in extracellular bone matrix. Note that this puts osteocalcin in intimate contact with the calcium in bone apatite. There are 5 immunoreactive fragments N-terminal (amino acids 1-19), Mid (20-43), C-terminal (44-49), N-terminal-mid (1-43), and Mid-C-terminal (20-49).

Problems exist in the standardization of assay methods which interferes with the quantitative assay of OC. Osteocalcin is highly conserved among vertebrates. Mature human osteocalcin has the
amino acid sequence:Tyr-Leu-Tyr-Gln-Trp-Leu-Gly-Ala-Pro-Val-Pro-Tyr-Pro-Asp-Pro-Leu-Gla-Pro-Arg-Arg-Gla-Val-Cys-Gla-Leu-Asn-Pro-Asp-Cys-Asp-Glu-Leu-Ala-Asp-His-Ile-Gly-Phe-Gln-Glu-Ala-Tyr- Arg-Arg-Phe-Tyr-Gly-Pro-Val American Peptide Company, Inc (2002).

The assay method used by Muyzer et al 1992 was sensitive to a slightly different portions of the midregion, Pro15 - Glu31. This is the region which most strong binds to bone mineral and consequently can persist in a recognizable for so long as the bone does not recrystallize. In Collins 1998 and 2000, both easily available to Baumgardner (2001), kinetic, and experimental results demonstrate the stability OC fragments. Collins et al
(2000) observed, “Nevertheless, our findings demonstrate the importance of mineral association to protein survival, as was borne out by an investigation of Holocene (ca. 6 ka) bones. Only in those samples with little recrystallisation was the a-carboxylated mid region well preserved. “

Baumgardner’s poor performance here is typical when creationist claims are subjected to critical review. He apparently lacked even the interest to review the literature available to him, and misinterpreted what scientific papers he did reference. He then made a totally unsupported conclusion that the Earth is only thousands of years old, and that radiometric dating should be abandoned based on his misreading of the scientific literature.

At the top of this comment I quoted Douglas the YEC, here are his dino blood conclusions:

“So, either the dating method for various geological "strata" is severely in error (and also at least a fair number of dinosaurs did not become extinct millions of years ago, but coexisted with humans for millions or at least thousands of years), or the dinosaur bone protein "osteocalcin" can survive fossilized conditions for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Take your pick.”

As we see, there isn’t really the option Douglas imagines, as he was deceived by Baumgardner. Reality chooses the latter position.

References

American Peptide Company, Inc.
2002 “Osteocalcin (1-49)”, Human
http://www.americanpeptide.com/pepti...a/22-6-10.html

Baumgardner, John R.
2001 “Baumgardner, John R., Chapter 24, “ in in six days John F. Ashton, editor. Green Forest Arkansas: Master Books

M. Schweitzer and T. Staedter,
1997 'The Real Jurassic Park', Earth , June pp. 55-57.

Mary H. Schweitzer, Mark Marshall, Keith Carron, D. Scott Bohle, Scott C. Busse, Ernst
V. Arnold, Darlene Barnard, J. R. Horner, and Jean R. Starkey
1997a “Heme compounds in dinosaur Trabecular bone” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 94, pp. 6291-6296, June

Schweitzer, M.H., Johnson, C., Zocco, T.G., Horner, J.H., Starkey, J.R.,
1997b 'Preservation of biomolecules in cancellous bone of _Tyrannosaurus rex_' Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Volume 17, No. 2, June 19, .

Collins, M.J., Child, A.M., van Duin, A.T.C. & Vermeer, C.
(1998) “Ancient osteocalcin; the most stable bone protein?” Ancient Biomolecules. 2,
223-238.

Collins, M.J., Gernaey, A.M., Nielsen-Marsh, C.M., Vermeer, C., Westbroek, P.
2000 “Osteocalcin in fossil bones: evidence of very slow rates of decomposition from laboratory studies.” Geology, 28, 1139 - 1142.

Collins, M. J., C. Nielseen-Marsh, J. Hiller, C. I. Smith and J. P. Roberts
2002 “ The Survival of Organic Matter in Bone: A Review” Archeaometry 44, 3: 383-394

Lee, Allison Jane, Stephen Hodges, Richard Eastell
2000 “Measurement of osteocalcin” Am. Blin. Biochem 37:4332-446
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acb/annals/an...July00/432.PDF

Mizuguchi, M., R. Fujisawa, M. Nara, K. Nitta, and K. Kawano
2001 “Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Study of Ca2+-Binding to Osteocalcin” Calcified Tissue International.

http://link.springer-ny.com/link/ser...aper/body.html


Muyzer G., Sandberg P. Knapen M.H.J., Vermeer C., Collins M.J., and Westbroek P.
(1992) Preservation of bone protein osteocalcin in dinosaurs. Geology 20, 871-874.

Waite, E.R., Collins, M.J., Ritz, S., Schutz, H.W., Cattaneo, C., Boorman, H.
(1999) A review of the methodological aspects of aspartic acid racemization analysis for use in forensic science. Forensic Science International. 103, 113-124.

Albion

Thanks for that. Coragyps, I'd forgotten about the JSTOR archives (if I ever knew in the first place!). Interesting article - it'd be wonderful if they really could get DNA that old, but it doesn't sound promising.

If creationists accept DNA testing in paternity suits, I wonder how they'd manage to reject ancient DNA that showed relationships to modern species. I suppose it'd just be the "God created them similar at the genetic level as well as at the macroscopic level" excuse that they trot out to "explain" separate creation of similar modern species.